Volleyball drills · Match play · Teamwork

Wave rotation

A wave drill: a full six gets ball after ball from two servers and rotates one position after every rally. The rally stops the moment the attack lands, so in ten minutes you play all six rotations twice. The servers never get a breather, and the team has to be standing in its new alignment before the next ball comes.

8 players 7 phases ± 20 min 8 balls, a full court From U17 upwards, with eight players or more

Phase 1 of 7Six players in rotation; two servers keep the pressure on

Receiving team (P = passer, M = middle, D = opposite, S = setter, L = libero) Servers 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

Match-oriented wave drill: after every rally the team of six rotates on, while two servers keep up the pressure from the other side.

Playing the six rotations back to back without having to think about who lines up where.
Finishing the side-out on the first attack, because the rally is not played out.
Keeping the tempo up: the next wave starts as soon as the team has rotated.

Coaching points

Rotating happens while the previous ball is still being picked up.

The wave exists to keep the pressure on. The moment the rotation turns into a stroll, the difference with a normal serve receive drill disappears.

Check your position against the player next to you before the serve.

When you rotate quickly, players structurally end up on the wrong side of each other. An overlap fault costs you a point straight away in a match, and here it is free to fix.

The two servers serve in turn, with no pause in between.

One server gives the team time to recover. With two servers the next one is already standing there with the ball the moment the attack lands.

Decide per rotation who covers for the setter when the pass drifts away.

In some rotations your setter is a long way from the ball. Agree on that rotation by rotation, and you will not go out of system twice a set in the match either.

Variations

Easier: The servers serve underhand from the attack line, and the team only rotates after two successful side-outs.
Harder: The side-out only counts if the attack comes from above the net. After a failed side-out the team does not rotate and plays the same rotation again.
With ten players: Six on court, two servers and two players who replace both passers after every complete round.
As a game: The team scores for every successful side-out, the servers for every side-out they break. Two full rounds of six rotations decide who wins.

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: how the rotation order works · avoiding overlap faults in every rotation · building serving pressure zone by zone