The Halfway Point

Continuing our Club Season example training block

This winter I’m focusing on content for juniors club coaches. In this cycle of articles, I’m walking you through an example pre-season training block, which would go from the beginning of your club season to your first major tournament.

Getting Started
The First 12 Practices
Getting Into It
Practice #3
Another Week Of Practices

Practice #6 marks the end of the second mini-cycle of practices. As I mentioned in the previous article:

By now, you’ve probably noticed an overall trend to how I lay out these practices. As an overall theme, 2-out-of-3 practices focus more on Serve-Pass and Sideout and 1-out-of-3 focus on Defense/Transition.

So practices 1 and 2 were Sideout-oriented. Practice # was Transition-oriented. Practices 4 and 5 were Sideout-oriented, and now we complete the second mini-cycle with another Transition-oriented practice.

When I say mini-cycle, I mean a multi-practice arc with a coherent structure to how the practices are planned. Depending on how many practices you have per week and how long your training block is, you might plan practices in blocks of 3 to 6 practices. In this example, our training block is 12 practices long, so a mini-cycle of 3 practices means we can repeat the cycle 4 times, teaching similar things but with some variation each time through.

For club teams, I think that’s about right. You’ll be repeating similar drills often enough that your players will get a feeling of rhythm and consistency to how practice will be run, while keeping enough variation for learning to happen.

Remember Practice #3?

Here was the plan for the first Transition-oriented practice- at the end of the 1st mini—cycle.

Practice 3
10’ - Doubles (Tennis)
10’ - Dig-Set
20’ - 2-Way Hitting (Transition emphasis)
15’ - Transition 4s
20’ - BSBH
- Is it over?
45’ - 6v6
- 4 rounds of 23-19 Aceball.
- Use extra time for Last Ball Bounce 6v6 (fast-paced)

Now here’s Practice 6:

Practice 6
10’ - Doubles (Tug-of-War)
10’ - Dig-Set
20’ - 2-Way Hitting (Transition emphasis)
15’ - Transition 4s
20’ - BSBH
- FB/DB
45’ - 6v6
- 4 rounds of 21-22 FBK.
- Use extra time for Last Ball Bounce 6v6 (fast-paced)

Our goal here is to have a similar flow to practice Practice 3, but introduce some variation. Let’s talk about what stays the same and what changes:

Doubles

See more in this article on Doubles, but I use Doubles differently depending on whether it’s the first activity of practice or the 2nd/3rd. If it’s the first activity of practice, I assume we might not be able to take 100% full swings and we might need to warm-in to serving and passing. When your players are younger and/or generally better movers (and younger, multi-sport kids often tend to be better movers than older, heavily-specialized athletes), they can often jump right into play.

In the Sideout-oriented practices, I use Doubles as a Serve-Pass drill a little later in the practice, with the expectation that we’re ready to serve and pass (and attack) at full capacity.

In these Transition-oriented practice, I use more 1 or 2-touch Doubles drills to warm-in to practice and get the energy going quickly. Transition requires energy and enthusiasm so starting with something that gets players laughing, running, and being a little creative is a good way to start.

Tennis is a go-to, and honestly, you’ll be fine if you just start these Transition practices with Tennis every time. Tug-of-War is another one that I also like. Tug-of-War is played on a narrow, full-length court. It’s 2v2 1-touch, but all the touches have to be an overhand set. This game gets its name because it’s almost a contest of strength where each team is trying to shove the ball deeper into the court. If you make your opponent have to backpedal to near the end line, there’s a good chance they won’t be able to set the ball back over the net.

For intermediate-and-over level kids (say, strong 14s and above), I make the front-court (in front of the attack line) out of bounds as well. So the ball must travel at least past that 10’ mark. So for most 14 or 15 year olds, the game is almost more just pushing the ball past the 10’ line back and forth. This rule also extends rallies for more advanced players by restricting the ability to play super-short, although savvy players will play the ball low to the net and drop it right at 10’, which is a difficult play.

This game also has some fun communication elements because, as the players get good at it, the ball goes back and forth quickly. Teams will find the best strategy is to play with one player short and one player deep and they have to communicate quickly on the tweener balls. Should the short player take a quick step back and play it? Or should they open up and let their teammate take it?

Dig-Set