USA drill

USA stands for three balls in a row: U, S and A. The team that wins all three rallies takes a big point, and a team that loses one along the way sees the series disappear and starts again from zero. After every rally the team rotates one position, so you have to finish the series from a different rotation every time.

9 players 8 phases ± 25 min Ball cart with at least twelve balls, full court From U17 upwards

Phase 1 of 8The coach has the free ball; A is complete, B on the other side

Receiving team (S = setter) Opponents Coach 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

Wash 6v6: win three rallies (U-S-A) in a row for a big point; the rally is played out and then everyone rotates.

Finishing a series of three without a single sloppy rally in between.
Every rotation gets its turn, so the weak rotation surfaces on its own.
Rotating quickly and getting straight back into the right base positions.

Coaching points

Call out U, S or A before the coach enters the ball.

Without that call nobody keeps track and the difference between the first ball and the third one disappears. The whole value of a wash drill lies in knowing where you are in the series.

You rotate at a jog.

Otherwise rotating takes more time than the rally itself, and you end up playing thirty balls in twenty minutes instead of sixty.

Write down which rotation the series breaks down in.

That is the real payoff of this drill: usually one or two rotations cost you nearly every series, and those you can train separately afterwards.

After rotating, look left and right before the serve.

After a quick rotation there is always somebody lined up wrong. An overlap costs you a point on the spot in a match and can be fixed here for free.

Variations

Easier: Two balls per series instead of three, and the coach enters both balls high from the side.
Harder: Ball U is a serve, ball S a free ball and ball A a down ball the coach enters hard. On top of that, a lost series costs a point.
With nine players: Six against three: the group of six plays the full series, while the three defenders only have the job of getting the ball back over. Every round three players switch sides.
As a game: One big point per complete series. First to four, and the losing team serves for the whole next drill.

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 scoring in a wash drill · how the rotation order works · finding your weakest rotation