Queen of the court

Queen of the Court has one rule that decides everything: points only count for the winners' side. Lose a rally and you go to the back of the line and come back as a challenger, so a team that stays on has to earn the side-out all over again every rally. You never get that kind of pressure in an ordinary scrimmage.

8 players 8 phases ± 25 min 6 balls, full court From U15 upwards, with at least nine players

Phase 1 of 8Winners' side left, challengers right; two players waiting at the back

Winners' side and the players waiting (S = setter) Challengers 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

Queen/king of the court: winners' side vs challengers; whoever loses the rally joins the back of the line. Side-out under pressure.

Side-out under pressure: as a challenger you get one rally to get on.
Being sharp again straight after a lost rally, because you are back on within a minute.
Keeping score yourselves and handling the switch without the coach having to blow a whistle.

Coaching points

Only the winners' side scores.

A challenger who wins moves up but gets nothing — they still have to win another rally after that to score. That makes the second rally in a row the most important one in the game.

The losing side goes straight to the back of the line, no talking it over.

The drill falls apart the moment every loss gets discussed. The pace of roughly one rally every thirty seconds is half the training value.

The challengers' opening serve has to go in.

A service error hands the winners' side a free point and rewards exactly the team that is already ahead. Agree that the opening ball is a low-risk one.

On the winners' side: first ball to the middle of the net.

A team that has to side out off a wandering pass loses its spot. A clean first ball pays off more there than a hard swing does.

Variations

Easier: The challengers open with a free ball instead of a serve and you play three against three. That way the rally ends on the first contact far less often.
Harder: The winners' side has to win two rallies in a row for one point. Or: a side-out out of transition counts double, a side-out out of serve receive counts single.
With nine players: Three teams of three on a court cut in half lengthwise. One team waits and comes on after every rally, so nobody stands still for longer than one rally.
As a game: Play twelve minutes on the clock. Whoever has the most points at that moment is queen; if the score is tied, the last rally decides.

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: the rules of Queen of the Court and four variations · what side-out percentage tells you · why game-like drills transfer better