Drill: Training Setter Peripheral Vision

For those teams with advanced setters, this is a drill I highly recommend. Many new setters have enough to deal with as it is and you might have to wait for the right player to come along to use this drill. I got to do this drill when I was sixteen and it is not easy. This is a skill that takes time and patience to develop.

Blockers are often taught to cheat while reading a setter’s body language. Most setters will position their body in a way that allows the blockers to tell which direction the ball will be going. Coaches need to help train their setters in maintaining consistent body posture so that they look the same before setting a ball to the outside as they would setting a ball to the right side. It is difficult and just takes time and focused practice. Once a setter has accomplished this, then the blockers have a more difficult time cheating and often times will misread the setter. This drill takes advantage of that cheat. One note, GOOD blockers will not cheat but often in high school volleyball, blockers are still training and feel the need to cheat in one direction or another.

For this drill, you can use hitting lines on the right side and the left side. Have your middle blockers set up on the opposite side of the net and have the lines of hitters set up on the opposite side as well. This drill will focus on the setter and the middle blocker but this allows the rest of the team to focus on their own skills while hitting. To focus on the task, have the setter start at target instead of transitioning from base. The coach has a cart of balls and stands in middle middle on the same side as the hitters and setter. Instruct the blocker to cheat in one direction or another a half second before a tossed ball reaches the setters hands. The setter is attempting to set the ball the opposite direction of the cheat. The hitters are then going to finish the play.

Have the next person in the queue for both hitting lines be the side blockers. Once a player hits the ball, they shag that ball and the person who was blocking on that side becomes the new hitter. The next person in line then gets to block.

Let the setter work on this drill for about ten minutes and then switch to another setter. Have middle blockers exchange every three or five plays. Remind your blockers not to alternate but to truly make the cheats random so that the setter doesn’t recognize a pattern. It’s amazing what the brain will pick up on.