Todd Rogers, just about to side out with an angle shot

One of the common traits in all the best side out players, especially the smaller ones, is their ability to see the block, and or the defender.

In the ideal situation, a player should know where the defender is, and see where the block is as they are hitting the ball.

There are a few different schools of thought about where a player should be looking as they approach the ball, but I don’t think anyone would disagree with me when I say that a player should have their eyes focussed on the ball at the moment of contact. In that moment, it is often hard to see the defender. They might be sitting behind the block, or somewhere outside the range of your peripheral vision.

However, if you have made a reasonable pass, and the set is OK, then you should be able to see where the block is using your peripheral vision.

This is a simple drill to help you focus your peripheral vision as you are swinging at the ball.

Side out vision

Two player on one side of the net, one setting, and the other attacking.

One player stands in the blocking position with one hand raised to the top of the net.

As the attacker is about to spike, the player at the net simply shows one finger, or two fingers.

If the attacker sees one finger, he/she must hit line. If it’s two, then hit cross.

Why not have a blocker jumping line or cross?

The idea behind this drill is not to train your side out, it is to teach you to focus your peripheral vision. Take the focus away from hitting winners, and just work on making the correct decision. Line or cross based on the finger call.

The next step is to move the net player to back court, and work on line or angle shots depending on whether the back court player raises their left or right hand.

This is a great drill for working on your line and cut shot.

Draw the usual zones into both ends of the court, as per the diagram.

Here are the rules

• Start with a normal game situation. Two players on either side of the net.
• The only way to score a point is to side out with a shot into one of the zones. If you side out successfully but the ball lands outside a zone, then you win the reception.
• The zone in the middle of the baseline is only a power spike, roll shots not allowed.
• If you fail to side out, then you must serve the next ball.
• The only way to score a point is to hit a zone, so it is an advantage to receive serve.
• If you make a dig and hit a zone in transition, then you also score a point.
• A service ace to the zone also counts

We usually play that you can hit power too if you want. This really tempts the attacker to look for the deep high hit to the far corner, which is a great hit to develop.

If you have extra players, you can let them rotate on after each spike, or play with three teams in a King of the Court scenario. It doesn’t really matter how you organise the game, as long as you are only scoring when you make a perfect shot.

This is a good drill that combines control and shot making with game play.

Number of players: Minimum 4.

The scoring system for this drill is standard “king of the court”. I.e. one end of the court is designated as the Kings end. The teams that are not at this end, serve on the “King” team until they win a point, and then themselves become Kings, moving over to the king side of the court. First team to make 15 side outs from the King end wins.

This is how it works:

1. The serving team (Team RED) serves normally
2. The team that receives the ball (Team BLUE) must play a line shot – (No power hitting allowed)
3. The blocker (Team RED) must block at the net, regardless of the quality of set – (This forces the defender to cover the whole court)
4. Once the dig has been made by team RED, they must also play a line shot
5. When Team BLUE receives the line shot, then the normal game play commences, i.e. anything is allowed from this point on
6. The winning team takes the King side of the court and receives the next serve

What does this drill teach us?

1. It encourages good control on the pass and set, and makes us concentrate on hitting a nice high line shot. The blocker knows it’s coming, so he or she is jumping high and late making it harder than normal.
2. In each rally there is an opportunity for each team to practice a perfect transition play, from a line dig, again control being the focus.
3. It creates a good opportunity to work on blocking shots, and getting the later timing just right.
4. It makes you think about how to hit a winning line shot when the defender is onto it. We found that once the scores got closer, we started mixing up the line shots. Short, flat and deep, angled to the line from an inside set, etc. Sometimes playing it really short and a bit higher to force the blocker to make the dig, (If we thought he was more likely than his partner to miss the next shot)
5. Lastly, it’s great preparation for match fitness, because just about every rally goes at least three times over the net.

The focus of the training was on passing the ball to the best spot for the setter. (Continuing our theme of improving our team setting.) By making a perfect pass, we are giving ourselves the best opportunity to make a perfect set.

The first drill was a warm up drill and involved a passer, a setter, and a catcher. The fourth player was “coach” and hit balls to the passer over the net from about mid court.

Start with the coach rolling the ball to the passer. The passer passes to the “spot”. The setter moves in to set, the catcher catches. As each player performs their skill, they move to the next one. So; the passer moves to the setting position, the setter becomes the next catcher, and the catcher throws the ball to the coach, and then moves quickly down the line to be the next passer.

The coach can control the difficulty of the drill by  speeding up the delivery to the passer, or making the pass more difficult by dropping one short, or either side.

After 30 balls, (10 passes each) we changed “coaches.”