Even the best volleyball players take to the beach or the courts to hone their skills. Phil Dalhausser, nicknamed "the Thin Beast," and his partner and fellow Olympic gold medalist, Todd Rogers, known as "the Professor," sharpen their skills to stay at the top in blocks and kills on the professional tour. You can work likewise to bump up your game in volleyball, a sport built around certain specialized skills.
Serving
The serve is the cornerstone of quality play for a volleyball player. A statistical analysis of Brigham Young University men's volleyball and international play by BYU statistics professor Gil Fellingham found that sending over easy serves has a profound negative impact on the odds of winning a game, as does missing serves. In short, you need to send over tough serves that stay in bounds to help your team, concludes BYU coach Tom Peterson in a chapter on serving in "Volleyball Skills and Drills." All you need to get going is access to a cart of volleyballs and a court to get your reps in on your own time, he advises. During practice, coaches can also give you feedback on your accuracy and speed.
Serve Receive
Coming right behind the ability to serve is the ability to receive the serve, or "serve receive" in volleyball parlance. Given the importance of this skill, Carl McGown, former head men's volleyball coach at BYU, recommends that at least half of practice every day should be involved with serve and serve receive. Keen visual skills, concentration and the ability to move effectively to the ball help determine your serve-receive success rate, notes St. Louis University coach Marilyn Nolen in a chapter on receiving serves in "Volleyball Skills and Drills." You typically use the bump or forearm pass to control the serve and pass it to your setter.
Setting
Good setting technique can help you take an average pass and convert it to a great set, notes Wisconsin coach Pete Waite in "Aggressive Volleyball." The key to this skill is footwork. Get your feet directly under ball no matter where it goes, Waite advises. To stay prepared, your hands need to stay above waist level and you move around the court, and you need to maintain an aggressive attitude that indicates you always want to take the second hit of a rally.
Attacking
The most spectacular skill in volleyball is the attack, as you run alongside the net and elevate to spike the ball past the opponent's block. You can perform either a single-leg or double-leg takeoff to reach your vertical maximum height, from which you pull your dominant arm behind your ear and then snap it forward to contact the ball. This skill requires you to build speed in your approach and land balanced on both feet, Waite observes.
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