Youth volleyball drills: coaching 12- to 14-year-olds

At twelve, the drills run out. What worked on the small court has become too easy, and the senior drills you find online are too big, too hard and too long. This age gets four changes at once, and each of them calls for different drills than last season. This is that material: nine scored games, plus the mistake you are going to see in each one.

What changes all at once in these two years — and where to read on

The court gets bigger. From four players on a small court to six on nine by nine metres, with a higher net and sets to 25. What that transition involves organisationally and mentally is in moving up from mini volleyball to the full court. This article is only about what you do in the gym afterwards.

The body changes. For most players these years contain the peak of their growth rate, and a player growing fast loses his own timing for months. Why that happens and what not to correct is in what a growth spurt does to a youth player.

The load goes up. Two practices become three, a match gets added, and the jumps count twice as heavily as the hours. The guidelines per age, the rest days and the signals that it is becoming too much are in how often youth players should train.

Pressure to specialise appears. The tallest becomes a middle, the smallest a passer, and within two months it is fixed. What that costs and when you do make that choice is in when to pick a fixed position. That is why the roles keep rotating in the drills below.

In the gym all of that translates into four transitions, and those four make up the rest of this article: more floor per player, serving from the full end line, playing three contacts, and rotation without a positional fault. You can run every drill with one coach, one net and twelve to sixteen players.

Transition 1: fifty percent more floor per player

Do the maths, because this number explains half your season. In most mini programmes four children stand on roughly six by six metres: nine square metres per child. On the full court six players stand on eighty-one square metres: thirteen and a half each. That is half as much floor again, and that extra half falls exactly where nobody is standing: deep in the corners and just behind the block.

So what you are training isn't passing but moving. The difference sits in the scoring: a ball only counts if the player played it with his feet underneath it.

Drill 1 — Deep-short-deep (12 minutes, three rounds per player). You stand on a box on the other side of the net and throw or hit three balls in a row: deep into the corner at position 5, short just behind the three-metre line, deep again at position 1. The player has to get all three into a two-by-two-metre target zone at the setter's spot. Scoring: a maximum of 3 points per round, three rounds, nine is the top score. The mistake you are going to see: the third ball is reached for instead of run to — not a fitness problem, but a habit from the small court, where reaching was enough.

Drill 2 — Back to base in three counts (10 minutes, six players on court). The team plays out a free ball. As soon as the rally ends, everyone touches their base position — put cones down for the first few weeks — and you throw the next ball in within three counts, counted out loud. Scoring: if anyone isn't in place at the throw-in, the rally doesn't count. Ten valid rallies in a row and you're done. The mistake you are going to see: players stay where the last action ended. On nine by nine that is exactly the gap the next ball drops into.

Drill 3 — Three-on-three on the full court (10 minutes). Two sets of three players on a complete court, soft balls only: tips, rolls, controlled placement. Each child now defends twenty-seven square metres and can't hide anywhere. Scoring: a rally only earns a point once there have been at least six contacts — otherwise the point goes to the opponent. That flips the logic: you win by keeping the ball alive and making the other side run.

Transition 2: serving from the full end line

In many mini programmes players serve from closer in; on the full court the child is suddenly nine metres from the net. A ball that has to land just behind the opponent's three-metre line travels twelve metres; one that has to reach the back of the court, eighteen. On top of that the net goes up; how much exactly differs per federation and per age category, so look that up in your own federation's regulations.

The result: players who served overhand last year fall back on underhand, or hit an arc that doesn't clear the net. The reflex is more volume, but the problem is distance, not repetition. You solve it with a ladder.

Drill 4 — The end-line ladder (10 minutes, every practice). Everyone starts three metres in front of the end line. Anyone who gets six of eight serves into the court moves back a metre; anyone who hits fewer than four moves forward a metre. Scoring: note per player where he ends the practice and start there next time. After eight weeks you can see in black and white who has moved back. The mistake you are going to see: a child who suddenly starts hitting harder from the end line to cover the distance. Keep the toss and the arm swing the same; only the contact height may go up.

Drill 5 — Set of three (8 minutes). Every player serves three balls in a row from their own ladder spot. The team counts out loud how many players manage a clean set. Scoring: the team target is two thirds of the group; hit that and the last block is free play. Why no forfeit for a miss: this age is sensitive to failing in front of the group, and punishment teaches them exactly the wrong thing — serve safe so nothing goes wrong. A team count makes a miss expensive without making it humiliating.

Transition 3: three contacts becomes the standard

On the small court the ball often goes back in one or two contacts, and that even wins. Against six opponents that habit loses. As long as the second ball earns points, they will keep sending it over; words won't break the habit. You fix it in the scoring.

Drill 6 — The free ball in three (12 minutes, six-on-six or six players without opposition). You throw in a high, easy ball. The team has to make a pass, a set and an attack — in that order, with three different players. Scoring: ten successful sequences in a row; on two contacts you start again at zero. That reset back to zero does the work: after two goes the group calls for the second ball itself. The mistake you are going to see: the second ball is played by whoever is nearest, and the attacker waits underneath the net instead of three metres behind it. Agree one sentence — "the second ball belongs to one person, and that person calls" — and enforce it for the whole practice.

Drill 7 — The double point (20 minutes, game format). Just play, with one rule: a point after three contacts counts double. A substitute tallies how many points were single and how many double. Scoring: at the end you work out the percentage and write it down. Do that three weeks running and you have the only graph that really says something at this age.

Transition 4: learning rotation without a positional fault

This is the newest of the four skills, and the only one the referee whistles for immediately. I won't explain the rule itself here: the order is in the rotation order and exactly when a team is out of position is in the positional fault. What matters here is how you get it in without losing three practices to it.

The core: children confuse two things. Where they have to stand at the serve, and where they go the moment the ball is struck. Almost every positional fault by a youth team comes from that. So train those two separately, in that order.

Drill 8 — Dry rotation with a call (4 minutes, every one of the first six practices). Six players on court, no ball. You whistle, everyone rotates one place and calls their new position number out loud. After two minutes you add who is serving: on "we serve" they take up the lineup for their own serve, on "they serve" the one for reception. Scoring: twelve faultless rotations in a row. Why out loud: a player who has to say his number can't read it off his neighbour.

Drill 9 — Cones for the serving lineup (10 minutes). Per rotation, lay out six cones where everyone has to stand at the serve, one colour per rotation. The players find their cone, you check, and only then does the ball come into play. Scoring: six rotations faultless, then one more without cones. The mistake you are going to see: the outside hitter already standing at the net before the serve has been struck. One sentence covers it: wait until the ball has been hit, after that you can go anywhere.

Hand out a job as well. Nominate one player per set as lineup checker: before every serve he looks left and right and says "correct" out loud. Rotate that job, so you don't end up with one child who understands it and five who follow along. And if you aren't sure yourself whether a new lineup holds through all six rotations, walk it through in Koach before you use it on Saturday.

One 90-minute practice in which all four come back

Loose drills aren't a programme yet. Here is what an evening looks like with all four in it:

1. 0-10 minutes — warm-up with movement. No lap of the gym, but tag games across the full court width.
2. 10-14 minutes — dry rotation with a call (drill 8). Short, every practice, no ball.
3. 14-24 minutes — the end-line ladder (drill 4). Early in the evening, while the arms are fresh.
4. 24-36 minutes — deep-short-deep (drill 1). In two groups either side of the net.
5. 36-46 minutes — back to base (drill 2).
6. 46-58 minutes — the free ball in three (drill 6). The technical heart of the evening.
7. 58-78 minutes — the double point (drill 7), with the lineup checker built in.
8. 78-88 minutes — three-on-three on the full court (drill 3). Soft balls, lots of running.
9. 88-90 minutes — closing. One sentence about what went better than last week.

If you only have 75 minutes of gym time, drop drill 3 and shorten the game format to twelve minutes. Never drop: the four minutes of dry rotation and the free ball in three — those are the blocks you see something back from on Saturday. Watch the jumps too; this practice deliberately contains few, because two heavy jumping sessions on consecutive days load exactly the knee that is already having a hard time during the growth years.

One birth year, thirty-five centimetres apart

In a team of thirteen-year-olds, a player of 1.80 m stands next to one of 1.45 m, born in the same year. That isn't an ability gap but a maturation gap. The general ways to work with different requirements inside one drill are in one practice, six levels; here it is about the two traps specific to this age.

The tall one who has just grown doesn't have a strength problem but a timing problem. Give him less jump volume and more approach repetitions without a ball: three steps, take-off, arm up, land — twenty times, no toss. Don't ask him to hit harder, ask him to take off later, and temporarily set the ball half a metre higher so it waits for him.

The small one who hasn't grown yet becomes the permanent passer within two months if you don't watch out. That even wins matches, but it is the early specialisation you see back at sixteen as a player who never learned to attack. In drills 6 and 7, keep the roles rotating: everyone plays the second ball at least once and the attack at least once per block, regardless of height.

Mix deliberately in game formats: don't put the four tallest in one team. Two unequal teams produce a drill in which one half learns nothing and the other half checks out.

What you should see after six weeks

These four transitions take half a season, not a month. Even so, after six weeks there is something measurable to see — and that is exactly what you show a parent or the technical committee:

• The share of double points goes up. Whatever your starting number in week 1, it should be higher in week 6; you already have the figures from drill 7.
• The end-line ladder has moved back. Aim for two thirds of the group at the full end line; anyone not there yet is standing at least a metre further back than in week 1.
• Fewer than one positional fault per set. Zero isn't a realistic target for a team that has just moved up, one per set is.
• The balls that drop, drop somewhere else. In week 1 in the corners and behind the block; if by week 6 they mainly drop on the seam between two players, you have moved up a level.

If one of the four is stuck, check whether your diagnosis is right before you train more: the wider line per age group is in coaching youth volleyball by age group.

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