This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for 2014-15.

The team has a long road trip on Wednesday for their next match, a big one against a team close to us in the table. That being the case, the focus for this training was on trying to continue to build on the momentum of last week’s win. I started them off doing some ball-handling, but quickly moved into game play with winners 3s on a narrow court. To begin with they were only allowed to hit down balls to work on proper movement to the ball, hitting technique, etc. After a while I switched that to back row attacks, and then eventually to allowing hitting on the net.

The rest of training was done in 6 v 6 fashion, A team vs. B team. I did something new this time. I wanted to combine having serve-initiated play with high intensity, up tempo action. This I did by having one team serve three times to the other with normal rallies, then after the last rally finished I put the receiving team into scramble mode. My original intention was to go 30 seconds, with 30 seconds added for any balls allowed to drop uncontested, but it kind of morphed into doing it for a minute. That worked out well, though.

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John Forman
John Forman

John is currently the Talent Strategy Manager (oversees the national teams) and Indoor Performance Director for Volleyball England, as well as Global Director for Volleyball for Nation Academy. His volleyball coaching experience includes all three NCAA divisions, plus Junior College, in the US; university and club teams in the UK; professional coaching in Sweden; and both coaching and club management at the Juniors level. He's also been a visiting coach at national team, professional club, and juniors programs in several countries. Learn more on his bio page.

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