A few seasons back I inherited a team stuck at 52% side-out, and the staff was convinced the problem was hitting. We spent two weeks on swing mechanics and the number barely moved. The real leak was earlier: passers giving the setter nothing to work with, and an offense that fell apart the second a pass came in off the net. Once we fixed the first contact and built a plan for bad passes, side-out climbed past 60% in a month.
That’s the order this guide follows, because it’s the order that works. You raise side-out percentage by fixing the pass first, then building an offense that scores even when the pass is bad, then hunting down the one rotation quietly dragging your average down. If you’re not sure what the number itself means or how to track it, the side-out percentage guide covers that, and the side-out definition explains the term itself. This page is about moving it.
Start with the pass, because everything else depends on it
Every side-out lives or dies on the first contact. The quality of your pass sets the ceiling on everything the offense can do after it, so before you touch hitting or play-calling, find out whether your passing is actually the constraint.
The cleanest way to see this is expected side-out, a concept the analyst Joe Trinsey has written about in depth. The idea is simple: different pass qualities produce different side-out rates, so you can predict how often you should be siding out based purely on how you passed. Trinsey’s ballpark numbers for NCAA women’s volleyball are a useful reference. A perfect pass converts to a side-out about 67% of the time, a medium pass around 60%, and a bad pass closer to 53%, with those numbers sliding down a bit at lower levels.
Run the math on your own passing and you get a target. If your passers produce mostly perfect and medium passes, you should be siding out in the low 60s. If you’re well under that, the problem isn’t the pass, it’s what happens after it. If you’re at or above your expected number, your offense is doing its job and the way to climb higher is better passing, full stop.
Here’s the part most coaches get backward. Chasing more perfect passes matters less than killing your service-reception errors. A clean run of medium passes with no aces against you will out-score a mix of brilliant passes wrapped around shanks, because every ace is a side-out you never even got to attempt. Train the floor of your passing before you train the ceiling.
Build an offense that scores off a bad pass
Good servers will take your perfect pass away. Against an aggressive jump serve or a nasty float, you might get a clean pass on half your receptions and scramble for the rest. If your only plan is to pass perfectly, one good server dismantles you in a single rotation.
This is where out-of-system side-out separates resilient offenses from brittle ones. Out-of-system, OOS, is what your offense produces when the pass rates a 1 and your setter is pulled off the net to the three-meter line or worse. Aim to convert those balls at 35% or better. If your OOS number sits below 25%, treat it as a flashing warning light. One aggressive server can end your night.
Raising it comes down to having more than one answer when the pass is bad. Train your wing hitters to terminate high balls instead of waiting for a quick set. Run a back-row attack out of the pipe so the ball isn’t always going to the same pin. Give your setter permission to dump on two when the defense leans. The teams that convert out-of-system aren’t waiting for a perfect pass to score, and that’s a habit you build in practice, not something that shows up on game day.
Find the rotation that’s leaking
Most teams have one rotation running well below the others. That’s the side-out rut, a rotation sitting 15% or more under your match average, and a single bad one can drag a healthy total down while hiding where the real problem is. You might side out at 70% in your strongest rotation and crater to 48% when your setter is front-row and the passing alignment shifts.
I get it. Watching one rotation collapse over and over is frustrating, and the instinct is to overhaul the whole lineup. Usually you don’t need to. Pull your match data, find the rotation running below your average, and figure out whether it’s a passing breakdown or a hitter who can’t score against a particular block. The diagnosis decides the fix. A passing problem gets platform reps. A hitter problem gets a lineup conversation.
One more diagnostic worth the effort: track your side-out by which opponent is serving, not just by your own rotation. Spot servers, often the libero, are dropped in to hunt your weakest passer. Your side-out can read healthy by rotation and still hide the fact that one server is quietly taking a specific passer apart. Tracking by server is where that leak shows up.
Four drills that move the number
These aren’t warm-up games. Each one targets a specific metric and exposes the weakness behind it, so run them as diagnostics first and conditioning second.
Expected side-out passing drill
Run full serve-receive with your starting passers and chart every pass on the 0-3 scale in real time. Convert the passes to an expected side-out using Trinsey’s reference numbers, then play the rally out and compare what you actually scored to what you should have. When your real side-out lags your expected number, the offense is underperforming the passing and that’s your focus. When it beats the expected number, your passing is the constraint. The drill teaches passers to value a steady run of medium passes with no aces, because that’s what produces a high expected number in the first place.
Out-of-system termination
Toss balls that simulate 1-passes, sending them to Zones 1 and 5 or well off the net so the setter has to work from a compromised spot. Score it to punish brittleness. A kill out of system is worth 2, a transition side-out is worth 1, and a failed side-out costs a point. First team to 15 wins. The drill trains the offense to score from a bad pass, and it tells you fast which hitters can bail you out and which only swing when the set is gift-wrapped.
First-ball kill race
Play full serve-receive into attack with your servers going aggressive, and keep first-ball side-out and overall side-out scores separately so you can compare them. A first-ball kill is worth 3, a transition side-out is worth 1, and a failed side-out is worth nothing. First team to 21 takes it. The 3-to-1 weighting builds urgency around the first swing, so passers focus on giving the setter options and hitters commit to real swings instead of safe roll shots.
Rotation rut isolation
Pull your weakest rotation from match data and lock the team into it for the whole drill. The opponent serves 20 balls, you chart side-out for that sequence, and you repeat until you hit a target like 60%. Generic serve-receive never fixes a rotation-specific problem, because the failing lineup combination barely comes up in open play. This forces concentrated reps in exactly the alignment that’s costing you. If you can’t clear 55% in that rotation after 40 serves, the issue isn’t reps. It’s personnel, and the answer is a lineup change.
Frequently asked questions
How do I improve my side-out percentage?
Work in order. Fix the first contact so your passing produces a high expected side-out, build an out-of-system offense that scores when the pass is bad, then find and drill the one rotation running below your match average. Most low side-out numbers trace back to passing or to a single leaking rotation, not to hitting.
Why is my side-out percentage low?
Usually one of three things: serve-receive that pushes you out of system too often, an offense that can’t convert anything but a perfect pass, or a single weak rotation dragging the total down. Track your side-out by rotation and by opposing server to tell which one it is.
What is a good out-of-system side-out percentage?
Converting out-of-system balls at 35% or better is a real edge. Below 25% is a warning sign, because it means one aggressive server can take your offense apart by denying you clean passes.
What drills improve side-out percentage?
The most useful ones are scored to expose a specific weakness: an expected side-out passing drill to check whether passing or offense is the constraint, an out-of-system termination drill, a first-ball kill race that rewards early termination, and a rotation rut isolation drill for your worst lineup combination.
Where to put your reps
The fastest gains come from fixing the first contact and building an offense that doesn’t fall apart on a bad pass. Measure your expected side-out, train the floor of your passing before the ceiling, and give your hitters more than one answer when the setter is scrambling. Then find the rotation that’s leaking and drill it in isolation until it holds. Do that work and the side-out percentage you track on Monday starts climbing on its own.
Keep serving,
Ryan Walker