Find drills for your next practice, fun games for volleyball camp, and articles covering topics like visualization and playing time philosophy!
Want your team to finish matches strong and battle back when behind? The "Keep the Lead" drill forces players to close out games, fight through adversity, and execute under pressureâmaking it a must-have in any high-level volleyball practice!
Read MoreWant your volleyball players to move their feet? This progressive passing drill teaches players how to adjust, react, and make game-like decisions. Includes variations to maximize movement, communication, and accuracy!
Read MoreWhen we see the ball heading for the net, our first emotion is worry. But we can turn this into a situation that our players handle with ease and confidence! It just takes a little practice.
With this quick and easy drill, youâll have your players not only passing out of the net, but attacking the ball back over!
Read MoreWith the constant threat of being captured, âPrisonerâ is a volleyball drill that challenges players to step up and perform under pressure. And because players on the court can rescue their teammates, anyone whoâs on the sidelines stays engaged in the drill, cheering loudly!
Read MoreStart any match out strong with the âfirst killâ mentality! Confidence in serve receive comes from high-quality reps, which your volleyball team will get plenty of in this drill!
Read MoreRun this advanced volleyball drill with high school and club teams who need to work on their block coverage! Players will get a ton of reps working on covering the block and will feel confident handling a block in a match.
Read MoreServe receive is one of the most critical elements of volleyball. Without a decent pass in serve receive, many teams will struggle to send an aggressive attack back to their opponent. But by developing one simple skill, your players can better predict where the serve will go. This will dramatically improve your odds of passing up a playable ball. That skill?
Eye-sequencing.
Read MoreVolleyball relies on quick bursts of speed. Sprinting, jumping, diving, reacting⊠but conditioning is important, too! Use this fun and easy volleyball game to work on serving accuracy under pressure while conditioning your athletes.
Read MoreWhat will your team do if your setter goes down with a rolled ankle mid-match? What if your libero gets sick the night before regionals? Prepare for these scenarios before they happen so that your team remains calm during an emergency!
Read MoreBenefits Of Running This Attacking Drill:
Beginner volleyball players develop multiple attack options.
Intermediate and experienced players start to attack more strategically.
Your defense gets better at recognizing different attacks.
Your team becomes more well-rounded because theyâre playing against better players in practice once they all understand these concepts.
Stop sending over freeballs! This volleyball drill is easy to run and will have your players hitting downballs and back row attack in no time! This is a fun volleyball drill to run with youth and middle school volleyball teams, at volleyball camps, and clinics! Perfect for coaches who like a more aggressive style of play.
Read MoreThis serving game is a great way to spend 15 minutes laughing, cheering, and bonding with your team. Use this game with your young players to keep them engaged at practice, or play it with an older group as a reward for hard work.
Whether youâre using this as a drill for volleyball camp or during team practice, youâre sure to share a ton of laughs with your athletes.
Read MoreNo matter what age you coach, youâve probably seen it happen. Maybe it was in the middle of a long rally, or happened on the first attack. It could have been due to a deceptive jump set, or just a misread of your opponents attack.
What am I talking about?
When the middle goes up to block with the setter/middle, and the set goes somewhere else.
In other words⊠your defense becomes a lot less effective.
Run this drill to practice your teamâs reaction to this common mistake.
Read MoreItâs currently the beginning of the school season, which means one thing is certain: Weâve all got a LOT of work to do.
Players will always be growing and developing, and even us coaches arenât as perfect as weâd like to believe. But thereâs something Iâve seen a lot of this particular season and I want to help you see it and overcome this lazy play with your own teams.
Read MoreThink back to the first time you were learning a new position. One of the most challenging aspects of learning this new position was probably where to go for defense. Not only do you need to know WHERE to go, you need to learn WHEN to go and how much area you cover!
Players can easily get overwhelmed in this stage of their development, but it doesnât need to be frustrating! By using this quick and easy drill, Iâve taught players as young as 6th grade how to transition into defense.
Read MoreItâs easy to tell your players to look on the other side of the net⊠However, if they donât learn WHEN to look, or if they donât PRACTICE looking, theyâll likely struggle in this process, and likely give up because they just donât get it.
The beauty of this drill is that you only need to run it once to teach the concept. So although it may go slow while theyâre learning, it is very important to use 15 minutes of practice to run this drill.
Read MoreAccording to Coach Karch Kiraly, (U.S. Women's National Volleyball Team Head Coach) the most important skill in volleyball is to learn to read the ball.
This is one of those answers which is simple in theory, but very, very challenging in practice. You canât just TELL players to read the ball. Heck, half of them probably wouldnât even know what you meant (and of course, theyâd just nod their head and go with it until you called them out).
In order to play volleyball well, you need to anticipate where the ball will go. This has recently become a point of pride for coaches who yell at their teams for diving (they wouldnât need to dive if they read the ball correctly). Which⊠theyâre not wrong! But we need to make sure we teach players to read and anticipate before we expect them to eliminate any dives or rolls.
This drill teaches players how to read the hitter through simple, repetitive plays that draw attention to movement patterns, helping players learn faster.
Read MoreOK, Iâm making BIG claims for this drill, but Iâm ready to back those claims up!
See, Iâm really big on PROGRESSIONS. Progressions start simple, add small pieces of information, and ultimately lead to BIG gains.
The best part about this drill Iâm about to share with you is that it will work for ANY age group (even the littles who canât get their fingers above the net) and your players will LOVE it.
This is also a great volleyball camp drill, for those reasons and more.
Read MoreIn todayâs drill, Iâm going to share the first âButterfly Drillâ I learned as a player, and explain how you can change it using variations (my favorite thing to do).
The butterfly drill is named after the shape of the action. That one took me a long time to figure out, but it is now glaringly obvious.
Essentially, butterfly drills are meant to keep the action rolling, with player-initiated contacts, constant movement, high energy, and LOTS of running (so fyi, this is a great conditioning drill that still incorporates a lot of volleyball).
Read MoreIf thereâs one volleyball drill that just about EVERY volleyball player will play throughout their career, itâs Queen of the Court (or King of the Court/Monarch of the Court depending on who youâre coaching).
Queen of the court is a top volleyball drill because itâŠ
is fast-paced
is FUN
is competitive
is good as a warm-up drill or to end practice with
can be played with as few as 8 players, and up to 16 (or more) per court
If this sounds like a must-have for your coaching binder, Iâd have to agree with you. Not only is this a good volleyball drill for practice, you can use it at open gyms and volleyball camps!
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