Easy Volleyball Drills

Volleyball coaches wishing to instill strong fundamentals in their players use practice drills that focus on good habits and technique. In addition to choosing drills that promote ball control, defense and offensive strategy the drills should be easy enough for players of any level to grasp. Keeping volleyball drills as simple as possible helps players focus on mastering the skills. Once they're proficient with the easy drills, coaches can choose to make the exercises more complex.

  1. Partner Play

    • In this drill players partner up with one of their teammates. Player 1 passes the ball to her partner in a series of long and short passes. First she begins with a short pass in which her partner must hustle to pass it back to her. Then Player 1 throws up a high, long pass, in which her partner must back peddle to pass it back to her. Player 1 varies the distance and location of the pass so that her partner moves forward and back, and side to side during the drill. Once her partner successfully completes 10 passes, players switch. Repeat the entire drill using sets in place of passes.

    Hitting Drill

    • For this hitting drill, players form three separate lines behind the right-hitter, middle-blocker and left-hitter positions. Setters position themselves at the net. The coach or assistant coach feeds the ball to the setter and she sets the ball up for her teammate to spike over the net. Setters can choose to mix up the offense with high, quick or short sets. This drill helps players work on approach, timing and arm swing. In addition it helps setters get to know what type of sets their teammates prefer.

    Serve Receive

    • For this drill coaches should position six players on serve receive on one side of the court, while the rest of the team lines up on the opposite side at the service line. The objective of the service team is to focus on one particular player during the entire rotation and serve solely to that player. The server should be trying to exploit the passer's weakness. If the passer has trouble returning deep passes, all servers should try to serve deep. Players on the serve receive team should play out the ball and then rotate. Once the passer has made contact at every position, the service team chooses another player to focus on. Once all players on the receiving side have passed the ball the teams switch sides.