Fall 2025 Mailbag Part 1

Coaching for this season or the future? Roundhouse troubleshooting. Setter contact points.

I’ve been doing mailbags since the beginning of SmarterVolley. Many of you email me, text me, talk to me at coaching clinics or when you see me out and about in the volleyball world and I post some of those discussions (excluding personal/identifying information) in mailbags.

Some of these discussions are also pulled from comment threads from older posts, which you might not see if you only read the newsletter email.

Check previous mailbag posts here if you haven’t yet:

Summer 2024
Spring 2024
Spring 2025
Summer 2025

And now, this season’s questions and comments:

A reader asks via Substack DM:

I love your substack, and have subscribed for almost a year now. I’ve found it incredibly useful as a player and performance analysist (and now as a new coach!!), and wanted to ask a question that I think you could provide some useful insight on.

For context I am a younger (early 20’s) player and ‘performance analysist’ for an mid-level team in [somewhere] and am also coaching them for the upcoming season and I am unsure on what coaching philosophy I should have regarding coaching for the now, the future, and the never.

For example, if players’ topspin serves are inconsistent and rarely used in matches, should training focus on developing a strong float to benefit us best in the now or push some players toward developing jump serves to be competitive in the future?

I recently attended a volleyball camp, and [a pro coach] was teaching us some transition footwork for tip coverage as a pin hitter. This was run at a very quick tempo and he emphasised that realistically we would never need to know this as even at [our level], the game isn’t that quick to require this footwork, however, at the top international level it is something you would need to know. I understand this was in an elite camp and was to test us and also show us the levels that top players play at but it still got me thinking.

I think probably the best example I can think of is back row attacks. There was some analysis done by Hai-Binh Ly (thevolleyballanalyst.wordpress.com/2020/05/30/are-back-row-voll…) that indicated at every level of uk volleyball, back row attacks, for the most part, are very sub-optimal and not worth setting. If you are coaching for the now, this indicates you should never practice back row attacks, and to some extend, even if you are coaching for the future within the uk, the stats still show its not worth using up much of the limited practise time on back row attacks, however that feels like such a fundamental aspect of the game I’m unsure what to think.

I understand these decisions depend on players’ level, goals, and context, but I’d love your insight: How do you balance preparing players for their current level, pushing them toward their future level (say, in 2+ years), and exposing them to skills they may never practically need? Thank you so much for all your time and content you put out, it has really sparked my love for statistical analysis, and now coaching, and has been such an invaluable learning resource!!

I mostly like to train for the “this season.” So this is now...ish. For example, if you’ve never done any tempo attacking, the very first time you train it, your players will be bad at it. So maybe, from that perspective, you could argue it’s not training the “now.” But, if you have a sense for a realistic arc-of-season improvement, you can foresee that the players will be able to get that this year. And by the way, correctly judging what’s possible this season is one of your most important tasks as a coach. If you don’t push them to add anything new, they will stagnate. If you are too ambitious, they will chase too many rabbits and catch none of them.

So that’s the majority of my training.

That said, I do like to introduce players to some advanced concepts. I’m hesitant to introduce the “never.” For example, with girls juniors players, I never train any true “quick + bic” combo plays. That is a staple of men’s volleyball at the pro and university level, but almost no girls will ever play at that level unless they are not just a pro but a high-level pro. And at that point... they’ll get into High Performance Pipeline or Junior National Team or whatever and coaches will be able to train them there. (And also: they’ll have other teammates capable of doing so.)

But there’s a fair amount of “advanced” concepts that even intermediate players can get. Or sometimes, training an advanced concept can provide a good training stimulus. To the first point, sometimes, even 13-16 year old players sometimes pick up an advanced concept quicker than I expect. Things like certain off-speed shots, hiding pace of serve, faster tempo sets/transitions, defensive moves, etc. So, while I don’t like to make it the focus of training, I sometimes like to show clips and give players a chance to try out some “too advanced” stuff. That would be your “future” focus.

And second, sometimes something like training a topspin jump serve provides a good training stimulus. If you look at an article like (smartervolley.substack.com/p/6-months-of-speed-results ) you’ll see that I like to train this speed velocity of topspin serving, even though all of these girls hit float serves in the game. But there’s transfer to their spiking velocity. Etc

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A coach who attended a GMS clinic asks:

I actually came up to you at the end of the clinic to ask for some advice about one of my outside hitters who has a roundhouse arm swing.

I’ve been working with her all spring and wanted to share some clips with you. We’ve been focusing a lot on the “Bow and Arrow” concept, but it still doesn’t seem to be clicking for her. From what I see, she tends to get under the ball a lot, and her arm swing looks really slow.

I’d love to hear your thoughts after watching the clips. Thanks so much, Joe!

Without posting the clips of this kid online, I’ll share my response:

3 suggestions:

1. Do some coach toss (”you go, I throw”) where you toss it a little tight and she has to jam/dunk the ball with her right hand. The loading low isn’t necessarily bad (can even be good, because your arm is loaded early), but the problem is that the contact doesn’t always get high. So if you toss some balls a little tight and she has to then bring her hand up high to go jam the ball down, she can get a feel for her contact.

2. Do some coach toss where you do an alternation. One “normal” and then one “snap” where you toss it tight and she has to go contact the ball high and snap it down without going in the net. Can you imagine that? Like a short, snappy hit that comes a little more from the elbow and wrist with a more limited follow-through, because the ball is tossed tight.

Those 2 suggestions are to help her contact point get a little higher and get a little more out of the elbow/wrist finish. Most girls are actually all elbow/wrist and don’t get enough out of the shoulder. Your girl with that early load actually gets a lot from her shoulder but nothing from the elbow/wrist so she can be a little “punchy” instead of whippy. I think those 2 things will help a little.

Number-3 is to just focus less on the arm-swing and more on the body rotation. “When you land, your body should be facing the left sideline, not the endline.” Sometimes arm-swing cleans up when the body rotation (torque) is better.

Also, if you haven’t seen:

Nick Del Bianco Part 1
Nick Del Bianco Part 2

Check those out.

Nick’s Armswing Academy Pocket Guide is also a great resource for coaches who want to troubleshoot these sorts of problems with their athletes.

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A reader emails:

When I see these setters the ball is in the (relatively) SAME position relative to their FOREHEAD but where their HANDS contact the ball is DIFFERENT.

(For a forward set their hands contact the ball closer to their head - on the same side of the ball. For a back set their hands contact the ball further from their head - on the opposite side of the ball).

So they extend their arms further for a back set and less far for a front set.

Is this what you see?

First of all, if you don’t follow that Youtube channel, it’s an excellent one, especially if you aren’t on a pro Volleymetrics account. They post a ton of back-angle from pro/international matches. It’s a great way to study film.

To talk about the reader’s question; I think that this is a good overall way of looking at it, although there’s some nuance to it.