Setter carousel

Three setters at the net, hitters beside them, a line waiting and a ball feeder: everybody is busy at the same time. The carousel exists because your first setter normally sets a hundred balls a practice while your other setters stand and watch.

11 players 9 phases ± 20 min 6 balls, full court From U17 upwards

Phase 1 of 9Three setting stations at the net, hitters ready and a line waiting; the shagger has the ball

Your own team (S = setter, P = outside hitter, M = middle blocker, D = opposite, L = libero) 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

Teamwork: three setters take turns handling a set while hitters and ball shaggers keep rotating.

Having several setters setting at the same time instead of one after another.
The timing between the set and the approach, with a different hitter every time.
Rotating on briskly so that no station ever builds a line.

Coaching points

The setter decides the height, the hitter adjusts his approach.

The other way round does not work: a setter who sets differently for every hitter never gets to know his own ball. Let the hitter adapt, not the setter.

Call out who is coming, on every single ball.

In a carousel the hitter is somebody different every time. Without a short call the setter puts the ball where the previous hitter was standing.

The feeder plays with the same arc and the same tempo every time.

His ball is the pass the setter is practicing. If it changes from ball to ball, your setter is training something other than what you think you are training.

You move to the next station at a jog.

Three stations only work if a ball goes in every few seconds. One slow group and the other two are standing still — then it is no longer a carousel but a line with a view.

Variations

Easier: Two stations instead of three, and only high balls to position 4. The hitter may catch the set to judge whether it was in the right place.
Harder: The hitter does not call his tempo until he is already in his approach. Or: the feeder deliberately plays a mediocre ball, so that the setter has to set on the move.
With eight players: Two stations, two hitters per station and one feeder, who swaps with a hitter every round so that nobody gets stuck feeding.
As a game: Each station counts the attacks that land in the court off a good set. Two minutes per round, then the setters move on one station.

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 timing between setter and hitter · attack tempos, from a high ball to a first-tempo quick · positioning a beginning setter