Charlie Ginex Kean University Men’s Volleyball cginex@kean. edu 908

HOW TO PREPARE YOUR PLAYERS FOR THE PACE OF THE MEN’S GAME Offense Defense Serve Receive Blocking Serving Transition Pace of Practice

OFFENSIVE TEMPO We feel faster is better What is important and what you have Bigger team, maybe slower, smaller team = faster If you feel your hitters can go faster and your setter can get it to them then get out a stopwatch We talk in terms of first tempo, second tempo, high ball etc., and as much as those things make sense and I have used those terms for a long time, what it comes down to is what speed do you want to run

OFFENSIVE TEMPO Time your fastest middle blocker from the middle to the pin and then work on a set tempo that can beat that blocker We use a stopwatch in our setter training to help them get consistent with tempo Middle Attack, beat the block but coach to your players strengths too Look for ISO, coach your setter to rank their hitters and run plays to get the best hitters in better situations, especially when we talk about faster pace

DEFENSE The ball travels faster in the male game, therefore: We have to train to be faster on defense too Reaction time is paramount Skill is important of course but… We work on reaction type drills often. EVERYTHING WE DO in practice is based on pace and tempo Ex: face wall, coach slaps ball, defender turns and has to dig attacked ball – as soon as ball is touched by defender a 2nd ball is introduced somewhere to make the defender have to not only make the dig but then react again with a quick first movement, forcing fast twitch muscles to be engaged

DEFENSE FOOTWORK footwork footwork There is no such thing in my opinion of feet that are too quick or too good We work on footwork every day Without good feet, not only on defense but in everything you do on a volleyball court you will never be as good as you can be. The game and all we do starts with our feet

DEFENSE Base to Read Drill Focuses on feet, body position and most importantly those things at a QUICK PACE Ball on one side of court with 5 players vs 6 defenders on other side 6 defenders go from base to read over and over for 90-120 secs before waving through new defenders Side A with ball digs ball to setter who sets one of the two front row pins (Side B is in base defense and reacts and moves with good consistent footwork patterns once ball is set) Side A pin does not attack but approaches and then sends ball back to his own defenders and drill repeats Side B goes from base to read to base to read over and over (FAST)

SERVE RECEIVE Sideout % is crucial, especially in the men’s game Other good teams are going to be similar so if you are scoring consistently than we have to make sure we do whatever we can to score so we don’t get scored on. Make sense? We use a stopwatch again and a radar gun as well Stopwatch – we time how much time we have to pass a ball Ideally we want our guys to be stopped early in serve receive, ideally before ball crosses the plane of the net This is not always possible but it is our goal

SERVE RECEIVE How do we accomplish this? We use something called X Axis Passing In lower levels slower paced games (JV, younger etc.) you can often coach your players to move their feet, and maybe even ideally pass midline How many of you teach midline passing? Not wrong but not always possible, so….

SERVE RECEIVE We think less is more in this case X Axis Passing, what is it? It is exactly that, an X with our body and more specifically feet One step in one of 4 directions to be quick and efficient Decide early and through lots of prep and practice if the ball is yours, and if so is it short, deep and take one step (X) to pass We also work on muscle memory

SERVE RECEIVE Level up butterfly Train the keys of serve receive We think the following are important: Feet stopped (make the X movement and be stopped) Track ball all the way to contact Early quiet platform Don’t meet the ball, beat the ball – coach your players to be stopped with their platform, make a fast movement and then be stopped. Freeze platform after contact The best passers in the world look bored. This is something we stress and this is something we want out guys to focus on. It does not mean lazy or poor technique, but it means relaxed and confident

SERVE RECEIVE Another drill we like to do to work on the pace of men’s serving and to help our passers is serve receive with a sheet (or 2) We have a serving machine we use a lot and like to crank it up, using our radar gun to know we are serving faster than what we will see in live play If we can pass balls that are faster than what we will see we can pass balls that are coming off a human hand We also tend to have some of our best servers serving to our primary passers more in practice Whether a serving machine or not we sometimes serve from 25 feet away instead of 30’ to give our passers less time to make that first X axis passing movement and pass a ball

BLOCKING Because the offense is faster our block has to be faster How do we accomplish this Assignments, schemes, knowing what we want to do as a blocker. What am I responsible for, always Footwork footwork footwork T DRILL -3 blockers work on rhythm and pace Triple block middle middle and RS block to right while OH goes to left by self back to middle and triple again middle and oh go to left while RS goes to his pin solo In time it starts to look like a dance or sorts

BLOCKING Loaded legs – can’t stress enough Too many kids want to stand up We want our first movement to be down in order to go up (concentric muscle firing) but it is about timing and quickness We need to train and prepare for how we want our muscles to be firing We want and train a concentric muscle firing – the muscles shorten therefore generating force, so by pre-loading with a bent leg our first movement can be up and therefore quicker and more powerful Time the movement so that you are loaded and have a quick twitch to go up with more power Too often we see blockers on their way down while the set is already made and being attacked, causing the blockers to be late

BLOCKING What about vs. faster sets and the bic for example We train with our feet like we talked about and make sure our footwork patterns are proper (push off inside foot to move laterally quickly and cover more space (close the block) (we use the speed skater example and even train this with footwork drills that simulate a speed skater to get them used to pushing off to move laterally) DO NOT CROSS OVER FIRST

BLOCKING REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT EVERY DAY, robotic so it is not thought about in match play, muscle memory has to happen VS the bic, if our blockers, especially middles do a full complete commit block with the other middle they are usually on the way down versus the bic coming behind the middle attack, and therefore not useful So…..we train our middles when we are playing a team that runs the bic often to know it’s an option and do a double jump. Of course it helps if your middles are bigger and more athletic but what we try to teach is a double jump that involves a quick 50-60% block, back down and IMMEDIATELY right back up to block the BIC coming fast

SERVING Use radar gun if you have one or can get one https://www.pocketradar.com Help your servers know what their optimum speed is We chart serves, errors vs good serves and what their speed is on each. Teach concept of finishing the serve, using whole body Arm swing progression that will help your players hit faster and harder, and after all a serve is just a self-tossed attack so it helps a lot

TRANSITION You cannot attack or keep up if you are not quick, so how do you train this REPITITION Footwork drills, ladders, agility drills Trans off net Trans off net and attack (time them, make it a race) Block, trans off net and attack Serve receive to attack footwork No such thing as too quick

PACE OF PRACTICE Always have a manager, an assistant or even yourself ready Go fast fast fast Initiate balls fast, especially in wash drills, repetition type drills, the more they do things quick in practice, sometimes even with a chaotic pace the more comfortable they will be with a faster pace If you practice slow all the time, the pace will be harder to handle Try to get them ready to be fast paced Do all the things above but in the end just try to pace your practices with exactly that, pace

Please feel free to reach out with any questions I would be more than happy to discuss any and all things volleyball cginex@kean.edu 908.887.2877