Practice Ideas to Maximize Minimum Court Space

with Eric Schulze,
General Manager and Director of Coaching and Player Development for Club Fusion Volleyball (IL); Woodstock North (IL) Head Coach

Most club teams don't have unlimited access to facilities and court space, making it important to take advantage of the space they have.

Eric Schulze has tremendous knowledge about the sport of volleyball and how to run a club program effectively. In this video, he shows you how to manage court space using conventional drills and practice plans, paired with an unconventional method to maximize the available space to your team's advantage.

Warm-up Drills

Coach Schulze teaches you how to create cooperative drills that will allow your players to work on all aspects of their game. You'll see first-hand how two teams can share one court efficiently and also how to maximize touches for each player. Provided are a wide assortment of dynamic drills and warmups that your team will be able to utilize immediately.

Serving Drills

Create serving drills with specific targets using timed goals. You will learn to use a variety of drills that simulate game-like situations and require a lot of action and individual awareness. The serve and run drill is used to focus on hitting specific targets over a three minute time frame where each player is accountable for meeting a 21-point objective.

Practice Segments

Create competitive and teamwork elements in your practices. Core rotations are used to allow each player to work on individual skills. Schulze transitions from one drill to the next with just the right amount of time spent demonstrating the drill and explaining what players should try to accomplish. He goes into detail about how to maximize reps for each player and demonstrates how to create just enough chaos with each drill while getting each player game speed reps.

• 3-on-3 Speedball is used to work on serve receive within a system and requires each player to touch the ball to score a point.
• Learn some fun practice drills that create opportunities for your players to learn - elastic bands are used to keep the setter tight to the net for running quick sets.
• Add "Up-down scrimmages" to your practices, which involve serve-receive combined with defensive transition play.

Schulze also reveals how to use open areas of the gym with dynamic, body-weight based workouts

This video is a great resource for any coach wanting to learn how to manage their court and players in a practice setting.

37 minutes. 2017.