Handball Practice 14 – Interaction of back position players with the pivot

Shifting, Screening, and Using the Russian Screen

The small group play of the back position players and the pivot is an important offense element in almost each age group. The basics of interacting with the pivot should already be established in the training of youth teams. Positioning and screening play an important role here. The first three training units in the book provide different options of interacting with the pivot. With increasing age, the space for team play gets smaller. This leads to more challenging running paths for the back position players and higher requirements for the pivot’s screening. Particularly in adult teams, the physical characteristics of the pivot play a role, too. The last training unit focuses on achieving positional advantages by positioning the physically stronger pivot next to a physically weaker defending player (mismatch). The courses of each training unit are set up step by step and have numerous supporting notes. This book contains the following training units: TU 1: Individual training for the pivot – Pushing through the defense with the Russian screen The objective of this training unit is to improve the positioning of the pivot. After warm-up and a short game, there will be a goalkeeper warm-up shooting from the pivot position. The players practice the pivot’s pushing through the defense in an individual offense exercise. Afterwards, there are two exercises in which the players practice positioning and the Russian screen in small groups against defensive and semi-offensive defense players. The players should implement the variants in the closing game. TU 2: Pivot – Achieving positional advantages in small-group team play The objective of this training unit is to improve the positioning of the pivot. Following warm-up and a short game, the players practice passing to the pivot under difficult conditions and with different passing variants during the ball familiarization and goalkeeper warm-up shooting phases. Afterwards, there will be an individual exercise regarding the pivot’s screening followed by two small group exercises in which the interaction with the back position and wing players will be practiced. In a closing game, the players should implement what they practiced before. TU 3: Improving the interaction of back position players with the pivot The objective of this training unit is to practice the interaction of a back position player with the pivot. Following warm-up and a running coordination exercise, the players prepare for the running moves in the back positions during the ball familiarization phase. After the goalkeeper warm-up shooting, there will be three offense exercises in which the players further develop the team play step by step. In a 4-on-4 game, the players should implement what they practiced before. TU 4: Small group game: Piston movement / countermovement of the back position players and interaction with the pivot This training unit focuses on the interaction of the back position players with each other regarding piston movement/countermovement and passing to the pivot. Following warm-up, the back position players take the first methodical step regarding the interaction with the pivot during the ball familiarization phase. During the goalkeeper warm-up shooting and a subsequent offense exercise, the players practice the piston movement/countermovement which should result in a shot. In the following two small group exercises, the players stepwise further develop their piston movement/countermovement and the interaction with the pivot. The final exercise combines the different elements that the players practiced before with an initial action and creative continuous playing. TU 5: Acting against the defending wing position player with a physically stronger pivot This training unit focuses on simple initial actions in order to gain positional advantage by having a physically stronger pivot play against a physically weaker defense player on the wing positions. The warm-up phase focuses on coordination. Afterwards, the players practice the first steps of the subsequent team play during the ball familiarization and goalkeeper warm-up shooting phases. The three subsequent offense exercises consist of the preparation and the final 1-on-1 play to get the pivot into a good shooting position. A closing game completes this training unit.