This is a piece I wrote many years ago for my own use, but never posted on my blog. It’s interesting for me to read some old pieces to see how my coaching philosophies have changed and developed over the years. In some ways they’re very different, yet still the same. My blog is a place of reference for my own knowledge throughout a season. I post this information for others to enjoy too. So Enjoy.

The beginning part of a season is typically the time a coach focuses on the development of individual skill work, offensive strategies (playsets), defensive alignments (blocking and defensive systems) and line-ups. We (me included) often unintentionally overlook the “before fundamentals” that result in losing a couple easy points in a set.  When I first started coaching, my focus of fundamentals was the six skills of volleyball: serving, passing, hitting, blocking, setting, and digging. But there are fundamentals before these fundamentals that are often overlooked and not addressed with teams: communication, posture, and movements. Continue Reading

Ever wonder what volleyball skills to work on in practice or where you should be focusing more of your time?  The Journal of Quantitative Study released an in depth article, “Skill Importance in Volleyball” to determine the most important skills in women’s volleyball.  A research team studied a 2006 Division I Women’s Volleyball program to come to their conclusion based on specific data collection and analysis.  Coincidentally, the research was conducted at Brigham Young University and the University of Utah where Gold Medal Squared is also headquartered.  In pieces I have read by Gold Medal Squared, this data is eerily similar.  Continue Reading

Giving Hitters Additional Tools for Terminating the Ball

By: Chris Larson

It’s tough to find that player who has mastered the lost art of “tooling” or “shot-making.” We see the big bombers at every tournament and in every warm-up, but when it comes to game time, these players are often the easiest Continue Reading

I was looking through some of my old files from some of my old club teams and came across this piece on Blocking.  Ironically, the premise of the piece was written by Bond Shymansky, who at the time was Head Coach at Georgia Tech (he’s now Head Coach at Marquette).  The current Winthrop Head Coach, Sally Polhamus, was an Assistant under Bond at that time.  Sally is now the Head Coach that I work under.  The volleyball world is a small world.

Keys to Blocking Effectively
By Head Coach Bond Shymansky and coaching staff, Georgia Tech
November 16, 2005

•  Blocking is 95% work, 5% natural ability
•  Blocking can control and win matches through these methods Continue Reading

Written by John Kessel, USA Volleyball Director, Grassroots, Disabled, Education & Beach Volleyball.  January 26, 2005  He has volumes of great information.

First off, you should stop working so hard on hitting the ball harder, and instead focus on swinging your arm faster. When players go for hitting harder, they tighten up the muscles in the shoulder girdle and cannot unleash as fast as an armswing as they might have. Swing fast, swing faster. The dilemma is, when you first start to swing faster, or as fast as you can, you are not as accurate.

Speed first, accuracy second. Trying to be successful for a helpful parent, or for the fans of the match, can not only make a player tight, but they know the unwritten law of parents – I must do this right, while Continue Reading

There is nothing natural about passing a volleyball.  In fact, the sport of volleyball is very ‘un-natural’.  We do not grow up bouncing a ball off our forearms or cocking our wrists in unison to set a ball.  The closest childhood similarity is batting a balloon in the air.  We grow up throwing, kicking, and shooting balls.  Ever watch a group of football players  get on a volleyball court and try to play?  These talented athletes often look quite uncoordinated playing volleyball.  Volleyball is an extremely technical game, it is the mastery of these un-natural technical movements that makes our sport so unique, so great.

Learning to pass a volleyball takes time.  Through experience we learn the flight, the trajectory of a volleyball.  Serve receive in particular is an art.  It takes thousands upon thousands of repetitions to understand Continue Reading

Big Jon Guida is making his way through the AVP Next Tour with partner Jake Elliot. They just won last weekend’s AVP Next, East End Volleyball’s stop in Hilton Head Island, SC (Jon’s home turf).

A few weeks back, Jon asked for a little guidance with his blocking. I put together a piece for him which I later shared here: Continue Reading

Arie Selinger, Head Coach, 1984 USA Volleyball Women’s Olympic Team, wrote “Setting for the Setter”. He believes the setter is the most important player on the court who’s qualities include: play-maker, architect, decision maker, cooperative, an extension of the coach, perceptive, great mental stamina, leader, hard working, creative, disciplined, crafty, aware, well liked, and inspires trust and confidence. Continue Reading

A friend of mine is about to break on to the AVP Tour. Big Jon as he’s known by the locals of South Carolina. A natural athlete that played professional basketball in Europe and picked up volleyball in his mid-twenties. A 6’7″ frame along with a 35″ vertical doesn’t hurt either. He’s unsure of his blocking game and came to me looking for a few pointers. Following is my advice.

There is so much about blocking. Here is some thought, perspective, and insight.

Compare your blocking game with the greats. Phil Dalhausser, in 2008 he led the AVP Tour with 2.12 blocks per game. Lambert, 2.04 blocks per game. Gibb 1.96. How many blocks per game are you getting? Two or three blocks a game is not a big number, so don’t put too much pressure
on yourself to HAVE to make blocks. In a game, you could get 30 block attempts (hits against you…this includes shots). Based on 2 blocks per game, that means 7% of all attacks against you will result in a
block (that means out of those 30 block attempts, 28 will be hit around
you). Make it a goal to get 3 blocks a game which correlates to 1 block for every 10 attempts (this would be phenomenal if you accomplished this goal). Continue Reading

During the season at the U of MN, Mike Hebert received an email from a club coach of which he passed along to me. The club coach was concerned with devising an offense system for a team with very little height. The club coach was quick to point out that the team had three great liberos. Here is my reply with Mike’s blessing, it also gives some insight of things I learned at the U of MN:

I hope this email will help save some trees and save you some money from all the paper you are using trying to devise an offense. But let’s look at two things first: 1) Defense 2) Height, and then we can discuss offense. Continue Reading

I found this article on the National Center for Biotechnical Information website about jump serving. The study was conducted by the National Institute of Physical Education of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain.

A comparative study between serve mode and speed and its effectiveness in a high-level volleyball tournament.

AIM: Continue Reading