Official Indoor Volleyball Rules

While two-player beach volleyball has been the rage of late, indoor volleyball has the tradition--it was invented in 1895 in Holyoke, Massachusetts--and more teamwork--six players on a court instead of two. In the past few decades, the game has remained essentially the same, but some rules have changed. The official governing body is the International Volleyball Federation.

  1. Court

    • A volleyball court is 59 feet long, 29 1/2 feet wide and has a 40-inch net across the middle to divide sides. The top of the net is 7 feet 4 1/8 inches from the ground for women's volleyball and 7 feet 11 5/8 inches for men's. In addition to the court boundaries, there is a line parallel to the net and 10 feet back into each side of the court from the net.

    Teams and Rotations

    • Teams consist of six players. After each change of possession, players rotate one clockwise position.

    Serve

    • To serve, a player must stand out of bounds, toss the ball into the air and strike it before returning to the court. As of 2000, a ball that makes contact with the net but still goes into the opposing team's side of the court is a live ball.

    Hits

    • Each team is allowed to touch the ball a maximum of three times before returning it to the opposing team's side of the court. No player may contact the ball twice in succession, except on a serve; this was another rule change in 2000 that allowed a player to make multiple contacts with a ball as long as they were deemed part of the same play.

    Libero

    • In 1998, the libero ("free," in Italian) was added to the game. This defensive specialist must wear a different-colored uniform from his teammates' and can come in as a substitute for a back row player at any time. He can act as a setter at times but cannot attack or block a ball that is above the net.

    Scoring

    • Volleyball can be played either as side-out or rally (though rally is pretty much universal today). In side-out, only the team that served can score a point. In rally, a point is scored regardless of which side served. Rally scoring was created to make a game faster.