The "W" formation is often the first serve receive formation players learn when they start to play 6 vs 6 volleyball. This simple drill helps the players learn and practice how to set-up the "W" formation in all six rotations, while simultaneously getting some serve receive and hitting practice.
Creating a competitive environment when training serve and serve receive skills really helps to keep these drills interesting for your athletes. This drill has the servers and passers compete against each other for points and encourages aggressive, consistent serving and passing.
Teams paying attention to the details establish "success indicators" for various game situations. For example, a team may determine for their level of play they need to be able to score from a "free ball" situation 70% of the time, from a "service reception" situation 60% of the time, and perhaps from an "out of system" situation (when a player…
This is a simple and fun game often used as part of the warm-up phase at the beginning of practice to get players motivated and improve player's competency with the overhead pass skill.
"Short Court" is a widely-used and very fun warm-up game that is also very good for introducing and stabilizing three contact play. The extremely small court means the ball moves slowly which aids novice players in controlling each contact so they can more easily learn the rhythms and timings of the game as well as reading and responding to ball…
"Small sided games" are a great way to get players lots of quality repetitions in a fun and competitive environment. Fewer players means each athlete gets almost twice the ball contacts when compared to 6 vs 6 play. This particular game challenges the side with fewer players to "overcome the odds" and the team with more players to effectively utilize…
This drill works to expand the court space your passers are able to cover while providing plenty of additional attacking, setting, and blocking reps to other players in an efficient way.
Being able to "close out" sets is a vital skill if you want to be a top team. It's often stated that a set doesn't really start until after 20. Teams should regularly practice simulating “end of game” situations and the pressure they can create. This game focuses on the final three points of a set (where many sets are…
Learning to dig the ball effectively to the the center of the court is very important if a team wants to transition well. This drill encourages players to dig accurately by putting the setter under a lot of movement pressure. Defenders will be encouraged to defend accurately because inaccurately defended balls will be very difficult for setters to keep in…
Narrow court, small-sided games are a great way to get attackers comfortable facing, hitting the ball off the block, and just develop general ball control. With simple adjustments, the game can be adapted to work on double block coordination, simple defense, attacking of the block, and/or spike coverage. It's also a great warm-up game to use as a substitute for…
Learning to be creative in transition can really help a team to become effective in out-of-system situations. The rapid play in volleyball means players regularly find themselves out of position and need to learn to adapt to a wide variety of different situations and circumstances. This small sided-game creates unusual transition situations that will challenge the players' capacities to communicate…
Being able to successfully defend against extremely hard-driven attacks can create those much desired momentum swings that can change the outcome of a set or even a match. Most often this capacity is trained with feeders hitting hard attacks of of an elevated box at defenders. However, the cues related to digging an attack from a feeder on a box…
Volleyball can be a difficult game to introduce to novice players because a certain amount of baseline skill is required for rallies to be initiated. It can be difficult to get players to move beyond the initial first contact to create fun rallies. This 3 vs 3 game permits a catch on many of the first contacts (and utilizes a…
The quality of a team's out of system play directly impacts how successful they become at winning sets. This drill trains out of system play having a feeder direct where the second contact is made at the start of a rally and then using a modified scoring system to encourage aggressive and efficient out of system attacking.
Learning to rally effectively, as well as keep a rally going, is one of the primary objectives of volleyball. In this simple drill players on both sides of the net cooperate to control the ball and keep the ball in play - using a pass (dig), set, spike sequence for as long as possible. It helps players to focus on…
"Pepper" is the classic skill warm-up drill used by almost all players around the world and it's great, players get to use many skills and get a lot of contacts in a short period of time. However, it also has some limitations. It doesn't incorporate the net, include much player movement, or require the ball to be redirected anywhere except…
"Pepper" is the classic skill warm-up drill used by almost all players around the world and it's great, players get to use many skills and get a lot of contacts in a short period of time. However, it also has some limitations. It doesn't incorporate the net, include much player movement, or require the ball to be redirected anywhere except…
"Pepper" is the classic skill warm-up drill used by almost all players around the world and it's great, players get to use many skills and get a lot of contacts in a short period of time. However, it also has some limitations. It doesn't incorporate the net, include much player movement, or require the ball to be redirected anywhere except…
Being able to consistently receive serve and "side out" effectively is vital to every successful team. This drill helps to train teams to "side out" effectively in every rotation, helps identify whether a team has any weak service reception rotations, and also gives extra training in those weaker rotations.
This simple game is great for developing the setting skills of non-setters and gives both teams plenty of opportunities to attack out-of-system as well as defend against hard driven attacks. It's a great game for developing these skills in a competitive and game-like situation.
Small-sided games like this one which incorporates a "back row attack only" limitation is a fun way to get players more practise defending medium-paced balls, helps to improve their ability to position effectively on the ball when attacking "out-of-system," and just generally helps with the reduction of attacking errors. They also make great warm-up games for the start of practice.
The "pipe" attack has become a very important part of modern volleyball - especially in the men's game. Becoming efficient with this type of attack is often essential to keeping your offense running at full capacity. This simple 4 vs 4 game is a great way to begin to integrate the attacks from the "pipe" zone into your offensive systems…
Learning how to successfully and consistently hit good angle shots is a skill that every player needs to develop as an hitting option. This small-sided game adjusts the court dimensions to encourage more angle attacking to help players integrate the cross-court attack into their game play.
"Pepper" is the classic skill warm-up drill used by almost all players around the world and it's great, players get to use many skills and get a lot of contacts in a short period of time. However, it also has some limitations. It doesn't incorporate the net, include much player movement, or require the ball to be redirected anywhere except…
This small-sided game focuses on training the back row attack, defending against the back row attack, and encourages setters to utilize a first tempo attack on well-passed balls.
This small-sided game focuses on training the outside attack in out-of-system situations, improving out-of-system setting, and defending against the outside attack in one-on-one blocking situations
This small-sided game focuses on training the back row attack in the pipe zone, especially the coordination between the middle quick ball hitter and the back row pipe ball hitter, and trains the setter's decision-making skills to utilize this two set combination efficiently.
This can be a great drill when you have limited training time and want to optimize your serving and passing volume. The use of a "time limit" motivates the passers not to waste passing opportunities as well as work to create as many passing opportunities as possible in a short period of time.
This cooperative and progressive drill is a good alternative to traditional pepper that will improve general ball control and train defenders to effectively redirect a defended ball to a setter in the center of the front court. It also can be adapted into a full court ball control drill to develop total team ball handling skills. It's a great drill…
This cooperative "pepper" type progressive exercise helps players to improve their basic ball handling skills in several ways. It gives defenders plenty of medium paced ball contacts and helps them learn the angles needed to redirect a medium paced attack to a setter. It also helps setters improve their front and back setting skills. Sequence 2 builds on the initial…
This physically challenging drill can be a great drill to start a practice with (once players are sufficiently warmed-up) to get players moving and develop those "pursue the ball" and "never give up" attitudes.
Consistently winning 5th sets is vital to being a successful team, but the pressure of playing in this deciding set makes it very easy for a team to let the set get away. teams need to learn to stay aggressive, play with confidence and most importantly, limit errors. This difficult game really helps players to learn to manage execution pressure…
This fun game helps to improve a team's out-of-system play and challenges players to "fight" to win points under difficult circumstances where they face a significant disadvantage. It's played "doghouse" style, but with a bit of a unique scoring system.
This fun game helps to improve a team's out-of-system play, outside blocking, and challenges players to "fight" to win points under difficult circumstances where they face a significant disadvantage.
This game is played on a shorter than normal court which really helps players (especially outside hitters) to integrate a sharp angle attack option and attacks off the block into their offensive tactics. It also encourages players to cover their hitters aggressively as the blockers have a greater advantage than usual in this game.
"Pepper" is the classic skill warm-up drill used by almost all players around the world and it's great, players get to use many skills and get a lot of contacts in a short period of time. However, it also has some limitations. It doesn't incorporate the net, include much player movement, or require the ball to be redirected anywhere except…
This is a simple, fun, and challenging drill for young players. It helps them learn that even when not playing the ball, they need to be adjusting position based on what they need to do next and not caught "watching" their teammates play, all while giving them meaningful passing, setting, and hitting repetitions.
This simple drill helps new players improve their lateral movement to the ball and their ability to receive the ball from one location and re-direct the ball to a different target.
This fours game puts players into a variety of different situations to improve their overall game play and ball control. In particular, defending against medium paced attacks, attacking "out-of-system," and in trouble situations.
A key feature of defense in volleyball is the ability to quickly back-up, yet keep your body weight forward once you have repositioned. This high volume drill helps the player to improve their ability to quickly back-up in a low defensive posture while keeping their body in the preferred weight forward position.
This fun game adds a baseball theme to your scrimmage time. It will encourage your players to work to sideout consistently and be efficient scoring when easy (free) ball scenarios present themselves.
This game adds a basketball theme to your scrimmage time. It focuses on your team's attack combinations - especially the back row options - and encourages aggressive serving.
To become proficient blockers, middle players need a significant amount of practice, responding to sets of different tempos and in many different attack locations along the net. This drill creates a situation where blockers see sets to different locations and at different tempos, but in a predictable way so they can focus their efforts on technically improving the efficiency of…
Once players have acquired the abilities to pass-set-hit with some consistency in simple situations, this warm-up game becomes a very fun way to start practices. It gets the players excited, motivated, and encourages ball pursuit. It can help novice players learn some of the rhythms, timings, and general ball movements of the game, and reduces a key "rally breaker" to…
Being effective in out-of-system situations is fundamental to success in the modern game. This 6 vs 6 mini game helps train the scenario where a bump-set is used to set-up an attacker. This is a good drill to improve your team's transition in a common out-of-system situation and gain confidence with their bump-setting skills in a game situation.
This drill is called the "butterfly" because the rotation of the players loosely forms a butterfly wing shape. It is a classic volleyball drill typically used for warm-up or to get basic skills repetitions in up to four skills. Skills are used in ways that closely emulate the rhythms and timings experienced in actual match play which improves learning for…
This drill is fun and challenging for intermediate level players and is a great drill for the ball warm-up phase of any practice. It helps them to learn to communicate with each other quickly and efficiently during rallies. They will need to quickly decide who is going to perform each skill in the three contact sequence, then quickly reorganize and…
This is a fun drill to use with younger players, in a camp or clinic setting or as a bit of a ball warm-up drill. It's great for encouraging players to communicate, adapt, and get organized during a rally.
This engaging serve and pass drill places players into a competitive passing and setting situation that focuses on encouraging accuracy and precision when passing and setting.
This competitive serving and passing drill trains servers to take advantage of a finite number of service-line opportunities they have in matches and passers to focus on sideout efficiency.
To optimize learning while scrimmaging, it is helpful to manipulate scrimmage conditions to focus on more specific elements of team play. This particular "scenario game" trains a simple two-option attack combination in a highly game-like situation. This improves learning as the defensive side gets to see the the same attack combination multiple times and work to improve their collective effectiveness…
Teams that are able to successfully defend against powerful attacks have a great competitive advantage over opponents. It's not an easy skill to develop. Often we see coaches hit ball after ball across the net off a box to train this skill. However, the experience of digging a coach on a box is very different from digging an actual attacker.…
This is an introductory drill to train the basics of transition attack. This drill could be set-up with all six players on the court, but structured the way it is, the focus is put more on defending a specific area of the court and individual execution. Removing some players removes unnecessary distractions and allows for more targeted focus on skill…
This is an introductory drill to train the basics of transition attack. This drill could be set-up with all six players on the court, but structured the way it is, the focus is put more on defending a specific area of the court and individual execution. Removing some players removes unnecessary distractions and allows for more targeted focus on skill…
This is a simple and popular drill used by a lot of programs to get some simple defense and out-of-system setting repetitions. It's a great drill to quickly get your athletes some repetition volume in these important skills and train skill accuracy.
Teams with defenders who are efficient at defending hard attacks have more success. Often to train this skill we hit a lot of balls at our players off of boxes. The problem however is that digging a ball hit off a box is not the same as digging a real hitter. It's great for helping the player learn how to…
"Head-to-Head" attacking drills are fun drills that are highly effective in teaching athletes to effectively transition off the net to attack as the ball comes to their side of the court as well as helping them to increase their tempo of play. These fast moving drills are very adaptable and put players under a lot of pressure to move quickly,…
"Head-to-Head" attacking drills are fun drills that are highly effective in teaching athletes to effectively transition off the net to attack as the ball comes to their side of the court as well as helping them to increase their tempo of play. These fast moving drills are very adaptable and put players under a lot of pressure to move quickly,…
"Head-to-Head" attacking drills are fun drills that are highly effective in teaching athletes to effectively transition off the net to attack as the ball comes to their side of the court as well as helping them to increase their tempo of play. These fast moving drills are very adaptable and put players under a lot of pressure to move quickly,…
"Head-to-Head" attacking drills are fun drills that are highly effective in teaching athletes to effectively transition off the net to attack as the ball comes to their side of the court as well as helping them to increase their tempo of play. These fast moving drills are very adaptable and put players under a lot of pressure to move quickly,…
"Head-to-Head" attacking drills are fun drills that are highly effective in teaching athletes to effectively transition off the net to attack as the ball comes to their side of the court as well as helping them to increase their tempo of play. These fast moving drills are very adaptable and put players under a lot of pressure to move quickly,…
"Head-to-Head" attacking drills are fun drills that are highly effective in teaching athletes to effectively transition off the net to attack as the ball comes to their side of the court as well as helping them to increase their tempo of play. These fast moving drills are very adaptable and put players under a lot of pressure to move quickly,…
"Head-to-Head" attacking drills are fun drills that are highly effective in teaching athletes to effectively transition off the net to attack as the ball comes to their side of the court as well as helping them to increase their tempo of play. These fast moving drills are very adaptable and put players under a lot of pressure to move quickly,…
"Head-to-Head" attacking drills are fun drills that are highly effective in teaching athletes to effectively transition off the net to attack as the ball comes to their side of the court as well as helping them to increase their tempo of play. These fast moving drills are very adaptable and put players under a lot of pressure to move quickly,…
Being able to score against a solid double block is a skill that every attacker wants to have in their tool kit. This fun and difficult drill challenges hitters to do just that while simultaneously teaching defenders and blockers how to work together to control hitters. This is a great drill to add to the end of a practice.
This 2 vs 6 drill is a fun challenge for players that helps them to learn what their best scoring options are in difficult circumstances and how to fight for points, while simultaneously teaching players how to control hitters in out-of-system situations and create opportunities to aggressively counter-attack.
This drill helps to improve the attackers' abilities to successfully score off the block while simultaneously allowing you to train serve reception skills and blocking skills (especially managing wipe off errors). In the modern game, being able to successfully utilize the block to score points as well as learning how to use the block to "recycle" a weak attack opportunity…
This drill helps to improve the attackers' abilities to successfully score off the block while simultaneously allowing you to train serve reception skills and blocking skills (especially managing wipe off errors). In the modern game, being able to successfully utilize the block to score points as well as learning how to use the block to "recycle" a weak attack opportunity…
The capacity to identify and form an effective triple block in out-of-system situations is becoming a more and more vital skill of the modern game. This simple drill helps blockers to develop the decision-making skills needed to identify and react to simple triple block opportunities, improve the needed movement patterns and their abilities to coordinate those movements with the other…
This incredibly fun game for young children should be one of the first games you use to introduce them to the game of volleyball to children of primary school age. It teaches them the fundamental game concepts of attacking territory, defending territory, playing the ball over the net as well as allows you to introduce practically any throwing, striking, or…
This 2 vs 2 modified game introduces the fundamentals of the spiking arm-swing. Players learn how to hit the ball over the net using one hand, as well as how and when a hit is used in the game. It also teaches them the basic tactics of volleyball - specifically the concept of attacking and defending territory, how to use…
Players need to learn to receive and redirect hard-driven balls to the center of the court from a wide variety of attack locations. This simple drill directs attacks at the defender from a variety of different locations along the net, giving them the opportunity to learn to appropriately adjust their platform to defend and redirect the ball as required.
The capacity to form an effective triple block in out-of-system situations is becoming a more and more vital skill of the modern game. This simple drill helps to introduce some of the needed movement patterns and improves the blockers' abilities to coordinate those movements with each other. It's a good drill to use with players just starting to learn this…
Learning to read a hitter's approach and their hitting intent is fundamental to good blocking. However, young blockers often focus more on the path of the set than the hitter. This drill removes the ball from the blocker's vision, forcing them to focus on the hitter to obtain information related to the timing and location of the hit.
Learning to read a hitters approach and their hitting intent is fundamental to good blocking. However, young blockers often focus more on the path of the set than the hitter. This drill creates a dynamic blocking environment, requiring blockers to block multiple times and removes the set from the blocker's vision. This forces them to focus on the hitter rather…
Middle hitters and setters need to spend some uninterrupted time working together if they are ever to become efficient. This drill trains a couple situations middle attackers face, gives them practice hitting to key locations, helps them improve their connection with their setters, and gives them some basic blocking practice.
Middle hitters and setters need to spend some uninterrupted time working together if they are ever to become efficient. This drill trains a couple situations middle attackers face, gives them practice hitting to key locations, improves their hitting direction decision-making, and improves their connection with their setters.
Middle hitters and setters need to spend some uninterrupted time working together if they are ever to become efficient. This drill trains a couple situations middle attackers face: hitting from serve receive and hitting after they block. It also gives them practice hitting to key locations and improves their connection with their setters.
Teams whose middle attackers are very efficient in transitioning from blocking to hitting have an advantage over other teams. This simple drill helps hitters develop the required footwork, speed, and balance need to complete this challenging transition attack.
Teams whose middle attackers are very efficient in transitioning from blocking to hitting have an advantage over other teams. This simple drill helps hitters develop the required footwork, speed, and balance need to complete this challenging transition attack.
Adding some competition to your serve and pass training not only adds bit of excitement to the drill, it also can simulate the type of pressure the players face in actual competition. This simple serve and serve receive drill encourages servers to be aggressive while limiting their serving errors.
This is simple and fun game for players in the earliest stages of learning how to play - specifically players who have not yet developed competent rallying skills. It teaches them how to attack and defend territory and gives them practice executing volleyballs skills from their own toss.
This one vs one mini game is a great change-up from pepper-type drills at the start of practice. It will get your players moving at the start of practice, warm-up/improve their basic skills, and help them to learn to employ simple scoring tactics.
This simple drill helps to improve the ability of non-setters to successfully deliver hittable sets. It's a great drill to use for a few minutes near the start of practice during periods of the year where you want to reinforce this skill.
A team's ability to frequently form solid double-blocks greatly increases their defensive ability. Getting middle blockers comfortable moving quickly side to side to form blocks near the antennae is an important component of this skill. This drill helps get blockers efficient at lateral movement and closing with other blockers at speed.
Outside hitters need to learn to score when facing a solid double or triple block. This competitive drill helps hitters to improve their effectiveness in these types of situations.
This is a good drill if your passers often neglect to call serves "in" or "out" when receiving serve. It encourages the passers to communicate with each using effective verbal cues.
Teams need to learn how to become very offensively efficient when the pass is perfect. This scrimmage game consistently puts setters in the optimum position to run their offensive system in all reception rotations and allows all players to become familiar with the rhythms and timings of their team's offensive system, workout any issues, and gain the confidence needed to…
A team's ability to consistently "sideout" in all rotations is vital to it's success. This unique scoring system of this game emphasizes the importance to "sideout" consistently.
This fun drill teaches players to "scramble" effectively in out-of-system situations. It will improve basic ball pursuit, the ability to generate a settable ball, to set effectively out of system, and to spike the ball from anywhere in the court.
Not everything goes as planned in volleyball. Sometimes digs do not go where intended so teams need to learn to "scramble" or "scrap" to try to apply some offensive pressure in less than optimal situations. This fun game gives players lots of situations where they need to recover from a weak 1st contact dig and try to find ways to…
Back row attacking is becoming more and more important as the game evolves. This scrimmage game limits some attack options for the setter and creates scenarios where they are encouraged to utilize more of their back row attack/set options. More practice with these situations in a game like scenario should improve their execution and efficiency in actual match situations.
Adding some competition to your serve and pass training not only adds bit of excitement to the drill, it also helps to simulate the type of pressure the players face in competition. This simple serve and pass drill has a competitive element that encourages the servers, the passers, and the setters to focus more effectively on skill execution.
Having servers just stay at the service line and serve over and over in practice is not very game-like. Servers almost always need to enter the court, participate in a rally, and possibly perform additional actions before they return to serve again. This changes the server's focus and they need to learn to refocus on serving after playing defense for…
Adding some competition to your serve and pass training not only adds bit of excitement to the drill, it also can simulate the type of pressure the players face in actual competition. This simple serve and pass drill has a unique scoring system that puts the servers and the passers in competition with each other and encourages players to work…
Finding creative ways to train serve and serve reception and maintaining player focus on these activities to optimize learning is always a challenge. This drill focusses on improving individual serve and serve receptions skills, improves player focus by creating a competitive environment, and regularly gives players different "looks" by changing up the server they face, the direction they receive the…
Creating a competitive environment in serve and serve receive drills really helps to keep these types of activities interesting and motivating for your athletes. This competitive serve and serve receive drill improves the server's ability to aggressively serve to specific locations on the court, while simultaneously providing quality repetitions for passers in a competitive environment.
Teams need to be able to "sideout" consistently and efficiently in all rotations. This game gives the receiving team a numerical player advantage and the unique scoring system of this game creates the need to not only sideout consistently, but also the need to sideout on their first sequence of contacts by attacking aggressively and getting those aggressive attacks around…
Hitters must learn good directional control when attacking and also learn to hit the correct direction based on where the block is positioned. Attackers should approach each attack as a hitting problem to be solved. Finding the right hitting solution is critical to success. This drill helps left side attackers learn when and how to hit line and cross-court shots.
Hitters must learn good directional control when attacking and also learn to hit the correct direction based on where the block is positioned. Attackers should approach each attack as a hitting problem to be solved. Finding the right hitting solution is critical to success. This drill helps middle attackers learn when and how to hit different directions.
Hitters must learn good directional control when attacking and also learn to hit the correct direction based on where the block is positioned. Attackers should approach each attack as a hitting problem to be solved. Finding the right hitting solution is critical to success. This drill helps right side attackers learn when and how to hit line and cross-court shots.
Against quality opponents, getting digs and opportunities to counter-attack is not easy. Therefore, your players need to be ready to take advantage of these opportunities when they arise. This drill trains your players to execute effectively in out-of-system situations.
Movement skills are a key aspect of passing. Great passers move to the ball very efficiently, regardless of what direction they may need to move. This passing drill creates situations were players need to move in many different directions to pass.
Offensive efficiency is highly important to a team's success - especially in two situations: (1) when receiving serve and (2) when an easy (free) ball is received from the opponent. This game focuses on these two scenarios in particular to help a team's offence become more proficient.
"Pepper" is the classic skill warm-up drill used by almost all players around the world and it's great. Players get to use many skills and get a lot of contacts in a short period of time. This two-ball variant is the pepper drill on steroids and significantly increases the number of contacts acquired and the amount of concentration required over…
