How to Create Drills for Out-of-System Training

with Kevin Hambly,
Stanford University Head Coach;
2019 NCAA Champions;
2018 NCAA National Champions;
2017 Final Four;
2018 Pac-12 Volleyball Coach of the Year, 2018 AVCA Pacific North Region Coach of the Year;
former University of Illinois Head Coach;
2011 NCAA Runners-up; 5x Sweet Sixteen appearances;
2011 Volleyball Magazine Coach of the Year

Most teams find themselves out-of-system more than 60% of the time during a typical match. Rather than have your practice time filled with drills that are controlled, Stanford's Kevin Hambly suggests that you spend 60% of your practice with out-of-system drills, which is comparable to the amount of time you'll spend out-of-system in a match. It's philosophies like these that helped Hambly lead his teams at Illinois and Stanford to 5 Sweet Sixteens, a Final Four and 2 National Championship contests including the 2018 NCAA National Championship title.

In this video, you will learn how to help your team score even when they're playing out-of-system. Coach Hambly also covers ways you can gain an advantage during a rally by keeping your hitters in rhythm even though they're in an out-of-system situation. You'll get methods to ensure your hitters can still score in a variety of uncomfortable situations.

Staying In Rhythm

Coach Hambly first explains the importance of spending enough time practicing how to respond to out-of-system balls, the difference between being "in rhythm" vs. "out of rhythm" for attacking, and how to produce sets that keep hitters "in rhythm" despite an out-of-system pass or dig. This includes evaluating your setter's capabilities and range to generate an "in rhythm" set, alternative setting approaches, and where to target the set location for an out-of-system ball to promote a successful attack.

Gaining an Advantage

Next, Hambly shares insights on how a team can gain advantages in rallies that involve out-of-system balls. This includes teaching hitters what parts of the court to attack when hitting an "out of rhythm" set and the specific court location not to hit to, tips for how to attack the blockers' hands and use the seam to your advantage as a hitter, and, approaches to recycle the ball off the blocker to generate a better attack.

Drills

Finally, you'll get six team drills that will prepare your team to score more points off out-of-system balls by replicating game-like scenarios. For example, in Coach Hambly's "5+5" drill, he shows how you can efficiently train your players on different out-of-system situations through a progression of:

Serve receive - serve receiveServe receive - free ball Serve receive - setter digServe receive - covering a tipServe receive - bounced ball

In all of the drills, your whole team will stay involved on both sides of the net while getting additional benefits through time spent serving and serve receive, digging, and transitioning from defense to offense.

Coach Hambly states that his 2018 NCAA Championship team was out-of-system 65% of the time! Because of this, he believes it's important that you spend the equivalent amount of time during practice running out-of-system drills. This video provides a plethora of ideas for out-of-system play that have been valuable for Hambly and will be of equal importance to your own program!

51 minutes. 2019.