What makes improvement? Time or deliberate repetitions? Deliberate repetitions are cornerstone of learning, and for sure also we need to these repetitions in long period of time and with consistency to learn the skill deeply. On the other hand, we have limited time in our practice, so we should make balance between organizing each drill based on correct repetitions or time. Maybe one efficient way is organizing the drill based on correct repetitions in limited time, and if we couldn’t reach the goal in the organized time, we can continue the drill in next training session. For example, if the goal is training on serve, instead of organizing 20 minutes for serve, we can organize 5 good serve to line, 5 good serve to diagonal direction, and 5 good short serve, all in maximum 20 minutes.
If we accept that deliberate repetitions are core principle in drill design, then we must count the number of repetitions of each skill for each player during the practice and try to increase this number per hour or per minute in order to increase the practice productivity. We think that these numbers are very important to count:
- Number of serve receptions of out-side hitters and liberoes
- Number of serve of each player
- Number of attack of each player in different situations (attack after reception, attack after defense, back row attack, attack on high balls, attack versus different number of blockers and …)
- Number of attacks after setter’s defense
Number of sets of each player