The first week of preseason can easily become overloaded.
There are players to assess, systems to install, physical loads to manage, roles to consider, and a limited amount of time before the first competition. That can create pressure to cover as much as possible as quickly as possible.
I don’t think that’s the best way to approach it.
For me, the first week of preseason has two main purposes.
- Develop a good understanding of where the team currently is so I can make better decisions about where future development work needs to go.
- Establish or reinforce the systems, structures, and ways of working that I expect to be foundational for the rest of the season.
These two are closely connected. The process of installing the way we want to play helps reveal what the team understands, what it can currently execute, and where the most important gaps are.
Start by understanding the team you actually have
It’s tempting to enter preseason with a detailed plan for everything the team needs to accomplish. Planning is a good thing, but I’d caution about how detailed you get before actually seeing the team on the court.
Even when you have a large group of returning players, the team isn’t the same as it was at the end of the previous season. Players changed. Roles may have changed. Physical readiness varies. You could have the exact same squad, but they’re still a different team.
The first week, therefore, needs to provide a useful picture of the team’s current level.
That doesn’t mean testing every skill or trying to evaluate every player against a long checklist, though. The goal is to identify what will most strongly affect the team’s development and performance.
Some of the questions I typically want answered include:
- What can the team already do reliably?
- Where does play break down?
- Which problems are mainly technical?
- Which problems are tactical or organizational?
- How well do players coordinate with each other?
- How quickly do they recognize and solve problems?
- What appears likely to limit the team if we don’t address it?
The answers to those questions should shape the next phase of preseason.
Use actual volleyball for diagnosis
To understand the team, you need to see players playing volleyball. It’s that simple.
Isolated drills tell don’t really tell us a whole lot about how players read situations, make decisions, coordinate responsibilities, and respond to pressure. Those elements matter because team performance is not simply the sum of individual skills.
A passer may look technically sound in a controlled activity, but struggle to manage seams in actual serve receive. A setter may deliver accurate balls from a predictable location but make poor choices when the pass is off the net. Defenders may dig well, but don’t actually defend well because they fail to position themselves properly.
The first week should therefore include representative game situations early in your practice planning. That might mean small-sided games, wash games, constrained 6v6 play, or other structures that repeatedly expose the situations you want to evaluate.
The purpose isn’t simply to make practice more competitive, however. It’s to produce better information. The more closely the activity resembles the decisions and relationships found in the game, the more useful the observations become.
Install the base offensive and defensive systems
The first week is also when I want to establish the basic way the team will play. That generally means the base offensive and defensive systems.
The goal isn’t to install every variation, adjustment, or special situation. Instead, the focus on the structures that will organize the team’s play throughout the season.
On offense, that may include:
- Serve receive formations
- Setter and hitter responsibilities
- Basic attack patterns
- Transition expectations
- Hitter coverage
- Communication around out-of-system play
On defense, it may include:
- Blocking responsibilities
- Base defense positioning
- Seam and zone responsibility
- Movement in response to the set
- Transition from defense to offense
- Communication before and during the rally
The exact details will depend on the level and the team, but the principle is the same. Players need a shared framework. Without that framework, you can spend a lot of time correcting individual actions that are actually symptoms of unclear team organization.
Don’t confuse exposure with installation
Introducing a system is not the same as installing it. Players may understand a diagram or walk-through and still be unable to apply the system during live play. They may perform it correctly in a controlled sequence and then abandon it in live play.
Installation requires repeated exposure in representative situations. It also requires feedback that helps players understand not only what they should do, but why the responsibility exists and what information should guide the action.
That’s why the diagnostic and installation purposes of the first week work well together. As players try to execute the team system, the staff gets to see:
- What they understand
- What they misread
- Where responsibilities are unclear
- Which habits are already established
- How well players adjust after feedback
- Which parts of the system require more time
The system becomes both a playing framework and an assessment tool.
Establish ways of working
The first week also sets expectations for how the team will work. This is broader than team rules or standards posted on a wall. Players are learning how things work in practice.
They’re learning how quickly they’re expected to move between activities, how feedback will be delivered, how much responsibility they have for solving problems, how teammates communicate, and what good training behavior looks like.
They’re also learning what the coaches consistently notice and reinforce.
➡️ If coaches say communication matters but rarely address it, what message do you think the players receive?
➡️ If coaches stop every error and provide every solution, do players learn to find solutions or do they wait for instruction?
➡️ If the staff values competitive intent but structures practice in ways that rarely require meaningful decisions, when will players develop decision-making skills?
Ways of working should therefore be built into practice rather than treated as a separate preseason talk.
They can include expectations around:
- Communication
- Attention and readiness
- Response to feedback
- Competitive intent
- Problem-solving
- Teammate responsibility
- Transitions between activities
- Ownership of standards
- How the group responds after mistakes
The first week provides an early opportunity to establish these patterns. That does not mean everything will be perfect immediately. It means the team begins to understand how it is expected to operate.
Use each priority to inform the others
These three priorities shouldn’t be treated as separate blocks. Understanding the team, installing systems, and establishing ways of working should happen together.
A 6v6 serve receive game, for example, may allow the staff to evaluate passing, reinforce offensive organization, clarify seam responsibility, observe communication, and establish expectations for how the team responds after a breakdown. That’s more valuable than running one activity for evaluation, another for system installation, and another for team standards.
Good practice design allows multiple objectives to overlap. The important point is that the coach remains clear about what is being observed and reinforced. Without that clarity, game play can become activity without useful learning. With it, the same game can provide information, development, and system repetition at the same time.
Avoid trying to solve everything in the first week
The first week should create direction, not completion.
There will be technical issues that require longer-term development. Some tactical elements have to wait until the base structure is more secure. Certain roles may remain unclear. Some players will need more repetitions before you can make confident decisions.
That’s normal. The goal isn’t to leave the first week with a finished team. It’s to have:
- A clearer picture of the team’s current strengths and limitations
- A shared understanding of the base offensive and defensive systems
- Established expectations for how the team works
- Better information for planning the next stage of preseason
The first week should make everything that follows more purposeful.
A practical planning question
When planning the opening week, I would begin with three questions:
- What do we most need to learn about this team?
- What must we establish about how we intend to play?
- What ways of working do we want players to experience from the start?
Those questions help keep the plan focused. They also reduce the temptation to measure progress by how much material you’ve covered.
The value of the first week is not in the number of drills completed or systems introduced. It’s in how much clearer the path forward becomes.
I’ve put together a sample first-week preseason structure showing how these priorities can fit across several practices. It’s available in the Coaching Volleyball Community.
If you’re working with beginners, this post may be useful: Beginner Volleyball Practice Plan: Your First 2 Weeks.
