Explore volleyball drills and coaching tips.
How to practice basic skills in volleyball?
We start with volleyball serving drills. What is important in jump serving drills or volleyball passing drills?
Volleyball Drills – Volleyball Serve
General Volleyball Serving Tips
- Always have a target. Aim specific spot on the court.
- You should always have a clear picture what you want to accomplish with each serve (for example; to play off their best hitter). Serving is an individual moment, your opportunity to shine without your team mates help, but that’s how you play for the team.
Example Volleyball Drills – Serving
Use Serve Receivers
When running volleyball serving drills we like to have passers to pass the ball up. It allows us to run a competitive drill, like a wash drill between the servers and passers.
Use Target Areas
Even if we use passers to receive the ball, we still use target areas for the servers.
Using target areas is beneficial for both parties. Servers get to practice serving to the specific location of the court. It also gives serve receivers an opportunity to pass serves which are targeted to specific locations, i.e. to the small area between the passers.
Example
This is one of our favorite settings. We divide the court into four even areas, each area being 7,5 feet or 2,33 m wide.
Servers target the serve to the Section 1, so they are forced to land the serve on the right side of the player in the zone 1 (P1 in the picture).
P1 stands on the regular passing position, not the middle of the Section 1, so s/he gets to practice passing volleyballs which land on the right side.
Especially when adding power and allowing servers to serve with a full power, the sections are very helpful. Serve receivers won’t have to run all over the court and get frustrated about it mishits. Sections give the passer a much better chance to pass the volleyball which is hit with the full power.
Volleyball Jump Serve Tips
- Start practicing jump serve by serving inside the court. Start closer to the net, i.e. 10 feet line and gradually move further away from the net. Progress all the way behind the back line.
- Most common approach for jump serve is probably “a three step approach”: left-right-left. If you prefer “a four step approach”, then use right-left-right-left. Left-handed player mirrors it.
- In offense (at the net) you probably aim to keep the ball “in front of you” when you spike it. When you hit a jump serve, the ball should not be kept that far ahead of you. If you constantly hit the ball to the net, the ball could be tossed too far ahead.
- Especially if you want to serve a deep ball, which flies high and lands to the back line – do NOT toss the ball too much in front you. Keeping the ball “above your shoulder/head” will help you to accomplish higher flying deep ball, which curves into the back line.
- Jump serve is all about the toss! The difference between a toss, which is too far and a good toss is just a matter of few inches. If the toss is not accurate, practice tossing until it will become consistent.
- Use your wrist to get a top spin on the ball. Next step is to practice side spin (left and right) on the top spinning ball.
- Another serve into advanced players’ repertoire: you may have seen top players hitting the ball which is “between the floater and a top spinning serve”. This ball has a very mild spin, it flies “flat” and is very hard to pass and often surprises passers. It looks exactly like a regular jump serve, but you do it without snapping your wrist (that much). Don’t confuse this serve with a “jump floater”, it is different from that.
Volleyball Jump Float Tips
- Use a “three step” or “four step approach” on the jump floater. Some players use “one legged jump” on it.
- Hit the ball directly behind the ball with a tighten hand. If you manage to hit the center of the ball, it will float
- Some people prefer hitting the ball by keeping fingers tight together; other people like to spread their fingers. If you manage to keep your fingers together, you’ll probably get a better floater, but maybe increasing miss hits.
- On the jump floater keep the toss significantly lower than in the jump serve. It is much easier to hit the ball when you reach to hit the ball at its peak position. In other words do not try to hit on the dropping ball.
… we’ll be continuing this volleyball drills list..
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