Many junior high volleyball players have little or no previous experience with the sport. You can help the players on your team develop their skills quickly with focused, engaging drills. Alternate between drills that require players to work individually and in groups or teams, and alternate between drills that focus on various volleyball skills as well.
Toss and Pass
The toss and pass drill helps get players comfortable with basic volleyball skills. The drill also allows each player the opportunity to contact the ball repeatedly. Divide the team into pairs and have the pairs stand facing each other and a few paces apart. So that you can watch the players more easily, have all the pairs stand in a line. Give each pair a ball. Instruct one player in each pair to toss the ball repeatedly to his partner for his partner to pass back. Tell players to focus on hitting the ball with the same part of their forearms each time, and to point their body in the direction of their pass. After five minutes, have the partners switch roles so that the other players get to practice passing. You can also run this drill for setting practice.
Queen of the Court
You can run the queen of the court drill with teams of two, three or four. When players participate on smaller teams, they must work harder to cover the whole court.
Divide the players into teams and have two teams start on the court. The rest of the teams should line up behind one end line. The two teams on the court play out a full point. The team that wins the point gets to stay on the court and a new team comes on to replace the losing team. The new team serves to the team that won the previous point. Each time a team wins a point, that team stays on the court on the receiving side.
Teams can only score when they win points on the receiving side. Each team must keep track of the number of points they score on the receiving side. The first team to reach a previously determined point total wins the drill and gets to sit out of a round of sprints.
Dead Fish
The dead fish drill offers a fun, silly way for young players to practice the serve. Divide the team into two groups and have one group stand on either side of the court behind the end line. Hand out volleyballs to all of the players and place a bin of extra balls on each side. Use tape to mark certain hotspots on the court toward which players are to aim their serves. Blow the whistle to indicate the start of the drill. All players serve simultaneously, attempting to hit the hotspots. If a player misses a serve into the net or out of bounds, she must run to sit down at a hotspot on the opposite side of the court. One of her teammates must save her by serving a ball that she can catch without getting up. When time runs out, the team with the most players left standing wins.
Member Comments