Volleyball drills · Match play · Teamwork

King's game rotation

Two complete teams, and after every rally the losing team rotates one position while the winner stays exactly as it is. The team in the flow keeps its line-up, the team that loses gets a new one every time. That makes visible what momentum really does in a match: winning gets easier the longer you keep winning.

12 players 12 phases ± 30 min 6 balls, full court From U19 upwards, with twelve players

Phase 1 of 12Two full teams of six; A serves

Team A (P = outside hitter, S = setter, M = middle blocker, D = opposite, L = libero) Team B (S = setter) Ball

This animation comes straight out of the Koach app. In the app you play it at your own pace and the positions carry your players' real names.

Open in the app

How the drill runs

What you are training

The winning team stays on, the losers rotate through: playing rallies with full teams to train match rhythm.

Building match rhythm: extending a run instead of throwing it away.
Keeping it together as the losing team while the line-up shifts every time.
Playing the full rally with block, defense and counter-attack.

Coaching points

The winner stays put, the loser rotates.

This one rule is the whole drill. It rewards a run and punishes the dip that follows it, and that is exactly the pattern that decides a set.

After two lost rallies the team takes a thirty-second time-out.

That teaches players what a time-out is actually for: making one agreement, not three. You do not practice that anywhere else.

The server on the team that just rotated gets no extra time.

The rotation must not become a breather, because then the very pressure you are trying to train disappears. Agree that the ball is back in the air within ten seconds.

Keep track of the longest run of the practice.

The final score says little, the run says everything. A team that learns to score four points in a row wins sets it would lose on individual points.

Variations

Easier: Only rotate after two lost rallies, and start the rally with a free ball from the coach.
Harder: The winning team rotates as well, but the other way around. Or: only points scored during a run of two or more count.
With fourteen players: Six per side plus one substitute per team who comes in as soon as his team loses two rallies in a row.
As a game: Play to 25, but with a run counter alongside it: winning three rallies in a row is worth an extra point. That way the run itself becomes the goal.

Volleyball drills

4 players · 6 phases SafeVolley base round Warm-up 3 players · 5 phases Shoulder activation with band Warm-up 2 players · 6 phases Dynamic movement patterns Warm-up 5 players · 5 phases Core plank with rotation Warm-up

Read on in the knowledge base: where a match swings · points in a row on your own serve · time-outs and substitutions from the bench