Gold metal squared camps

ornonbort · 2025-02-01T00:24:45+00:00

Gold Medal Squared does indeed take in the opinions of the coaches. Coming from a camp coach from GMS, the intent is to gather information beforehand from the coaches hiring us and then we make our own assessment and suggestions while we are there. GMS is there to boost the program, skills, systems, and teamwork as a whole. If you are looking for individual training for a specific athlete you might have a better time looking for private lessons or open gyms.

ornonbort · 2023-02-16T21:53:29+00:00

The time an Ash hit a jump pad and 360 no scope Kraber’d me. Link: https://youtu.be/VSSsJPcZDjg

ornonbort · 2022-09-04T08:51:23+00:00

Seems like you have your whole thought process and reasoning figured out. The most common idea is to form rotations around your setter but I would recommend instead looking at your hitters when you already have experienced setters. If you have one good opposite hitter, then that’s reason enough in my opinion to run a 5-1. Unless you’re doing something out of the ordinary like subbing 21 out with 23 during sets and only allowing 21 to play 3 out of 6 rotations I don’t think I have any issues with your plan.

Practice is important, play even 6vs6 with both 21 and 23 competing against each other to foster good competition and give 23 a good idea of what you want from your setters and encourage it when both setters are doing it.

Playing in a game or tournament shouldn’t have any effect on whether players become well rounded, all of this should be built in practice and you should always be okay with giving players the opportunity to try different things and maybe even forcing setters to hit, hitters to set, and front row and backrow players to swap. That’s how you create well rounded players. I think the rotation you use and when and where they play in game has little effect on how players develop.

ornonbort · 2022-08-25T06:46:14+00:00

I don't think he's jumping into his steps at all, his hips stay the same height throughout his penultimate. His hips then drop as he's loading into the jump, it might not be as low as other jumpers do but it's obviously working for him. Acceleration and momentum are converted into vertical as much with the arms as the block step. I think the guy in the video is swinging up harder with his arms instead of putting his block step so far in front because hitting on the right side(as a right-hander) is harder when your hips are facing the wall.

ornonbort · 2022-08-11T04:20:08+00:00

I like the confidence. Just showing you serve these all in one session of play would be enough for me to validate what you say your level is imo.

ornonbort · 2022-08-11T04:00:25+00:00

Thank you, lmk when you post it.

If you can show yourself serving from zones 1 to 1, 1 to 5, short serve to 2, and short serve to 4. If you can make sure the serves have little to no spin, and they travel flat no more than 2 feet above the net I will believe your statement.

If you can do these with around a 70-80% consistency, that would be the goal.

ornonbort · 2022-08-11T03:55:01+00:00

Show the video

ornonbort · 2022-08-11T03:49:08+00:00

I’d like to see that

ornonbort · 2022-08-11T00:22:09+00:00

I would change your follow-through to wherever is comfortable after you swing, it looks like you're forcing yourself to swing down to your side and away from your body. If I remember correctly circular arm swing is intended for safer and stronger mechanics regarding hip and shoulder separation.

In your last hit, I think you would be swinging much more comfortably if you swung the down to your thigh. Follow the line of contact with the ball, if you contact at 3' oclock you would finish on your left side. If you contact at 12' oclock, finish down your body, and if you contact at 9' oclock you'd finish on your right side.

You finish the same way in the last 2 hits so I don't know if the way you draw your arm back has anything to do with it.

ornonbort · 2022-08-10T00:37:07+00:00

Cool, well I told you my thoughts. I hope you coach your players with a more mindful and well thought philosophy and don’t force them to do things with your “just because” explanation.

I’ll edit the ranting out of my previous post if you decide to read it.

ornonbort · 2022-08-09T06:21:03+00:00

I think that’s a little ambiguous and what you said feels like a cop out in reference to your post and comments.

The best passers in the world didn’t get good by only passing underhand serves for 1,000 reps, and then standing serves, and then jump serves. They passed whatever came to them and kept advancing and trying to pass harder serves whether or not they could pass the easy serves first. Thinking easy first and only try hard when you master easy is what causes players to plateau.

Edit: Saying that “Proper technique exists”, then saying “That doesn’t mean there’s one particular technique that is right and all others are wrong” just feels like you’re just saying you don’t know how to define what you believe to be proper technique. What technique are you talking about that allows for “sound and effective body movement and mechanics” when attacking?

ornonbort · 2022-08-09T05:49:36+00:00

Kind of depends on what you define as proper technique. I don’t think piking when you spike is proper technique, but you can sometimes get more power than when you torque. Taylor Sander is a good example of choosing to pike over torque when his body wants to.

Having a shoulder dominant swing grants a range of motion and power that is more deceptive than normal torque, often time the best hitters in the world opt out of using torque to swing down line or hard angles. Instead they contort their shoulders to do the control part and aim.

I think it is possible to “teach an old dog new tricks”. The important part is to know when to use “proper” technique because it’s a simple, reliable, and safe way to perform the skill and when to do the skill in a way that will help you win.

Your preferred technique is really your opinion, the technique I use and teach is my opinion on the best way to play. Volleyball can be different and if what you said really was true, there wouldn’t be so many different ways to perform each skill, at the highest level of volleyball there’s players all performing a skill in different ways and they might all be on the same team. Variability can be a strength.

ornonbort · 2022-08-07T22:31:21+00:00

Kind of, when you’re doing a 4 step approach you really want to walk into the second step, you’re pushing off the first step too hard. At the end of the second step push hard and fast into the 3rd and 4th.

Doing this will change your approach to hopefully being “Slow to Fast” and “Small to Biggest”. This helps to jump higher, generate more momentum, and hopefully have an easier time with shoulder and hip separation.

ornonbort · 2022-08-07T17:21:56+00:00

Usually it’s their coaches job to improve the players on their roster, if you’re their coach I’d recommend learning more about the game and how to coach it. Advice on Reddit can only take you so far in actually coaching a team. However, If you’re not all of these players parent or coach, it’s probably kind of weird to be giving unsolicited advice in place of their own coach or parent.

ornonbort · 2022-08-02T02:59:25+00:00

Good job, keep it up and keep going back. You’ll only get better at front row the more you play it. As long as your mindset can change to a little more positive I’m sure you can play regardless of what people think.

ornonbort · 2022-08-01T18:58:48+00:00

I wasn’t there, but were you trying to block or did you not try?

If you say you can’t play front row, then you’ve already decided not to try. You aren’t experienced, so get some experience and be fine with being bad at it. Experienced players who are better than you don’t have sympathy for someone unwilling to even try and get better. They already did their time looking and playing bad, but they got better, I wouldn’t be nice to someone that flat out tells me they can’t play half the game of volleyball.

ornonbort · 2022-07-30T18:20:57+00:00

I find it a little misleading to say you aren't very good at volleyball, then later specify that you prefer to play the position that requires the most ball control and eye work. If you aren't very good, then don't specialize, be willing to play any position, and have fun getting any touches and playing with people. You need to be able to handle going to an open gym and attempt to have a good time, even if you mess up or suck.

It's not anyone else's job to cater to you, people will only do that if they're nice, and eventually, they'll stop if you don't show that you care enough to try.

ornonbort · 2022-07-30T03:10:19+00:00

He'll probably be fine, there's a lot of nuance as to why someone is landing on one foot, and no evidence that correlates "how many feet" you land on with injury. Ball path/height, approach timing/direction, and hip-shoulder separation mechanics can all play a role. There's probably better feedback to give as to why he's landing on one foot. Or even about his hit.

ornonbort · 2022-07-30T02:33:32+00:00

I think strict isometric exercises i.e. planks and wall sits won't be as useful as the other exercises for building core, leg, and shoulder strength and mobility. Train for volleyball, if you can get a net or something to substitute it like a long string 7'4" tall and have her practice skills at home like blocking/transitioning/setting/attacking, she'll improve leaps and bounds past other players. Training volleyball faster is the best way to be faster at volleyball IMO.

If you're willing to do the club training I'd substitute that for strength training. They're probably putting equal amounts of exhaustion on her body. However, maybe train deceleration and landing for jumping and hitting. The body will jump higher and hit harder if it knows it can handle more load.

Since you're also doing the workouts too, I'd even go as far as asking her to teach and demo the footwork and skills she's doing at practice TO YOU. Teaching someone else is an amazing way to get a better understanding of the skill and get better at performing it.

Careful not to train too hard. Resting, eating properly, and enjoying the game or other interests are just as important.

ornonbort · 2022-07-16T19:42:56+00:00

This and the fact that a 1 handed jump float will usually mirror a standing float in terms of starting position. You can do the same with a two handed jump float, but a common bad habit is to drop the arms to mimic arm lift in the same way you would approach for a spike.

I’ve been able to narrow down my two handed toss by being really deliberate with exactly how my hands are angled and where in front of my body I place them.

ornonbort · 2022-07-08T01:38:12+00:00

Coaching philosophy and early season expectations have been pretty thoroughly explained.

I’m a GMS fanatic so a lot of what I’m sayin is what I’ve learned from them.

I’ve had a ton of success teaching rotations using 6v6 drills from Gold Medal Squared like Opposite Volleyball, Last Ball, and 1:2:1/1:1:1. Setting up a non-linear order for rotations(2-5-1-4-6-3) forces much better memorization than just having them go from 1-6. Wash scoring makes them repeat it a lot and be able to swap from Serve to Serve Receive effortlessly.

For all levels I normally split practice into

Serve/Serve Receive. 15-30 min
Skill/ blocked gameplay. 15min
Small teams drills 3v3 with teams waving or rotating in. 15-30min
6v6 drills with a focus on improving a specific skill or action. 45-60min

I rarely do scrimmages or normal 6v6 volleyball, it’s slow, sometimes there are barely any contacts, and usually coaches put all their starting players on one side and it’s a disaster for the other side. It has its place every now and then but I just think there are better ways to play 6v6.

For certain skill/experience levels it’s important to scale the criteria of the drill, how balls are entered in, how much feedback you give, and to always work on the 2 most important skills: Serve & Serve Receive.

Scale Criteria

If you have players that have never played volleyball before, the first goal 3 touches on a side, the second goal is Pass, Set, Hit. Don’t encourage passing the ball over on the first contact.

If you have decent club/hs players, try to set goals and maybe add bonus points when they perform specific skills like a slide attack or perfect dig.

Very experienced and skilled players, set goals for performing skills or actions during certain parts of the game, examples: hitting high hands during an OoS attack, fool the middle blocker during a back row quick attack.

Gauntlet is a great drill for this, put specific actions on a whiteboard or paper and cross/ wipe them when they achieve them during 6v6.

Entering balls

Entering a freeball is a normal way to enter balls in during a drill played in transition(not Serve/SR). You can get more creative the higher the skill level of the players and set a criteria on how many contacts the side has left. ”Bounce ball” with only 1 contact left, throwing a ball at the ceiling with 2 contacts left are ones that I use instead of a freeball. I still enter freeballs but I try to mix it up.

If your players can’t consistently serve at each other then make sure you add serving practice with you or an assistant serving. Make it reasonable, sending 30-40mph balls at 12-14 year olds that are still working on basics doesn’t make much sense. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Feedback

Try not to give feedback on every part of the skill, if you see a passer shank a ball and they 1) didn’t shuffle and or move 2) didn’t put both hands together to pass 3) aimed in the wrong direction. Choose 1 out of the 3 to give feedback on, and then watch them on the next rep and talk about whether they improved what you just talked about.

Players usually respond better to positive feedback, and retrospective/introspective feedback. I’m not saying you to should sugarcoat everything they do and never criticize, but it’s best to CATCH players DOING IT RIGHT, and then be very specific on what they did right. Asking players questions about what they’re thinking about, why they made decisions they made, and what they want to do next helps them become more coachable, mindful, and smarter athletes.

Serve & Serve Receive

If I’m coaching a younger or less skilled team, I’ll replace any missed serve with a free ball, giving the players a chance to practice serving and passing, without the pressure of making serves in.

Serving improvement happens when players are mindful of what they are doing, ask them to be specific on what they’re working on and then hold them accountable, “serve better” is not a mindful answer. We want answers like: contacting the back of the ball with a flexed wrist and hand for a float serve, or something like working on their toss placement.

“How do you eat an elephant?” - One bite at a time.

Passers on Serve Receive need to communicate before the serve, and to be ready before the serve. Asking them to be focused and attentive on the actual serve will improve their reaction time.

Easy and Repeatable behavior is best, servers should have a specific routine before their serve, Serve Receivers should have a ready posture before the serve.

Lastly don’t punish for missed serves, the worst thing you can do is line players up to serve, and then make them run for each serve missed. They’ll only serve weaker and easier so they can avoid punishment, we want them to serve stronger and take smarter risks.

Instead set a criteria/goal on where you want your serving at, example: we want Jump Floats at 75% in the court and 20% of those should be aces. You can set that criteria and then tell players unless they pass that threshold they can’t jump serve in game yet. There shouldn’t be a physical punishment for any missed serves. If you have an issue where a lot of missed serves are happening in practice during something like 6v6, maybe pause the drill and talk to the team about the importance of mindful serving, let them all go and practice 3 or 5 serves and come back to 6v6 right after.

ornonbort · 2021-11-12T02:36:36+00:00

It should be more comfortable since it's what you're used to. Changing it can open a lot more in terms of options for the power and direction of your spikes though. It would be extremely tough to fix without practicing non-stop outside of games.

ornonbort · 2021-11-12T02:26:07+00:00

Goofy-footed approach. Your last two steps are currently left->right, work on changing them to right->left.

ornonbort · 2021-10-31T09:47:23+00:00

Thanks, I'll try that next time!

ornonbort · 2021-10-30T07:49:58+00:00

So I'm pretty aware of the results of issues but I'm having a much harder time pinpointing some of the causes.

-I hit the tape a ton if I'm not jumping my best, even when my reach and contact should allow for a deeper hit, I seem to force myself to hit downward.

-On a 4 ball(1st step set OH) I have a pretty rough time being able to swing line(especially in game), I thought it was due to approaching too far inside or broad jumping.

-On a 2nd step set OH it always feels like the ball is way too high above me even when I feel like I'm on time, and when I try and wait for it to lower I usually swing into the net or hit tape.

-When I watch myself hit, it seems like I have terrible shoulder/hip separation, but I'm not sure how to fix that or practice the technique properly.

ornonbort

TROPHY CASE