28 Volleyball Drills to Improve Your Team’s Offense and Defense
"Practice is the battle you must win" – Hugh McCutcheon
Whether you want to be that volleyball player with the serve to end all serves or just improve your passing, setting, or hitting skills, then drills are the way to go.
If you want to get better at anything, you’ve got to put in hours and hours of work to see any kind of progress.
That’s not even a secret.
It’s pretty much an ingrained rule of any sport, not just volleyball.
Volleyball drills are important for enhancing various skills such as footwork, ball control, timing, and fast decision-making.
They’re also important for turning these skills into habits that you can rely on, game after game.
This article is a compilation of 28 volleyball drills to help you develop the skills that you need in court.
Each drill is complete with a brief intro of how it works, what it’s used for, how to set it up, step-by-step instructions for executing it, variations, and even coaching points to get the most out of each drill.
Here you go:
Volleyball Passing Drills
Passing is a key element in volleyball.
It leads up to and determines how effective the offense of your team will be and it also plays a vital role in defense.
The 8 passing drills in this section are:
- The X Passing Drill
- Ball in a Square
- Platform Catch
- Serve to Receive
- Russian Passing Drill
- Shuttle and Pass
- Up Down Passing
- Rapid Fire
Passers are the first ones to touch the ball when it’s traveling over the net which, in turn, determines how their team controls the ball in their court.
This is why passing drills are important. They build up muscle memory and solidify your team’s coordination on how you prepare for an attack.
Volleyball Serving Drills
The volleyball serve is one of the most pivotal skills you can master. The best ones leave your opponent team’s offense in scrambles from the get-go.
In this section, the drills will help you develop accuracy and consistency with your serves.
They’ll help you become a more reliable member of your team and increase your chances of scoring points and winning the game.
The 5 drills include:
- Target Practice
- Feed the Snake
- Around the World
- Rapid Choice
- Kill the Cones
Volleyball Setting Drills
Sets are overhead passes to the hitter so they can spike the ball over the net.
This makes the setter’s job so critical. They’re pretty much in charge of the team’s offense.
Not only do they need reliable timing and positioning, but they also have to come through consistently if they want their team’s offenses to work.
It’s also important for the setter to have great communication and chemistry with the hitter because they have to work well together to execute attacks.
These 5 setting drills will help you with all that and they are:
- Setting the Fan
- Catch It in the Cone
- Figure Eight
- Four in a Row
- Point Pass
Volleyball Blocking Drills
Preventing your opponents from scoring is just as important as launching a point-scoring attack against them. This is where blocking comes into view.
Blocks slow down a hard-hit ball, deflecting attacks from the enemy team. They’re also used to funnel the ball towards your team’s best defenders.
The drills in this section will help you with your blocking skills, technique, and reaction time.
The 5 drills are:
- Block, Reset, Fall Back
- Watch the Hitter
- Cover the Net
- Triple Block Exhaustion
- Don’t Fear the Seam
Volleyball Hitting Drills
Hitting is the likeliest way you can score against your opponent, and these 5 hitting drills will help improve your attack’s power and consistency.
The thing about hitting is it uses up a lot of muscle strength, so hitters are vulnerable to shoulder injuries.
That’s why these drills are so important because they also build up the upper body and core strength needed to endure repeated hitting maneuvers.
This section consists of the following drills:
- Five by Five
- Lefts Only
- Down Two Steps
- Hit the Square from the Back Row
- Attack the Block
Conclusion
Practice makes perfect, so they say. And that’s why drills are effective learning methods in any kind of sport.
Try these 28 volleyball drills in your training sessions to improve your players’ passing, serving, setting, blocking, and hitting technique.
Not only will they improve each member’s skills individually, but they’ll also help sync your team’s coordination so they can attack and defend as a unit no matter the situation they’re in at the court.