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…
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…
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
