Visual Reinforcements in Volleyball: Increase Your Specificity

WRITTEN BY MIKE MOFFETT, ED.D.Head Volleyball Coach - Lubbock-Cooper High School

Show More, Do More, Talk Less

If we accept that very few people learn best by listening to an abstract explanation, then we acknowledge that most of our athletes learn better by seeing something and then trying to replicate that behavior themselves. So we already know that we need to be spending more of our time showing exactly what we want then letting the athletes figure out how to best accomplish that task, and spending less time lecturing about what we want.

Modeling

Being a good player and being a good coach are not directly correlated, but if you can personally demonstrate a skill correctly for your team, do it. If you can’t demonstrate the skill exactly as you want it performed, don’t. Instead, have a player model the skill, then verbally reinforce the key elements. You can also use video for your example, just be sure that you are showing comparable athletes doing the skill correctly. For skill development it is not helpful to show your players an overpass attacking highlight video of olympic players that are on average a foot taller than them. That video may help them love and appreciate volleyball more, but it will not help them score points on overpasses.

Visual Aids

To add specificity, you can use visual aids to show your players exactly what you want. You can temporarily use tape to mark any number of things you want to visually reinforce on the floor or along the net. (Use the nicest painter’s tape you can find and peel it up often. Don’t use gym floor tape, which ironically is terrible for gym floors.)

The taped visual aids that I use regularly include: a triangle where out of system sets need to land, a box for the passing target, and an X for the hard driven dig target. Sometimes I add a starting location for setters or attackers, or put tape on the net to reinforce important hitting or blocking locations. If we need a reminder or an adjustment, I will place a tape dot for our backrow base positions. A couple more visual aids that we use without tape include cones as serving or attacking targets, and an elastic band stretched from antenna to antenna at whatever height you want your servers to serve below. Combining the visual aids with common vocabulary helps the players very quickly learn to “hit to the cones”, “squat on a dot”, “set OOS to a triangle”, “serve under the band”, “pass in the box”, and “dig to the X”. It becomes part of their everyday language and they are able to consistently transfer that knowledge even as we remove the visual aids.

More than a Volleyball Player

You may not need another reminder about the unprecedented pressure felt by our young people today and the misbehavior of a minority of parents, but as leaders we must take those factors into consideration. I have consistently been drawn to supporting female high school athletes due to the suicide of a very dear friend when we were that age. Mental health challenges are not new, but they have become alarmingly common. You must now assume that a number of your young athletes are quietly struggling with overwhelming anxiety. You must also be aware that some of your players are under mountains of pressure at home. The stereotype of “those parents” living vicariously through their children still exists, but now they have also invested untold fortunes on club and private lessons. Frustrated parents venting about coaches that the player may love and respect can create a conflicted and stressful situation for the athlete. As coaches, we can help our players clearly separate their self worth from their sports participation. We do an activity where the players share the things totally unrelated to athletics that make them a fantastic human being. I prominently display these as a visual reminder that the identity and value of our players, managers, trainers, and coaches is so much greater than just their role in our program.

Video Study: 80%, 5%, 15%

Another strategy for supporting the well-being and confidence of our athletes is how we allocate our time in film study. Even during a playoff run, where scouting becomes more crucial every round, we still spend at least 80% of our team film study time celebrating and reinforcing what we are doing right. If we need to show something specific that needs correction, it is limited to 5% of our time or less. That leaves about 15% of our time to familiarize ourselves with our opponent. (Who are they? How do they succeed? What do they want to do? Are there any adjustments we must make?) The coaching staff will spend huge chunks of time scouting all year, but by the time it gets filtered down to the players, we adhere to the 80-5-15 rule. The video reinforcement of your expectations and the celebration of your team’s performance are highly valuable means of increasing specificity while simultaneously building your team’s Collective Efficacy (the belief of a group that by working together it can perform the tasks necessary to be successful). [Sorry, my dissertation was all about CE and I don’t get to talk about it enough].

Thinking the Game with Checklists

During matches the impact of the coach’s knowledge becomes somewhat muted. What actually matters is what the players know and can apply on the court. If you find yourself wondering “what were we thinking there?” or “how did we not see that coming?” it may be worth your time to institute checklists to guide your players’ thinking. Just like your visual aids, off season and preseason are wonderful times to install your checklists. Some of our more analytical students love to have an order of operations to work from.

Your team has a very limited amount of time from the end of one rally to the start of the next rally. The players physically coming together after every point is not negotiable, it has to happen. We celebrate enthusiastically on points we win and positively support each other on points our opponent wins. We move on from this brief team huddle into our legal positions and into our checklists with purpose, but we cannot neglect the celebration or regrouping phase between points.

Create your checklists to reflect your own priorities and vocabulary, but here are some examples for guided thinking between and during points. You should prune these checklists down to their simplest phrasing, fit them onto one page each, post them on your practice board, and reference them as often as needed. As you are preparing for next season, evaluate the areas of your program that could benefit from more visual reinforcement in order to add specificity to your expectations.

When we are Serving

SERVER BEFORE THE SERVE

Check for a serve call.

If coach takes too long or defers, confidently pick your own spot.

If it is your choice, consider any scouting information you already have.

BLOCKERS BEFORE THE SERVE

Is there a blocking call coming from the sideline?

Opposing setter: front row or back row?

Point out the hitters.

Who is their biggest priority?

Say where the attackers may be going on a good pass.

BLOCKERS WHEN THE SERVE OCCURS

Read and rate their pass.

Swipe, Kill, or Set overpasses.

See and narrate the set.

See the attacker’s angle of approach.

Jump the route.

Explode and Press.

DEFENDERS BEFORE THE SERVE

Who is going where for us?

Opposing setter: front row or back row?

Talk the setter out of dumping.

Point out the hitters. If you know something, say it.

Say where they may be going.

DEFENDERS WHEN THE SERVE OCCURS

Read and rate their pass.

Narrate the set.

Say what you see.

Dig.

Cover.

When we are Receiving

SETTERS BEFORE THE SERVE

Is there a call coming from the sideline? (Rare. If yes, skip to Call the Plays)

What are my options? Who are my hitters and where are they?

What is the opponent block situation?

Can and should I put our strength on top of their weakness?

Should I just put our best hitter on her favorite set?

Call the Plays.

Know what you want to set on a good pass.

SETTERS WHEN THE SERVE OCCURS

See the serve flight path.

Get to the setting spot in a hurry.

See the pass and get to it.

Set a hittable ball.

Cover.

HITTERS BEFORE THE SERVE

Am I passer? If so, look ready to pass.

What are my advantages?

If I need to go off-speed where should I go?

Get the call from the setter.

Confirm the call.

HITTERS WHEN THE SERVE OCCURS

Pass or Don’t.

Get in a position to start my approach.

See and rate the pass. (Should I change my call?)

Demand the ball loud enough for the setter to echolocate me.

See and evaluate the set. (Am I trying to score or keep it in?)

Do it.

PASSERS BEFORE THE SERVE

See the server. Where are they?

Do I know their normal serve? If you don’t know, assume deep float.

Who did they serve last time?

Where are they facing?

Authentically communicate about seams. How is the toss? (Short serve tosses usually look higher or slower)

PASSERS WHEN THE SERVE OCCURS

Everyone Speak. Everyone React.

Early Arms, HOLD!

Cover.

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