Practice videos

109. Practice videos: Tuomas Sammelvuo - Osaka Bluteon

What is happening in the training gyms around the world? Today, we have Tuomas Sammelvuo reviewing one of his practice sessions.

🔍 Intro

We've already featured 26 practice video articles with pro and college coaches, and today it's time for our 27th Practice session article here on volleybrains.com.

At VolleyBrains, we bring you inside practice gyms worldwide to see how top coaches develop their teams.

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Navigate to our practice videos page for an overview of all the featured practice videos. Be sure to leverage this unique resource.

👊 The coach who's guiding us today

In this practice video session, we’re guided by Tuomas Sammelvuo, a Finnish head coach who is currently leading Japanese SV.League team Osaka Bluteon.

Coach Sammelvuo’s journey has run straight through the heart of world-class volleyball. After an elite playing career across Europe and Asia, he moved into coaching in the early 2010s with the Finnish national team, quickly establishing himself as a top international mind.

From there, his path has taken him through some of the game’s biggest benches and countries: he led Russian club Kuzbass Kemerovo and the Russian national team, guiding them to VNL gold in 2019 and Olympic silver in Tokyo. He then coached Russian side Zenit Saint Petersburg before taking charge of Polish powerhouses ZAKSA Kędzierzyn-Koźle and Asseco Resovia Rzeszów in the PlusLiga, and more recently the Canadian national team and Japanese club Osaka Bluteon.

Known for his tactical clarity, and ability to connect across cultures, Coach Sammelvuo puts a strong emphasis on communication and shared responsibility.

Before you dive into the training, you could also revisit Tuomas’s Masterclass article over here:

Osaka in action

⚡ What's inside the practice videos?

Osaka Bluteon is built around a powerful mix of top-level Japanese stars like opposite Yuji Nishida, complemented by physical foreign spikers and a world-class setter in Antoine Brizard.

Supplementing traditional Japanese ball control with attacking height, power, and a fast, creative offense.

Inside the video session some of coach Sammelvuo’s takeaways are:

Spike warm-up that teaches system and technique
Attackers work on one- and two-ball sequences with targets and footwork cues.
Opponent-specific 6v6 to handle tips and pushes
Training both the reading of these situations and the mental reset after “ugly” points.
Simple, named defensive systems with clear visual anchors
Tape on net and floor fixes starting positions; Defense A/B/D tell defenders exactly where to move.
Pre-game style serving to build rhythm and reps
Short “pre-game service” block with one-side serving doubles contacts per server, even with a big roster.
Managing ultra-fast transition without losing quality
Working on set location and approach paths so attackers still have multiple attacking options.
Clear role definitions in block, defense, and coverage
Offensive spikers are protected for transition, while defensive spikers and the libero take extra responsibility on tips, pushes, and attack coverage.
Balanced team structure without “A team / B team” labels
Everyone knows who plays more and who plays less, so simply name sides (e.g. “Team Anto”) instead of ranking them, avoiding unnecessary hierarchy that doesn’t add value to the work.
and so much more...