COACHING YOUTH VOLLEYBALL: A COMPLETE GUIDE FOR YOUNG PLAYER DEVELOPMENT

Written by Rob Browning, Head Volleyball Coach, Saint Mary's College

It's great when kids are excited to play volleyball. It's even better when we can teach them in a way that stokes the fires without burning them out  and still helps them develop into great players.

Over the years I've spent coaching volleyball players from 8 to 14 years old, three themes keep coming back. Don't label them too early. Give them a system that lets them play. And stop replacing volleyball with conditioning. What follows is everything I've learned, organized so you can put it to use right away.

PART 1  DON'T SPECIALIZE TOO EARLY

When young kids start playing volleyball, we often make the mistake of limiting their development by labeling them.

"We want you to be a middle!" Wait, what? Because he's tall? Or because she isn't catching on to forearm passing as quickly as we'd like? She's 10.

"You will be our libero." Why? Because she's the shortest on the team?

Stop labeling them. Teach them how to play volleyball. Teach all of them how to play volleyball, not how to be a middle or a libero.
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Why Positions Limit Development

Assigning positions to young kids simply limits their development. Here's what we know for sure: we have no idea what position they will ultimately play in high school or college. We don't know which ones will continue to play. We don't know which ones will develop into the best players.

At some point, all of them will probably play beach volleyball for fun, if not competitively. They will be better equipped to thrive because you gave them the opportunity to master all the skills.

I personally would avoid limiting a player to be exclusively a middle, libero, or setter until high school. Your roster for a young team should look something like this:

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Jimmy Jive, S/OHSteven Wonder, OH/SBilly Jean, OHMarshall Law, OH/S

Even if a player comes to you and says she wants to be a middle because her older sister was a middle tell her: "You will get the chance to play in the middle, and you're also going to get the chance to receive serve, play outside, and maybe even set."

Teaching All the Skills

It's important for every young player's future development that you teach all the skills and give them opportunities to perform them all. They might not all set in a match, but they can all learn to set and get opportunities in practice.

Yes, there is some risk. You could win more rallies, sets, and matches if you hide certain players behind a position label. There is a real cost to letting all of the kids learn the game rather than just learning a position. But it's worth it.

This doesn't mean putting kids in situations where they will certainly fail like making a player who can't set yet run a 5-1. That's not good for anyone. But our job as teachers is to expose them to all the skills and give them opportunities to develop them all.

PART 2  THE RIGHT OFFENSIVE SYSTEM FOR YOUNG TEAMS

With the goal of teaching all skills and letting all players participate fully, there is one offensive system that is particularly well suited to young teams: the 6-3.

How the 6-3 Works

The 6-3 is simple: every other player on the court becomes a setter for two consecutive rotations. You can have them set when they are in middle front and right front, or when they are in right front and right back. When one of the three designated setters rotates out of those positions, another one rotates in.

There are a few reasons I advocate for this system with younger teams:

• It gives three players the opportunity to set, spreading that role across the roster rather than concentrating it in one player.
• Each setter also functions as a passer and a hitter in the rotations where they are not setting so no player is locked into one skill.
• It is simple. Two rotations repeat over and over again. When you say "rotation 1" your players know exactly what that looks like. You can have your setter set from the right-front position and only set in front, or from the middle-front position and set both front and back once they're ready for it.
• Strategically, it can be very good: you can put your three strongest players in the setter positions for certain sets or matches, and they will anchor the team with their serving, passing, setting, and hitting.

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"But What About Preparing Them for High School?"

Some coaches argue they need to run a 5-1 or 6-2 to prepare young players for high school. I disagree.

What we need to teach young players is how to perform the skills and play the game. You can teach a player to run a 5-1 or 6-2 in an hour. It takes much longer to teach them the skills and teach them how to read the game. Running a 6-3 is simple enough that players can focus on the game itself rather than worrying about overlaps and switches.

Maybe you take a practice or two and introduce the 5-1 and 6-2 at a basic level, show them the concept of overlapping, but the 6-3 is the right system for developing young players for the reasons described above.

You might win slightly more by designating one setter and one libero early. But you will be denying players the opportunity to develop as complete players. Even within your own season, your team and your individual players will fare better over time if they can all perform all the fundamental skills.

PART 3  FITNESS, CONDITIONING, AND WHAT ACTUALLY MAKES THEM BETTER

When coaching younger players, coaches often wonder what they should be doing for strength, conditioning, and overall volleyball fitness. Here are the most important points to keep in mind.

Volleyball Is a Skill Sport

The better-skilled team wins almost all of the time, regardless of their strength or fitness level compared to the other team. With younger age groups, this is even more the case. The development that matters most at these ages is skill development not strength, not fitness, not conditioning.

10,000 Hours to Develop Skill - Not Fitness

Talent and skill are learned and mastered over thousands of hours of mindful repetitions. Every minute spent on non-volleyball activities strength and conditioning, general fitness drills, long warm-up routines is a minute that delays mastery of the skills of the game.

The human body can improve its overall fitness and conditioning level in a relatively short period of time. Mastering the skills of serving and passing, however, takes years. Don't trade the latter for the former.

Specificity of Training

A strength and conditioning program for a soccer player is dramatically different from that of a volleyball player. And here is the key point: there is no more specific strength and conditioning program for a volleyball player than the game of volleyball itself.

Condition them by playing volleyball.

Volleyball Is an Anaerobic Sport

Volleyball players rely on bursts of power and energy. Most rallies last around 10 to 15 seconds, with 30 or more seconds of rest between rallies. During a rally, an individual player's activity is broken into 3–5 second bursts of power and energy.

Conditioning programs must be designed with this in mind. Running stairs for five seconds, then jogging back down for rest, is appropriate. Repeat jump training is valuable because it develops muscular anaerobic endurance and is lower impact than repeated ground landings.

Conversely, running a mile or 100-yard sprints are not appropriate conditioning activities for volleyball players the work-to-rest ratio is entirely wrong, and it does not simulate, or directly benefit, playing volleyball.

Progressive Overload Through Volleyball

When we gradually overload our muscles and cardiovascular system, the body adapts and grows stronger. The way to create overload in practice is to play games where athletes get more reps at a pace faster than a standard match.

In six-on-six practice, run it with a serve and if the server misses, toss a ball to simulate the serve so there is still a serve-receive rally. When the rally ends, immediately put another ball in play. Then another. We can condition athletes for volleyball by overloading them with more reps at a faster-than-match pace.

Condition them by playing volleyball.

Mix It Up and Let Them Play Other Sports

Young athletes should not dedicate themselves exclusively to one sport at an early age. Encourage them to play basketball, soccer, ride a bike, swim give them a broad, well-rounded athletic foundation. Do not make a fuss when your 12-year-old setter is occasionally late to practice because they also play basketball. When they decide to dedicate themselves exclusively to volleyball, likely during high school, they can begin a sport-specific strength and conditioning program. Until then, breadth serves them better than depth.

The Takeaway

If we want our kids to get good at volleyball, they must play volleyball whenever the opportunity presents itself. There is no conditioning or fitness program that will get them to be better servers and passers, or teach them the timing that is so critical in spiking the ball. Mastering those skills takes thousands of hours so don't waste a minute.

The USA men won the Olympic gold medal not because they were stronger and fitter than Brazil, but because they were the better volleyball team specifically in serving and passing. Our youth teams will rarely win or lose because of fitness. Whenever you have the choice between volleyball practice and conditioning, choose volleyball.

Putting It All Together

Three principles. All connected.

Don't limit young athletes with position labels before they've had the chance to develop every skill. Give them a system simple enough that they can focus on the game rather than the mechanics of a rotation. And spend their practice time on volleyball, because volleyball is the only thing that makes them better at volleyball.

These ideas aren't complicated. But in a sport where early specialization and elaborate conditioning programs get a lot of attention, they bear repeating and they're worth holding onto as the foundation of how you develop the next generation of players.

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For more on coaching youth volleyball including 28 video lessons from five-time Olympic Coach John Speraw and three-time Olympic Coach Mike Wall working directly with their 10U teams the GMS+ Coaching Youth Volleyball course is free with a GMS+ account.
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