Fall 2023 Mailbag Pt2

Volleystation worksheets, middle blocking, throwing drills, and whether to watch video before or after looking at the stats...

The last mailbag I did was a 3-parter back in May, so I’ve got a nice backlog of emails and comments to get through. As always, I put one or two outside the paywall and the rest behind, so become a Premium Subscriber to get access to everything. And, as always, a reminder that comments are open to all Premium Subscribers and I respond to every one. Enjoy!

Fall 2023 Mailbag Pt1

Email from a reader:

Thanks so much for the great session yesterday. I love talking about armswing mechanics partly because I do think that we as coaches don't do what's best for the players all the time with how they swing.

I was reading through one of your posts, and I fell upon 2 things that I loved to dive more into with our own numbers with VolleyStation.

MTP: Do you have a spreadsheet with a formula for that stat? Bc it would be interesting to see it by rotation.

Transition Efficiency: I loved this chart.

Same thing here..how do I get this spreadsheet?

Modified Efficiency: Same thing here. I've seen Chad use Modified Eff, but didn't know how to get it on a spreadsheet.

I'm so sorry to be bothering with this, but I really am such a newbie still with a lot of this stuff but I want to obviously get better but I need lots of help.

I can't thank you enough for this.

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Thank you for the kind words sir.

I don't have a worksheet handy for MTP, but the basic format is: (First Ball Attack Attempts - Unforced Errors) / (Receptions). I actually did that one manually by opening the matches in Volleymetrics and Transcribing First Ball Atempts, First Ball Errors, and Total Receptions. I wouldn't do it that way for one team, but because I was doing that for the NCAA Tournament, I would have had to download each match's scout file and run a separate spreadsheet for each team, so it was actually faster just to do it manually.

Here's the Opponent Transition spreadsheet¹ for Volleystation. That would also give you the modified efficiency. How you do that is basically as follows.

1. Get Attack Efficiency By Pass, on average, at your level. The good thing is, I already have that

R# Efficiency: 0.30

R+ Efficiency: 0.29

R! Efficiency: 0.22

R- Efficiency: 0.10

2. Take the efficiency of what you're trying to look at by each pass quality. For example, say your Left Side Shoot was:

R#: 0.32 on 100 attempts

R+: 0.29 on 80 attempts

R!: 0.23 on 60 attempts

R-: n/a (you don't run fast left side off R- passes)

3. Compare the two. So now it looks like:

R#: +0.02 on 100 attempts

R+: 0.00 on 80 attempts

R!: +0.01 on 60 attempts

Or

R#: 100 * (0.02) = 2.0

R+: 80 * (0.00) = 0.0

R!: 60 * (0.01) = 0.6

4. Add them up.

2.0 + 0.0 + 0.06 = 2.6

5. Divide by total

2.6 / (100 + 80 + 60) = 0.01083

Or

Your Left Side Shoot had a Modified Efficiency of +0.01 or "Left Side Shoot was 1% more efficient than average on a pass-adjusted basis"

And the specific codes you can parse out in the Volleystation worksheet.

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There was a Reddit thread which asked a not-uncommon question:

Been playing for several years as a middle blocker and I always keep my arms and hands close together so hitters don't hit through me. I watch a lot of professional volleyball and I noticed that some pros often block with their arms parallel (small gap between arms and hands) and some to split-block (arms very far apart).

Can someone explain the practicality of this, and why pros do it, but at lower levels everyone is always told to close their block? I can't find videos online explaining these different blocking techniques or what they're properly called.

It depends a bit on which position you are. For a wing blocker, it rarely makes sense to have your arms very wide and you generally don't see it as much, because you're often lined up on the ball, so opening your block up is going to degrade your block.

On the flip side, for middle blockers, it sometimes makes sense to open the arms up a bit more.

For one example, middle hitters rarely spike straight on to 6. They tend to cut one way or the other. So if your block is super-narrow, you don't take away either angle. So the most common block that middles will do is to dive one way with both arms. However, you do see middle blockers sometimes spread their arms and try to take both angles at once. Also, a technique that pro guys will use is to get one hand straight on the ball and then get the other as wide into one angle as possible. So blocking a 1-ball, where the most common shot is to 5, you're getting your right hand straight on the ball and then getting your left hand as low and wide across the net as possible.

My guess is, if you're anywhere at the sub-elite level (meaning you're not up near 12' and blocking guys who are up at 12' as well), you're going to be better off keeping both hands pressed at shoulder width.

Additionally, imagine you're playing middle and moving to your right to block the outside attacker. The farther across the net your right arm is, the more it covers up your left. So the higher (and hopefully, farther across) you are, the more that left arm needs to widen out and drop down to get in on the angle shot.

Also just keep in mind that pro guys, especially, often have pretty big frames. For a well-built guy who is 6'8", his shoulders are just literally farther apart than a 5'10" guy, so just pressing straight across the net (which is the most common effective blocking technique, even at the highest levels) his hands are going to be a big farther apart.

And finally, sometimes the appearance of arms farther apart is a visual trick based on how their arms come up or down. Blockers will often flare their arms out a bit wider as they come down because they are trying to stay square and pressed across the net and not rotate off. But if you pause at moment of contact, they are usually shoulder width.

Just a quick Google Image pops up reasonably good examples here. The two pictures of the triple block show the guys all pressed (mostly) straight across at shoulder-width. And then you got big Art from Canada blocking in the middle and he's got his arms wider trying to take some chances and cut off some angles in a 1-on-1 situation.

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Email from a club coach:

Loved the arm swing academy you did with the Athlete Wellness Academy guys.  They recently released an online coaching course. I was excited to see the online course since travelling from Gulf Shores to Canada to attend an in-person course would be difficult.  I'm starting to watch the videos and  I was wondering what are some ways you have implemented some of their throwing progressions and arm exercises into practice time? Specifically for a club coach with limited gym time and space.  Usually our practices are 1.5 hours twice a week and almost certainly would have more than one team per court. Thanks for the help and I appreciate all the content you put out.