Tally VolleyballHow to Run a Volleyball Testing Day
A testing day measures how high and how hard your players can play: how high they reach, how high they jump, how fast they hit and serve. Done the same way every six to eight weeks, it shows who is getting better long before the box score does.
The six measures
Most programs take some or all of these. Lengths are in feet and inches (or centimetres), speeds in miles an hour (or km/h).
| Measure | How to take it | Tries |
|---|---|---|
| Height | Shoes off, heels, back and head against the wall. | 1 |
| Standing reach | Flat feet, one arm straight up, highest fingertip on the wall or a vertec. | 1 |
| Standing jump reach | Feet set, no step, jump from both feet and touch as high as possible. | 3 |
| Approach jump reach | A full attack approach, touch at the highest point with one hand. | 3 |
| Spike speed | A tossed or set ball hit at full speed, radar gun behind the hitter. | 3 |
| Serve speed | A match serve from the end line, radar gun behind the server. | 3 |
Keep the best try. Round a reach down to the half inch: 9 feet 9 and three quarters is 9'9½. Add your own measures if you test anything else, such as a pro agility time, a broad jump or a plank.
Work out the verticals; never measure them
A vertical jump is a difference, so take the two reaches and subtract:
Approach vertical = Approach jump reach − Standing reach
Standing vertical = Standing jump reach − Standing reach
A player with a standing reach of 7'10 and an approach jump reach of 9'9½ has a 23½ inch approach vertical. On a women's net (7'4⅛) that approach jump is 29⅜ inches over the tape, which is the number a hitter cares about. Standing reach changes slowly, so measure it on the first day and again every few months; the jumps are what you take every time.
Run it by station
With one coach, twelve players and all six measures take about 45 minutes. With two or three coaches each on a station, it fits in the first part of a practice:
- Station 1, the wall: height and standing reach, one try each. Fast, so it goes first.
- Station 2, the jumps: standing jump reach, then approach jump reach, three tries each.
- Station 3, the gun: spike speed and serve speed.
Send the players through in the same order every time, warm them up the same way, and test at the same point in the week. A testing day after a tournament weekend measures fatigue, not progress.
Read the results
- Change since last time is what to talk about with a player: did the work of the last six weeks show up?
- Change since the first test is the season's story, and the one parents ask about.
- A drop is worth a question, not a lecture: a sore knee, a growth spurt, a bad night's sleep.
- Over the net turns a vertical into volleyball: a middle who gains two inches of approach reach now hits over a block they used to hit into.
Run a testing day in Tally
Choose Measure players in Live's + menu, tick the measures, set the tries, and pick By station or By player. The pad asks for the foot, then the inch, then a half if there is one, and moves to the next player in line. Other coaches tap Join measuring on their own phones, and every try lands on the same day, with no signal needed. Tally works out both verticals and how far over your net each jump is, and Team, Measures marks every new best.
Start free →Or try a sample team first, no account needed. See player development →