Whats up y'all, Justin here. After I posted this blog earlier in the week based on the conditioning test work of SCN members Eric Guthrie and Joe Alexander; I had a SCN member comment on social media saying that he adopted the Tribe Test for Volleyball.
I asked him if he would be willing to write a blog on it.
Obviously he agreed, here it is. If you have done something like this with the sport you work with - PLEASE reach out to us so we can feature a blog by you.
Without further words from me, here is William Lund on the Tribe Test for Volleyball Players.
My Evolution into the Tribe Test
In July of 2019, I was hired as an assistant football coach and strength and conditioning coordinator at Roosevelt University. I began investigating better ways to prepare teams, including how to structure a conditioning test. During the spring of 2021—while we were all still dealing with the fallout from COVID—I came across Keir Wenham-Flatt’s Tribe Test. His online clinic resonated deeply with me. Everything I had questioned and pondered about training suddenly made sense.
I grew up and played high school football during a time when coaches said things like, “No water until we get this right.” Conditioning consisted of what we called Green Bays: 10 100s, 8 80s, 6 60s, 4 40s, 2 20s. It was expected—you gutted through it, cramps be damned. In college, it was the infamous 16 x 110s. Strangely, I enjoyed them. My junior year at Lawrence University, I passed the test easily, thanks to my summer training at Officer Candidate School in Quantico, VA, which prepared me for anything physically demanding.
Even one of the most successful teams I was part of—Colby College in 2000—used the 16 x 110s. Everyone who returned that season crushed the test, and we went on to win the NESCAC. At the time, I believed this was the ultimate conditioning test. We were fit, mentally tough, and we won. But was it the test that made the difference? Correlation doesn’t imply causation. We had hardworking players who did everything the coaches asked. They played with passion, were competitive, and formed one of the closest teams I’ve ever been part of. I was there for five more seasons and ran that test every year with flying colors, but it wasn’t until my fifth year that we were fighting for the conference title again.
Around 2005, I began diving deeper into strength and conditioning. The more I learned, the more I questioned. I started noticing cracks in our ideology—pulls, strains, soft tissue injuries. Coaches wanted to build speed, yet we rarely trained speed. Everything revolved around “conditioning,” but I kept asking myself: Why are we training this way when the game is played differently? Now, 20 years later, I look back at what I once thought was great programming and think, “Man, that was crazy.”
Fast forward to the present day—it took five years and a coach willing to let me implement the Tribe Test as our main conditioning protocol. The pitch to the players was simple. The previous test was the 300-yard shuttle, a daunting challenge that many avoided training for in the off-season. Instead, they’d do something else and hope for the best when camp arrived. Athletic trainers would relay stories to me from previous years: players suffering pulls, strains, and heat exhaustion—culminating in missed critical early-season practice time.
We ran our first iteration of the test in the spring of 2025 to gauge where we were and how the athletes would respond. This fall, we ran the 12 sprints of the Forester Test (Tribe Test): 20-yard sprints with a change of direction, covering as much ground as possible in five seconds. We set thresholds—300 yards for our Bigs, 330 for our Mids, and 360 for our Skill players. All returning players passed, and we’ll likely increase the thresholds next year. Incoming freshmen who followed the plan were also successful. We successfully mitigated soft tissue injuries going into the start of camp.
The Plan
Day 1: Speed Development
Flying 10s and Flying 20s to build top-end speed.
Day 2: Agility & Change of Direction
Focused on movement efficiency and reactive ability.
Day 3: Acceleration & Deceleration
Training explosive starts and controlled stops.
Day 4: Volume/Conditioning Day
Started with 6 max-effort sprints over 5 seconds, with 45 seconds rest. Each week, I added 2 sprints or reduced rest by 5 seconds until we reached 12 sprints with 30 seconds rest—the test standard.
This approach—short bursts of effort rather than grinding through multiple 300-yard shuttles—was far more achievable. The max effort and velocity of the work better prepared our athletes for practice and reduced soft tissue injuries. The test also allowed us to develop speed, agility, and energy systems relevant to football.
Expanding Tribe Test to Volleyball
The success of the football program in the spring got me thinking about other sports. Our volleyball coach reached out about their conditioning test. She was in her first season and inherited a team that needed to be better prepared going into her second year. The previous tests didn’t give her meaningful insight into their readiness.
After initial discussions, I adapted the Tribe Test (aka Forester Test at Lake Forest College) for volleyball. I researched average volley duration—5 to 7 seconds for rallies—and rest between points—19 to 25 seconds. Matches go up to 25 points, with a fifth set at 15. For version 1 of the volleyball test, I used 5-second efforts with 25 seconds of rest, working in 30-second increments for simplicity.
Next, I had to determine the distance. A volleyball court is 30 feet wide (29.9 to be exact), so I went with 10-yard sprints. Each 5-second effort included 2–3 changes of direction. I chose 15 efforts to simulate a fifth set, with room to build to 20 or 25 reps. Cones marked each yard for tracking distance.
We ran a spring version with returning players to establish a baseline. Their average was 335 yards. In the fall, including incoming freshmen, the team averaged 345 yards. The coach was ecstatic—her team was clearly better prepared, and there were no soft tissue injuries. Version 1 was a success and now serves as a template to build from.
In speaking with the athletes, they were more than willing to follow the conditioning plan, knowing they were working on things that made sense for their sport.
What began this journey was an attempt to reverse-engineer a testing protocol that aligned with the demands of a given sport. Reading about what Keir accomplished with the Tribe Test provided a clear roadmap. Now, I look across various sports to explore how we can create meaningful tests—ones that don’t induce anxiety and can be adequately prepared for within the constraints of school, classes, work, and other commitments.
In doing so, we’ve found a way to efficiently test athletes while simultaneously offering a framework for developing high-level off-season training—helping our athletes perform at their best when the season arrives.
-Bill Lund
Head Strength & Conditioning Coach
Lake Forest College
Lake Forest, IL
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Wrapping it up
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