Chris Austin was a 2 Time NCAA Championship starting setter at UCI under John Speraw and David Kniffin, two of the best coaches currently in men’s volleyball. On top of this he coaches an undersized club team that is currently ranked as one of the top 4 boys teams in the nation. This team he coached for over 4 years while playing and winning championships at UCI.
This post contains an elite level full youth club volleyball practice plan with Chris Austin, 2 Time NCAA Champion at UCI and coach to undersized boys team ranked as one of the top 10 teams in the country. This post contains links to all 33 videos with Chris Austin from full youth club volleyball practice.
This is the final video and portion of practice. In the video we describe in detail the last part of practice and how Chris organizes the 6 on 6 portion of practice. This video also shows the final drills plus the remaining portion of practice.
This video now features the 6 on 6 game play portion of practice. This is where all the skills and drills so far are now introduced in a game like situation to maximize transfer in the athletes. As a side note, Chris left the following day to go compete in Europe professionally playing indoor.
In this video Andor and Chris discuss and review the practice thus far and the goals for the rest of the training. Chris also outlines how he plans on now incorporating the skills that the players learned and worked on in the early part of practice into the game like 6 on 6 portion of practice.
The next drill is 5 rep each jump serve drill. This video includes verbal cues for coaching indoor volleyball jump serving. Also in this video Chris discusses the timing and purpose of the drill.
This is a great video for volleyball coaches where Chris Austin explains some of his volleyball coaching cues for routes, rhythm and timing. Chris explains consistent concepts he uses so that players can quickly understand what he means without having to explain himself each time. We highly suggest you use this or something similar for your own coaching system.
This videos features a different version of the hitting lines warm up drills. Each player gets 2 balls, one fast, then another slower ball which simulates transition footwork with a slower set. This drill again shows how much thought Cris puts into every drill and designing his practice to maximize good touches and game like situations.
This drill features 5 reps each of the players performing the jump float serve. This drill and video includes verbal cues, plus some great info on why each player on Chris’s team learn every type of serve and can perform them in game if needed. This style and philosophy of coaching is not common but makes allot of sense and should be adopted by more coaches.
This series of 3 videos features Chris Austin teaching his players the important skills of jousting and tooling the block. This is another series of videos that highlights how good Chris is as a coach. He is able to help and teach his players a new skill quickly and because of how the drill is designed and how he teaches, the player experience allot of transfer and pick up the skill rather quickly.
In this video Chris Austin has his players run a drill focusing on taking advantage of an over pass by hitting around the block, swiping or tooling. This video demonstrates Chris creativity as well as should help coaches learn how to make more unique drills themselves. Also again it is insightful to see how a coach should adjust practice planning based upon individual and team goals and problems.
In this video Chris Austin breaks down practice planning based upon goals and time line with in the season. It is important for coaches to hear and learn when he is results based focused verses technical outcome focused. Also how things change from day to day, week to week and month to month. Allot of thought goes into good coaching and when you listen to someone like Chris you will see how this happens!
This part of practice features 5 rep standing float serve drill for each player. This video features coaching verbal cues info as to the purpose of working on the standing float serve. What I also like about Chris coaching style is that all players can perform all serves successfully. This allows allot more flexibility of what the players can do at the service line plus raises the expectations and responsibilities each player has when serving.
This drill features 5 different skills / mini drills that they do 5 times each between 2 players. The drill, call 5 by 5 ball control and armswing warm up again shows how Chris controls every aspect of practice so as to maximize every ball touch and help his players develop ball control and good habits while doing it. It is remarkable watching this when you compare how 99% of coaches organize their practice by comparison.
This video features the controlled volleyball setting warm up drill with Chris Austin. This video is revealing as it shows how Chris control many aspects of the practice to help the players maintain good form and technique. In this drill the number of contacts is limited during the drill in order to keep the players in system and thus more controlled while executing the skills needed to perform the drill.
This video features team volleyball blocking trips with Chris Austin. In this video you will hear important verbal cues when coaching volleyball blocking technique. To see more indoor blocking drills or beach blocking drills click the links. Also click the links for indoor blocking technique, beach blocking technique, indoor blocking demonstrations and beach blocking demonstrations.
The next video features volleyball warm up exercises and drills called jog, core, dynamics. This is a great warm up for players of all levels and is quick and effective. This drill is a combination of what Chris learned at UCI (Playing), USC (Coaching), and USA National Team (Coaching and Playing).
This video features Chris Austin taking his team through a early practice volleyball visualization exercises. This is a the first time we have filmed this in practice, yet volleyball visualization it not something unheard of. For Example we have filmed practices with Tom Black where the team has done visualization before or after practice.
Chris has finished working with the setters individually and is now focused on the full team. To start practice he introduces the players to the full practice outline / plan, plus shares his individual and team goals for the training. This is a great video as you get to see how he interacts with his players, how he discusses topics and drills plus much more. Watching others coach is one of the best things you can do yourself to get better as a coach.
This setting drill is final drill in the progression of setting drills and the focus is on decision making and dumping the ball. The players approach from area 4 and then based upon the pass have to decide are they dumping or are they setting. Chris often changes the drills in the series based upon what he see as the setters needs for that week but he always trys to get at least 1 decision making drill into the setter warm up drills.
The next progression in the warm up / early practice setting drills with Chris Austin is setter coming from area 4 and setting 2 balls: 1 – In system, 1 – Out system. The setters are encouraged to jump set and this drill simulates more what happens in a long rally when a player is blocked.
The next progression of the warm up skill building setting drills is the two setters approaching from rotations 1, 3 and 4 in serve receive type format. Each setter sets one ball and then repeats. 4 Balls each for a “In System”, “Medium”, “Out of System” pass. Focus is getting their feet set then making the same moves and footwork to the ball.
In this video Chris Austin starts by explaining how they run setting drills and clinics. Then the video follows with a progression of the setting drills with a multi-ball stationary drill. The multi-ball stationary drill basically allows the setter to get a feel of just setting, pulling together what they did in drill 1 – where the focus was just hands, and drill 2 – where the focus was just feet. The drill consist of coach tossing 8 balls to the players and the setter setting front or back with an “In system” toss.
n this video Chris Austin (2 Time NCAA Champ as starting setter for University of California, Irvine) explains why he breaks down setting into hands and footwork patterns. Chris, spent year under coaches John Speraw and David Kniffin. Both coaches were NCAA coaches of the year and John is the current head of the USA Men’s National Team.
This early practice volleyball setting drill works on just footwork patterns when setting. This drill should be performed before practice or while the rest of the team sets up the nets and warms up. You will notice hand position (Drill 1 in series) is broken up from footwork (Drill 2 in the series). This drill teaches detailed info on volleyball setting footwork.
This video features one of our favorite youth volleyball setting drills. We encourage all youth coaches – high school and club to use this or similar drills during the early part of their practice to help develop their setters. Chris is a 2 time NCAA champion starting setter under two of the best coaches in men’s volleyball (John Speraw and David Kniffin). On top of this he coached club for 4 years while starting and winning at UCI – University of California Irvine.
This is a intro video for some new content with instructor is Chris Austin, UCI starting volleyball setter who won 2 NCAA Championships at University of Irvine under NCAA Coaches of the Years; John Speraw and David Kniffin. Two of the best coaches currently in men’s volleyball. Chris offers unique insights in his series of videos as he is one of the few top college players who coached club while playing college at the highest level and this gives him a unique perspective on what works and what does not!
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