Training Considerations
Reflections on designing an efficient practice
Practice
Practice design, like lesson planning, should have daily objectives. What do you need to accomplish in this practice? How much time do you have for practice? Your previous match statistics and your observations from those matches will help set the priorities for the next few practices. Once you decide on those focus areas, allocate appropriate time for each drill you select.
At Volleyball Wisdom, the Nuggets of Wisdom section provides a variety of drills based on skill type and level. This will help you find drills that will address your current focus areas. This post reviews a number of ideas you might consider as you design each practice.
Flow of practice
For a practice to be effective and transition appropriately, you should assign time blocks for each drill or activity. Adhering to these time segments will help keep the practice moving.
For a practice session, decide on the optimum length of time that allows you to cover your practice plan while creating a fast-paced environment with the necessary pressure situations. I find that a high-intensity two-hour practice is far more beneficial then a three-hour practice.
In general, I suggest a specific drill should be designed for 10 minutes up to 20 minutes maximum.
If you are implementing drills that have a score component, make sure the scoring outcome will fit into the time allotted. If the team is unable to meet the scoring goal in the time period, move on to the next drill. My experience, in the classroom and on the court, is that allowing or forcing a lesson or drill to run overtime will typically mean diminishing benefits. I find that leaving the drill and coming back to it later (that day or the next practice) helps promote better execution and focus.
Drills should be designed to provide maximum reputations for all players involved with that drill. For instance, with a team of twelve, I will organize the drill into three groups of 4, and pace the drill so each group of 4 gets plenty of reps and feedback. Avoid any design that has a large number of players getting single reps and then waiting for everyone else to get a rep. This is too slow and not at a pace that carries over to the actual game.
Depending on the drill, you can organize these small groups by ability level, so that the pace, feedback, and focus works better for each specific group.
feedback
A key factor impacting practice is the quantity and quality of feedback. You must train your staff to provide constant feedback throughout a drill. Emphasize that, whether they are initiating the drill or on the side, there must be feedback on every touch.
Proper error detection/error correction is the key to improvement. Keep in mind that “proper” means correctly recognizing what is the primary error.
Work with your staff to improve their recognition and, most importantly, given the error, the knowledge to correct the actual cause of this error. Example: Serve receive drill - passer passes the ball to the 10’ line. Generic feedback (not helpful): “pass the ball to the net”. Better feedback: Error detect what the passer is doing incorrectly (footwork to ball, body position, platform angle, etc.) and provide that correction.
Positive vs Negative Feedback - Learning theory supports that positive feedback (what you want them to do) is far more effective than giving negative feedback (describing what not to do). Passing drill example: “don’t swing your arms” is negative, while “hold your platform steady” is positive.
Big Picture
Always consider where you are in the season as you design practice. At mid-season, using more team, multiple touch drills, to solve a problem or improve performance, will provide greater benefits. Most drills that focus on an individual/position skill can be adapted into a 6 on 6 environment.
Is practice successful? How are you evaluating each practice and whether the objectives have been met? Your staff should have a clear method that provides this feedback. It can be a review of the statistics from the practice or a comparison of match statistics from the upcoming competitions.
Next time
Generally, the majority of your drill designs, should be game like. In my next post, I will outline a number of examples that contrast game-like vs non-game-like drills and the pros/cons of each.