Volleyball
Drills to Learn Skills and Strategies
Explore volleyball drills to learn
basic volleyball skills -and more.
How to learn volleyball
skills quickly and without frustration?
Volleyball
Drills - Skills Training
How to Start?
Volleyball players start volleyball drills by learning movement
techniques and technical skills, such as
setting, passing, serving, etc.
Volleyball Basic Stance and Movement Skills
Beginning
volleyball players learn movement techniques by learning shuffling and
the basic stance.
 
In the
pictures: blocking movement drills, shuffling and basic footwork
drills. Volleyball basic stance on the right.
Volleyball Skills Training - Passing, Setting,
Serving, etc.
With the ball beginners work on passing,
setting skills first, following with serving, blocking, spiking,
digging skills, etc.
In the bottom of this page you find information how to
improve those basic volleyball skills.
- How to learn volleyball passing
skills?
- How to learn
volleyball setting skills?
- How to learn volleyball blocking skills?
- etc.
Important
Teaching Methods in Volleyball Drills
Repetition and
Focus in
Technical Volleyball Drills
What is important when teaching i.e. passing or hitting
skills for the beginning
volleyball players?
Repetition
For example outside hitting and right side hitting differ from each
other: motor skills needed for outside hitting are different from the
right side hitting. If a volleyball player practices only left side
hitting, the player doesn't effectively learn the motor skills needed
for the right side hitting. Other example: even if top spin serve and
float serve techniques look similar, they are still different. If the
player has honed the top spin serve to perfection, it
doesn't make the player a good float server without working on
it.
Different volleyball skills are learned
through repetition - by practicing each volleyball skill separately.
 Focus
on Each Contact
When
learning basic skills coaches need to make sure players focus on
every single contact.
This
is an extremely important concept and makes a huge difference on the
development. When players focus - and really think (cognitive
learning) - while performing skills (motor learning),
it
helps players to learn the skills more effectively.
How the Volleyball Coach Can Help Players to Stay
Focused?
Countless repetitions and long technical
training sessions are needed in volleyball. Challenge for the
coaches is: how to make the drills interesting, so the players won't
lose
the
focus?
Volleyball players tend to lose their
attention, if the players have to perform too many reps in a
row. How to
avoid it?
Volleyball Skills Drills - Fast Tempo and Low Reps
Keep the reps low. Players need to
switch positions
constantly.
Make sure there is a fast paced tempo
in technical
volleyball drills - it helps players to stay fully focus through the
repetitive drills
- and learn much quicker.
Volleyball Games - Mini-Game Volleyball
Drills to Learn
Techniques
Repeatitive technical training can be a little bit dull at times.
How to
make technical training more fun?
"Mini-games", in which players play various games are an
excellent
way to keep volleyball skills training interesting.
To learn
more about the
mini-games, go to "how to play volleyball"-section.
Other
Methods - How to Run Volleyball Drills
Effectively?
"Breaking
Down the Drill"
Read
below about the concept "breaking down the drill" to learn how to teach
the
skills effectively.
Running
Game-like Drills
This is another extremely important concept. As soon as possible
after the basic skills have been introduced, the players should perform
the skills in the game context. The player learns to play
volleyball in practice by repeating the skills exactly like in
the
game.
What's Next?
Coaches need to start running game-like volleyball drills, which mimic
the game.
Volleyball
Drills - Learning Strategies & Transfering Skills into the Game
How to
Transfer
Basic Volleyball Skills
into
the Game?
 After the basic
skills have been introduced, volleyball players are ready to learn
how to put the basic skills into the game.
In this phase players apply learned basic skills in the
game-like
drills, which mimic the game as closely as possible.
What do we mean by Game-like Volleyball Drills?
Players apply learned basic skills often by combining several skills
together - for example hitting against the block after the serve
receive. "Serve-Pass-Set-Spike-Block-Defense" - sequence as a
whole, or some shorter combinations of it should be used in the drills.
The ball should be flying over the net.
Players should learn to use the skills against the
opponent.
Besides deepening already learned basic skills, the purpose of
game-like drills
is to learn volleyball strategies.
How
to Learn Volleyball Strategies?
 Game-like drills teach players volleyball
strategies, what is needed to do on the court?
Keep in mind when moving into more and more advanced game-like drills
to teach
volleyball
strategies, the skills development should not be
forgotten. Skills development needs to be present also for the most
experienced players.
On the left there is a basic set up to learn to defend line and angle
swings.
C1 and C2 are hitting balls pass the block for the line and angle
defenders. This drill deepens already introduced basic skills
in
the game
like situation. To make it even more game-like, setters and blockers
could be added in the drill - still keeping in mind that the goal is to
train the defenders, so the majority of the balls should reach the
defenders.
To
conclude when running this or any other game-like drill, besides
teaching skills, the coaches have an opportunity to teach
volleyball strategies for the players. I.e. by changing the
spiking position
inside or outside - and telling players how it affects the defensive
position.
From the bottom of the page, you find links to the advanced
volleyball drills.
Challenges in
Volleyball Drills
and Skills Training
Challenge
1: Volleyball Skills Aren't
Transferring into Your Game?
Many of us have experienced
how challenging it is to put the learned
technical
skills into the game, even if we may
perform skills correctly in practice.
After practicing volleyball serving so much, why sometimes
it is difficult to serve floaters or jump serves in
the match?
Or after practicing bumping tirelessly, why the
ball is shanked in the match?
 First, volleyball
technical skills are very complex and
it takes a long time
to
learn them properly. Be patient.
Secondly, skills
needs to be practiced in the game context.
If
the skills are done correctly in practice drills, but the player is
having a hard time to repeat skills in the game, then
something
needs to be done differently.
What is the
solution?
Exposing players to game-like drills helps them to transfer the skills
to the game.
Solution: Game-like Volleyball Drills
After learning the basic
volleyball skills, coaches and players need to
take skills
training to the next level. This next step is to work on
techniques in
the
game-like situation, which mimic the game as much as possible.
The solution for the issue is common sense: "the
more game-like the drills are in practice, the more easier it is for
players to repeat practiced skills in the match."
Example:
Game-like Volleyball Drills for Serving
 Often volleyball serve is practiced in the end
of
the practice by
splitting the teams and serving from the other side to another.
Just like any other volleyball skill, volleyball serving needs to be
practiced in the game-like
situation!!
How to Make Volleyball Serving Drills Game-like?
There needs to be passers to receive the ball, since it is different to
place the serve on the court between the passers or away from the
passers.
At the minimum players should always have targets
where to place the ball.
Players should focus on every single serve, just like
in the game.
Servers should mimic the game situation. They should have the
same
routines as in the match. For example they should have a
little
break between each serve. And they should put their full focus
on each serve, just like in the game. Players
shouldn't serve one ball after another with a fast tempo,
without having a clear focus where to serve.
Also there needs to be the same pressure than in the game - an error
should cost a point.
Volleyball Drills Example
- A Wash Drill for Passers and Servers
 One
of the best serving and serve receive drills are "wash
drills".
Servers and passers should compete against each other with points, just
like offense vs. defense or spikers vs. blockers in wash
drills.
To put even more pressure on servers, we can make the court smaller
for them. Servers need to place the ball in specific areas on the
court, just like in the match.
In the game servers are expected to place the
ball to desired position under pressure, in the fear of losing the
point. We should mimic it and put the same pressure for the
servers in practice.
Challenge
2:
Learning Volleyball Skills is Slow
Ball Handling, Body
Coordination,
Hand-eye
Coordination
 All
the volleyball skills are complex skills,
which require great ball
handling skills, body and hand eye coordination. For the
beginning volleyball players it is
difficult to coordinate the movement of the arms, legs and
torso while for example approaching and jumping.
Volleyball skills become even more
difficult when players need to perform different skills after another -
or to think about volleyball strategies to beat the opponent.
Volleyball Drills Progress -
Learn
Skills a Piece
by Piece, A Step
by Step
It helps players to learn the complex skills
correctly when progressing
a piece
by piece. Players should not be expected to put all the
pieces together at once.
Solution:
Volleyball
Drills Should Be Progressive
What do we mean by progressive volleyball
drills?
The previous example about volleyball serving
drills in
the game-like situation is an advanced progression of skills training.
Beginning volleyball players should start serving drills by
learning the footwork and learning to toss the ball.
Players start from the very basics and progressively move towards more
complex drills.
Beginning Volleyball Drills for Serving
For beginning volleyball
players skills training is naturally very simple, but no matter how
simple the skill is (i.e. top spin serve or float serve), it
helps
players to learn the skill properly when progressing a little by
little, a piece by piece.
When learning to serve the footwork and toss, which is a very
important and often ignored part of serving, needs to be introduced
first
before even trying to hit the ball.
The first step is to work on the footwork and tossing
part. The coach needs to show clear examples and explain the
importance of the location and especially the height of the
toss.
Players work on putting footwork and toss together, until the toss is
consistent enough. When servers are ready to start hitting the ball
over the net, they shouldn't start behind the backline from
the
full distance. It helps beginning volleyball players to serve with a
good technique when starting closer to the net. Then
a little
by little players
move backwards toward the backline. The key is to maintain a good
effortless technique, while moving back.
When learning volleyball skills, players move a step by step towards
actual skill, just like in this serving example.
Solution:
Break
Down the Volleyball Drills and Skills
We just explained you one corner stone of
our
skills training, which is
"breaking down the drills and skills".
The purpose of "breaking down the drills" is to help players
to learn volleyball skills properly - and also faster. When
you read forward you find more information about it.
Volleyball Drills
to Learn Techniques Are Important From Beginners to Pros
Volleyball Drills for Beginners
Learning technical skills
can be challenging for beginning volleyball
players. It is a well-known fact that young athletes often give up on
volleyball since it simply feels difficult.
There are ways to keep volleyball training interesting and learn
complex techniques without players becoming frustrated about
volleyball.
We show examples how to learn
even the most difficult volleyball skills one piece at the time - by
"breaking
down the drill". We present how beginning volleyball players
can learn
volleyball techniques by playing volleyball games.
We start
from the
very
basics, beginner
volleyball drills and progress into more advanced drills.
Youth Volleyball
Drills
for Junior Volleyball Players
Especially at the younger
age, it is beneficial for the players to play multiple
positions
and work on all the skills. For example the coach should
give the middle blocker an opportunity to pass and play
defense in
the back row. In the match the coach could replace some other player
with the libero, not always the middle. Often coaches focus
too
much on winning right now and do not pay enough attention to the skill
development of individuals.
Our courteous wish is that coaches would put winning a little bit
aside at the younger age. Coaches should be encouraged to let each
player develop good all around skills -
even if it could possibly cost some games for the team. With better all
around skills, players will be prepared to
play at the higher level and
maybe completely different position for some other coach in the future.
Top Players
Train Volleyball Techniques Constantly
We want to pay special
attention to the fact that
top volleyball players practice fundamental skills also. They
absolutely do. Top volleyball coaches put lots of effort to
improve techniques of the players.
Practicing
fundamentals should be
progressive and
can be progressed much further into details than the basics of setting
or passing. At the top level, the skill drills look a whole
lot
different when comparing to the junior level.
You
find examples of more complex drills down below in Advanced
Volleyball Drills section.
The Higher You
Aim, The More Important Skills Are
When compared to other
sports, the skill and technical
development plays a very important role in volleyball.
In other ball games there are positions you can play
even at the professional
level without having great ball handling skills, just by being
physically gifted. On the volleyball court great technical skills are
definitely needed.
Without
developing great skills, it is impossible to
play
volleyball at the higher level. The
higher level you play,
the
more
important it is to master every single skill.
Volleyball Drills - How to Improve Volleyball
Technical Skills?
Learning
volleyball techniques requires dedication
and perseverance. Even the basic volleyball skills
are complex, so
it takes countless repetitions and practice times to learn them
properly.
How to teach volleyball technical skills for volleyball
players?
And how to make sure players learn skills without becoming extremely
frustrated?
How to avoid
frustrations and help players to learn faster?
Focusing and
Thinking
When players focus and think about the technique they are
working on, it helps them to learn the skill effectively.
"Thinking"
means keeping their
mind on the training and being aware of the skill they are working on.
Players should NOT
need to
think how to perform skills. If players are confused and they
have
to think how to perform the skill, it is a sign that you have to "break
it down" more.
Visualization
When players keep the full focus through the skills training, it helps
them to visualize the skills. Players start seeing a picture in their
mind how the skill should be done. Eventually players learn to
correct the errors
themselves since they start noticing little mistakes they do on the
court.
Teaching skills progressively and focusing on piece one at the time
helps players to
see this picture of the skill in their minds.
Progress a
Piece by Piece
By progressing one piece at the
time,
even complex skills will became a natural habit for the players.
Athletes who are able to pick up i.e. the coordination
and
technique for hitting instantly are very rare - most athletes need a
different
approach.
Keep
It Simple! Break Down the Drill!
To ease up the
learning process, it is
recommended to keep
everything
very simple and “break down the technical drill” for players to catch
every
aspect of it.
Practicing skills
should be progressive; the best
way to describe this "breaking down" is to give an example. Below there
is an example about the volleyball hitting drill - and how to
progress
from the simple toward more complex drills.
Volleyball Drills Example - How to "Break Down" the Drill
Volleyball Hitting Drills
- Show an example. Repeat several times.
- Point out important parts; approach
steps, arm usage, lift off, use of the body in the air, arm
swing
- First players practice the skill without the
ball
- Players practice approach steps and connecting
the steps with the
arms. The player and coach should focus solely on the
footwork
first, without worrying about other things (yet).
- When the footwork is learned, the coach moves
the focus on the arm usage.
- Since it may take for a while before players
learn to connect the
approach steps and arm usage, the players are probably better off not
to jump in the air in the very beginning.
- Next players move the focus on the jump and how
to use the arms on the lift off.
- (When
players start jumping into air, the safe landing should be taught. That
is important!! It helps to keep injuries away in the long
run!)
- Teach
players how to use the body and the armswing in the air when attacking.
Again, put a focus solely on the body first. When it is
learned
move focus to the arm. Tip: You may use a tennis ball or
softball to teach this part. Players approach, jump to the air
and
throw the ball like they would be spiking the volleyball.
- (Before starting to work the hitting with the
setter, the players must have learned how to hit a top spin spike.)
- Start practicing the skill with the setter.
Focus on timing
- Practice the
skill in game-like situation: setter getting a pass, a setter setting
the ball, hitting against the block
- Practice the
skill in the complex game-like
situation by combining various skills together - hitting from the own
pass, transition plus attack, etc.
- etc. etc.
(this list is not complete, various other items could be added
on it..)
Keep It Simple! Do Not Combine Too Many Skills
Together
Notice the most complex levels in the previous hitting drill are not
for the
beginning volleyball players. Only highly skilled players are able to
perform those volleyball drills effectively.
For example, there is no sense to practice hitting by combining it with
passing
and setting, if a good set rarely reaches the hitter. It could be more
beneficial learning to hit from the coaches' toss or set and
get several
repetitions for the hitter.
Breaking down skills and drills helps coaches to focus on the aspect
they want to work on. Keep it simple!!
Volleyball
Drills Related Pages
Volleyball
Passing Drills:
Essential
Volleyball Passing Drills
Explore basic volleyball passing drills - and tips how you can learn
proper fundamentals of passing.
Essential
Volleyball Passing Drills II
More volleyball passing drills - and tips to help you organize those
drills.
Volleyball
Passing
Drills for Advanced Volleyball Serve Receive Techniques
Drills to improve your volleyball skills by extending your passing
range.
Volleyball
Passing
Drills for Overhead Volleyball Passing
Drills to teach overhead serve receive techniques.
Volleyball Setting Drills and Passing Drills for Beginners:
Volleyball
Beginner Drills - Setting Drills
Simple setting drills for beginners. Learn what is "Volleybal Juggling".
Volleyball
Beginner Drills - Passing Drills
Simple passing drills for beginners. Learn how to "juggle" with
volleyball.
Volleyball
Digging Drills:
Volleyball
Digging Drills Example
How to set up volleyball defensive drills? How to run digging drills?
Volleyball Digging
Drills - Learning Techniques
Various defensive techniques. Learn volleyball digging skills.
Volleyball
Blocking Drills:
Volleyball
Blocking Drills Example
How to set up a volleyball blocking drill? How to practice volleyball
blocking skills?
Advanced Volleyball Drills:
Fun
Volleyball Drills
These fun drills
include exciting team building aspect. These drills teach
teamwork and
volleyball strategies about team’s offense and defense.
Volleyball
Practice Drills
Examples of fun drills
which are enjoyable for the team and help to
understand the importance of teamwork. These are advanced offensive
drills.
Volleyball
Advanced Drills
How to learn volleyball strategies? How to teach tactical understanding
of the game?
Volleyball
Practice Drills - Serving Passing Drills Example
Volleyball
Setting Drills - How to Play Fast Game?
Volleyball has become faster. You find tips how setters, passers and
hitters learn to play faster game.
Volleyball
Setting Drills - How to Set Up Timing with Hitters?
Learn how setters and hitters can learn to set up the timing.
Volleyball
Team Drills - Warm Ups
Save practice time by skipping traditional running-stretching warm ups
and make practices more fun.
Volleyball
Team Drills - Fun Games for Warm Ups
Check out how you can play fun games for warm ups and how to warm up
for the matches.
Special
Articles:
Steps
to Improve Volleyball Players Self Confidence
Special Article by a Leading Expert in the Field. You find it in Sports
Psychology Section. Access only by
newsletter subscribers on the Friends List. Join the Friends List to
get the password.
Volleyball
Transition Drills
How to improve your offense through volleyball transition drills?
Access only by
newsletter subscribers on the Friend's List. Join the Friends' List to
get the passoword.
Volleyball
Drills to www.VolleyballAdvisors.com
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