Middle blocker drills: five forms for the busiest player on court
Your middle blocker jumps thirty to forty times a set and hits five of those. In an average practice that ratio does not turn round; it gets even more lopsided. The setter sets to the pins, the game form runs on, and the middle mostly stands there. Five drills that bring him back into the game.
Why the middle gets too few balls in most practices
On any given Tuesday evening, count how many attacks each player hits. In a group of twelve it usually comes out the same: the outside hitters get thirty to fifty, the middles fifteen. That is not ill will but a consequence of how a practice is put together. Tosses from the side almost always end up at position 4, the setter picks the safest ball under pressure, and in a game form the rally is over before the first tempo has a turn.
The trouble is that this position is exactly the one that needs repetition. A quick is an agreement between two players accurate to half a metre, and that agreement evaporates in two weeks without practice. Everything a middle does in a match is in the job of the middle blocker; this piece is about how to get those jobs into your practice. Keep to this order while you do, because each step leans on the one before:
- The quick to one fixed point — no block, no pressure, until it becomes boring.
- More than one attacking point — in front of the setter, behind him, and the moving ball.
- The chain block-land-approach — the phase in which he disappears during a match.
- Finishing from close in — against a block that is usually already up.
- The game form — where the threat finally becomes worth something.
The block movement itself I leave out here: it has a build-up of its own and is covered in full in blocking drills for your middles.
Drill 1: the quick to one point (12 min)
Set-up: setter in his normal spot at the net, middle starting at position 3 about three metres off the net, one player tossing from position 6 in an arc as if it were a pass. Balls at the side, no block.
How it runs: fifteen balls in a row with the same pair, all of them to exactly the same point — about a metre to the left of the setter, half a metre above the tape. The middle leaves on the toss, not on the set: his hitting arm should already be extended at the moment the setter touches the ball.
Scoring: how many of the fifteen balls he hits without waiting in the air and without bending his arm. Under eight there is no point in moving on to drill 2. Twelve is good.
Corrections: if he waits in the air, the set is too high or he leaves too early. If he has to reach after the ball, the setter is putting it too far away from himself. Only swap the pair after the whole series — you build timing in runs, not ball by ball. Which speeds exist beyond this and how you name them is in attack tempos from high ball to first tempo.
Film one series from the sideline, at knee height. Freeze the picture at the moment the setter touches the ball. If the middle's hitting arm is already extended above the net, the timing is right. If he is still hanging low with both arms, he is leaving too late — and from the sideline you almost never see that with the naked eye.
Drill 2: three points at the net (15 min)
A middle who always attacks in the same place is read after one set. This drill adds two alternatives to the fixed quick.
The three points: A is the normal quick, about a metre in front of the setter. B sits directly behind the setter, who puts the ball back over his head while the middle shortens his approach to two steps. C is the moving ball: the middle runs along the net towards the left antenna and takes off while he is still moving.
How it runs: three series of five, each with one fixed point, so the pair knows what is coming. After that, five balls in which the toss deliberately lands a metre away from the setter: now the middle has to choose himself, because a pass that sits too far right makes C impossible.
Scoring: a hit within a metre of the agreed point counts. On the free balls, only whether hitter and setter made the same choice counts — that is what you are training here, not the kill.
Corrections: on C most players leave too early and run under the ball; let them start only once the pass is above the setter. On B the approach often stays too long, so that the middle runs into the setter behind him.
Drill 3: block, land, approach again (12 min)
How it runs: the middle stands at position 3, moves across to position 4 and blocks there, lands, comes two steps off the net and immediately makes his approach for a quick. On roughly one in three repetitions he actually gets that ball — you toss unpredictably. Eight repetitions without a break, then swap, three series per player.
Scoring: have a player who is not in the drill tally how many of the eight approaches still consist of three full steps. With almost everyone that falls away from repetition five onwards, and that is exactly where the difference with a match sits, where the fifth ball of a long rally is also the most important one.
Corrections: a player who lands nose-to-the-net after the block and then shuffles backwards loses half a second and with it his whole approach. The landing already turns a quarter-turn inwards, so that the first step back is a normal running step. Watch the landing itself as well: on two feet, with bent knees, and not on the line — this is the jump your middles make most often and therefore the place where their knees take the most. The wider transition from defending to attacking, for every position at once, is in the transition drills.
Drill 4: finishing from close in (12 min)
A middle hits a ball that sits only half a metre above the tape, from thirty to fifty centimetres off the net, usually against a blocker who is already up. Swinging full into the deep court is then simply impossible: the angle is too steep. So he needs three solutions rather than one.
Set-up: one blocker facing the middle, two mats or cone-marked squares in the back corners about five metres off the net, and an otherwise empty court.
How it runs: twelve quicks. The blocker chooses at random whether to jump to the left or the right of the hitter and really keeps his hands above the net. The middle may hit hard through the gap, play over the hands into the deep court, or tip behind the block.
Scoring: a mat is two points, the court one, blocked or out nothing. Below twelve points out of twelve balls the player is leaning on one solution — then look at which two he never uses. The techniques for those soft balls are in tips and roll shots.
Correction: the middle who hammers every ball hard through the middle scores nicely in this drill as long as the block guesses wrong, but in a match that is exactly the ball the opponent likes to see. So give him a series in which hitting hard is worth one point and the mat three.
Drill 5: side-out with a compulsory middle attack (20 min)
How it runs: a normal six-against-six side-out form — serve, pass, set, attack — with one extra rule: the receiving team only gets a point if the middle made his full approach. A player on the sideline judges that and has the final word.
Phase 2: every third side-out also has to be played through the middle for real. Now the setter has to choose under pressure, and that is a skill you cannot train in a hitting line.
Scoring: ten attempts per rotation, seven successful side-outs and the team rotates on. On a pass that lands more than three metres off the net the requirement lapses — otherwise you teach your setter to force a ball that is not there. What you do in those broken situations instead is in playing out of system.
Why this form matters most: this is where the opponent notices the middle for the first time. As long as he only attacks in isolated series in practice, the threat stays theoretical, and on Saturday the opposing blocker simply heads straight for the pin.
How it fits into a ninety-minute practice
You do not need to set aside a whole evening for this. Ten to fifteen minutes per practice is enough, provided it happens every week. A workable division of ninety minutes: ten minutes of warm-up, twenty minutes of a technical block in which the middles run drill 1 or 2 while the pins do their own hitting series, fifteen minutes of block movement for everybody, and the remaining twenty-five minutes for the game form from drill 5. Drills 3 and 4 you alternate week by week with the technical block.
If you only have one middle, let an outside hitter play the second role: he picks up the block movement along the way and your middle gets an opponent. If the group is smaller than eight players, skip drill 5 and lengthen drill 3 — the chain block-land-approach needs no opponent and is still the hardest.
Jump load and what you measure
These drills are heavy. A middle already makes thirty to forty jumps in a set, and an evening with two quick series and a blocking chain easily goes beyond that. Spread it across the week: never two heavy jumping evenings back to back, and after a match day a practice in which the middles mainly work on the second and fourth drill rather than the third. Complaints in knee, back or shoulder that are not gone after a couple of practices belong with a physiotherapist or doctor and not with an adjusted drill plan — especially in young players who are growing. More on that specific pattern in knee complaints and jumper's knee.
As for progress: do not look at your middle's number of points, because that figure depends on how often the setter picks him. Four measures that do say something:
- Share of middle attacks. What percentage of all your team's attacks went through the middle? At amateur level fifteen to twenty-five per cent is a realistic target; below ten per cent the threat does not exist.
- Hitting percentage. For a middle this may be higher than for your outside hitters, because he hits from close in and often against less block. If it is lower, he is getting the wrong balls or using only one solution. What the figure actually measures is in the hitting percentage.
- Block touches, not just block points. A block that slows the attack down to a diggable ball counts nowhere and does win rallies. Tally them by hand for one match.
- Approaches without a ball. Count for one set how often he leaves while the ball goes somewhere else. That number changes faster than anything else and it decides whether all the previous points can work at all.
If you keep the point types per player — in Koach that sits in the point tracking during the match — you have those first two figures automatically after three matches, and after a six-week block you can see whether the practising led anywhere.
Frequently asked questions
How many attacks does a middle blocker get in a set?
At amateur level often four to seven, while in that same set he jumps thirty to forty times. That lopsided figure is normal for the position: his approach keeps the opposing blocker in the middle, including on all the occasions when he does not get the ball.
How do I train the quick with a middle who cannot do it yet?
Start without a net and without a block, with just the setter and the middle, and always to the same point. Have the middle catch ten balls at his highest point before he is allowed to hit, so that it is about timing and not about power. Only once ten out of twelve balls arrive in the same place do you add a blocker.
What do I do if my setter never picks the middle?
That is almost always a question of trust and not a tactical choice. Make it compulsory in a drill — every third ball through the middle — and let the pair run series on their own, so the setter knows where the ball will arrive. Do not oblige him to anything on a pass more than three metres off the net.
Can I run middle drills with only one middle in the group?
Yes. Put an outside hitter in as the second middle: he picks up the block movement along the way and your own middle has an opponent to work against. For the quick series you only need a setter, someone to toss and a ball anyway.
How often a week can a middle do this kind of drill?
Twice a week with at least a day in between works for most teams, because the jump load is high. Do not schedule the heavy block-transition drill on the day after a match, and with persistent knee or shoulder complaints follow the judgement of a physiotherapist or doctor first.
