Practicing with Four People

It’s much easier and usually preferred to drill with just one person but there’s a lot of merit in practicing as two complete teams.

When done correctly, practicing as two teams can allow you to work on very specific plays and game-like scenarios. Have you ever practiced as two pairs and if so, do you head into the session with a plan or does it just end up as regular games?  

Although it’s great to end with a game or two, practices should consist of drilling, despite the number of people on the court.

With team sports, it’s really simple to run a practice. For example in soccer, you focus on cardio and footwork drills, then you run plays and end with versions of games or a scrimmage. 

Anyway, in this article I will be focusing on some good ways to practice with four people!

Image credit: Sara McInnes

Once you’ve got the participants and location, I think a good place is to decide on the length of the session and sort of break down the time into blocks:

- Start with a 5 or 10 minute dynamic warm up (that could also be done before practice begins);

- Then move to a typical on-court warm up which for tournament purposes doesn't take any longer than 5 minutes, but, if you really want to do a proper on-court warm up then give yourselves about 10 minutes.

- 20-30 minutes should then be allocated to drills;

- If you want to end with a game/scrimmage then set aside 20 minutes for that 

- If you’re practicing for a tournament, it also might be helpful to give yourself 30 minutes for a game if the format is best 2/3 (if the tournament is running up to 15 points or rally scoring I think 20 minutes should be enough time), then again, it can also very well go longer than 30 minutes, especially if the teams are evenly matched 

All of this is pretty simple, it certainly doesn’t sound flashy or complicated, but can easily take up one hour, give yourself time to work on the drill, don’t rush through it, and take the time to hydrate throughout.

Here are some suggestions on what two teams could focus on during practice:

- One team on offensive and one team on defensive - the team on offensive is the only team that can speed up the ball, the other team must work defensively to get through the point

- The kitchen game is where both teams aim to place the ball only in the non-volley zone. A ball that carries outside of the zone is considered “out”. Switch sides to serve between points as you would in a full court game.

- Specifically, work on serve, return and third shot drive to practice the shake and bake. The shake and bake is when your partner poaches a high ball after you have driven it from the baseline - this play is a great way to grab a few points in just a few shots.

- Work on isolating a player or isolating a team's weakness

- Focus on practicing your own weaknesses (as individuals or as a team)

- Work on lob coordination - who’s taking the lob and where the other partner moves

- Third shot practice - drill the serve and return and who takes the third shot - sometimes this is hard to practice, I’ve partnered with some people who determine who takes the third shot strictly based on streakiness

- Stacking - if you’re a team that wants to stack, then a practice is the best place to get familiar with it, I do not recommend you implement stacking until comfortable - as mentioned in a recent article

- A cooperative drill is to create a “W” of volleys amongst all four players (two players will be hitting cross-court and two others will be hitting down the line, creating a “W” pattern

Image credit: Racket Sports World

Planning a Practice for Others? It takes a lot of consideration - here are some areas to think about while planning:

- There are areas they’ll want to work on

- There are areas you have observed that you feel they should work on

- What’s the best area(s) to work on based on the next upcoming competition?

- Are the practice conditions the same as the playing conditions? If not, can you make it as close to the same as possible (i.e. same ball, court surface, indoor vs outdoor)

This article was taken from our 'Control the Kitchen' Newsletter, if you're interested in receiving more content like this, please feel free to sign up using the subscribe section located at the bottom left of this page (or underneath the article if you're on mobile), thanks!