Pepper in five pairs

Five pairs, five balls, no line: this is the drill you open with when the gym is full. The cycle is fixed — dig, set, hit — and precisely because the order never changes, a pair can correct itself without you standing next to them.

10 players 5 phases ± 10 min one ball per pair, the full width of the gym From U15 upwards

Phase 1 of 5Five pairs facing each other, each pair with a ball

P = ten players in five pairs; every pair plays its own ball 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

Passing drill: five pairs play pepper (pass-set-attack) facing each other. Ball control and clean technique in a steady rhythm.

Digging low: the first ball is dug off the floor, not passed from a standing position.
Holding a fixed cycle without skipping contacts.
Working independently: the pair sets its own pace and corrects itself.

Coaching points

Knee height is the standard on the dig.

Stay upright and you only get the balls that come straight at you. In pepper that is most of them, which is exactly why nobody notices this mistake.

Agree who sets and who hits, the same order every cycle.

Pairs that improvise skip the set, and then it has turned into knocking the ball back and forth instead of pepper.

Watch your partner's hitting hand, not the ball.

The direction of the attack can be read off the hand, and that is the only place you see it earlier than off the ball itself.

A ball on the floor means starting again straight away.

Balls left lying there while the pair talks it over cost you a serious chunk of the contacts over ten minutes.

Variations

Easier: The attack becomes a controlled throw, so the dig always stays gettable.
Harder: The pair may not play the ball at the same height twice: dig low, set high, only then hit.
With six players: Three pairs, or two groups of three with a fixed setter in the middle.
As a game: Which pair gets the most complete cycles in two minutes? Only cycles with all three contacts count.

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: low, early and back off the floor · what a defender is watching · building your session in blocks