Training

If you are looking for a core strength workout, then you have come to the right place. Why should a volleyball player worry about their core and have workouts specifically designed for it? Well, that is the whole point of this page.

I am a big advocate of core workouts for many different reasons. First of all, your core is such a large part of playing volleyball. You use your core for powerful jumping, you use it to reach when blocking, you also use it to swing when hitting. It is a muscle group that will impact so many of your skills and abilities. A great volleyball player will have a strong core.

Another huge reason that I like a core strength workout is that players are less likely to be injured when their core is strong. That sounds a little hard to believe, but I have noticed that they tend to have fewer injuries. That is another huge reason to have a strong core.

The other reason that I really like core workouts is that most of these core exercises will workout your entire body. By the time you are done, you will probably feel like you had an entire body workout. Gotta love that feeling!

So, here is a great core workout routine for you to use:

Push Ups with Squat Jump

This exercise is a great one to hit all of the muscle groups. Start with one or two sets depending on your fitness level and add more as you gain strength. Doing push ups on a bar like this on an uneven surface will force your core to do the balancing.

Elbow Torso Twist

When this core strength workout is done correctly, this exercise is a core killer. Your arm and hand should not move and you will be doing this exercise correctly. Set a mental goal of the number of reps you want to do and go for maximum number.

Those are a couple of great exercises to get you started. If you want to see more of what Barry has to offer, you should go check out his Training for Volleyball program. I have seen what it can do for people and I highly recommend it.

I hope these core exercises will help you improve your fitness level as a volleyball player.

One question frequently asked by coaches and players is how they can quickly improve their volleyball skill. That was my motivation for this page of my website. I wanted to offer critical advice for improving their skills above their competition.

Improving Your Volleyball Skills

First of all, you have to increase the intensity of your practices. One of the biggest reasons that I see teams under-perform is that they do not make their practices the same intensity as they would a game. What is the result?

Usually, you see a lot of service errors because they are not accustomed to serving under pressure. You see the same problem with hitting errors. It is much more difficult to make the play when your team MUST have a point.

So, how do you increase the intensity of your practice? The responsibility is on both the players and the coaches. It starts with the coaches because most teams will not be self-disciplined enough to bring the intensity. So, the coaches must teach the players how to achieve higher goals and expectations. They must create pressure situations in practice where the team that scores the point doesn’t have to do some of the conditioning exercises.

The players have the responsibility to realize that the way they practice is the way they are going to play. When you play sloppy at practice, it carries over to the matches. Bring your best enthusiasm and energy to practice each day. Over time, this improves your volleyball skill because you will be prepared for the match.

The second thing that you can do is to use the right techniques. Volleyball is a technique driven sport. When you use proper technique, everything runs better.

Practices should focus on the fundamental volleyball skills instead of the flashy plays. I would rather have a fundamentally sound offense and defense instead of one player that is trying to be a show-off and during things differently.

Your players should repeat (over and over) drills that improve their passing, setting, serving, and hitting. It is also a good idea to have assistant coaches that can keep statistics of practices. Why? It all helps create that environment that the practice is just like the game.

There is a saying that says, “When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of acceleration improves.”

You must communicate these statistics to your players so that they have a baseline to measure their performance. When you have these statistics and you play your players based on their performance, the team operates at a much higher level.

Creating volleyball skill that improves is not difficult. It just requires focus in the right areas. I hope these ideas will help your team achieve more.

Where to go from here?

Increase your vertical jump – Any easy way to improve your skill…

Volleyball rotations – Learn how to run an offense.

Asics Volleyball Shoes – These reviews show why so many volleyball players enjoy these shoes.

Volleyball setting strategies are focused on reading the defense while setting so that you can get the best match ups when running your offense. So, this page will focus more on where to set and why rather than how to set. If you want to learn proper setting techniques, you should go to that page.

Volleyball Setting Strategies

When it comes to setting strategies for volleyball, you need to think about how you can get your hitters isolated for the best one-on-one match ups possible. As a setter, your job is not only to deliver the ball to the hitters and run the offense, but you are responsible for creating those mismatches by being deceptive. 

When you are able to have your best hitters hitting against their worst blockers, you are stacking the odds of scoring a point in your favor.

It all begins by reading the defense prior to the ball being served. Where are the blockers for the other team? Which one of them is the least likely to block your player? If you get a good pass where you can set to any of your players, that would be a good place to set so that you exploit a weakness on the other team.

Another volleyball setting strategy that you can use to create hitting opportunities for your team is to run an X play (from time to time) or a crossing play. A crossing play is where you have your middle blocker come in for a quick attack with your outside hitter coming right behind them for a second hitting option.

When this happens, you as a setter are reading the defense to see where they are going to block and giving the ball to the other hitter. If the blockers all jump to block the first hitter, you simply set the ball to the second hitter because they will be hitting the ball as the blockers are landing. You have created a hitting opportunity where the blockers are out of position.

A similar situation can be achieved when you are setting the ball to the opposite hitter using a back set. However, this can only be achieved when you are disguising the set. When the other team sees that you are arching your back for a back set, they will start to move over. Do it at the last minute to reduce their reaction time.

The opposite is also true for volleyball setting. You can arch your back the whole time and let them start moving towards the opposite hitter and then you can set the ball in front of you to your middle blocker or outside hitter.

When you are on the front row, dump the ball to the other team just to keep the defense honest. When you are on the front row, you are one of the hitting options and so you need to dump the ball as the other team is not expecting it. When you are receiving the pass and preparing to set the ball, take a quick glance at the defense to see where they are and react accordingly.

Many of these items will seem like small details, but these small details are the items that make the biggest differences in scoring points. Most teams do the big items well. It is the teams that do the small things well that makes the difference.

I hope these volleyball setting strategies will help you isolate your best hitters and in turn you will increase your chances of scoring points.

Where do you want to go next?

Volleyball Nets – Read these reviews and find the best indoor or outdoor net for your needs.

Volleyball Quotes – Read these great quotes or add one of your favorites!

Volleyball Statistics – Learn how to use statistics to improve the performance of your team.

Volleyball spiking strategies are another way to increase the points that your team wins during a match. The whole purpose of these tips is to make you a more effective hitter so that you can get that kill when needed.

When you are hitting a volleyball, most players just try to hit as hard as they can without any thought or strategy behind what they are doing. They want to be known as the “power hitter” and so they just try and rip every set they get.

I want you to take a smarter approach to hitting. As a hitter, let’s review your options and talk about when each hitting option is effective.

Hitting Options

Swing Hard Down The Line – This option works best when there are two blockers up on your block, or if the outside blocker is trying to block your angle hit. The key to this technique and any other volleyball spiking strategy is to hit the ball while it is in front of you.

Sure, you want your arm swing to be as high as possible so that it is more difficult to block, but you need to keep the ball slightly in front of you when hitting so that you can see the volleyball net, and the blockers. When those blockers are leaving the line open, hit down the line.

Swing Hard Cross Court – This option seems best when only one blocker is up or there is a seam between two blockers. When there is only one blocker, there will be plenty of gaps to swing at and the cross court angle is usually available.

Where there is a double block, most blockers are not disciplined enough to seal the gap between them and there is enough room to hit the ball through the gap.

Tip Over The Block – It is a great technique to use sparingly. If you have been powering the ball for most of your hits, the defense will actually get to a point where the are more vulnerable to this kind of attack. 

If they are expecting you to power the ball, the back row will likely be on their heels waiting for a big blast. They will be frozen and unable to move. The front row will be doing everything they can to be up on the block. So, with multiple blockers up and the back row frozen, conditions will be perfect for this.

Just make sure that you disguise this attack properly or you will not be as effective as a hitter. Many people when they tip the ball, they jump with their arm already out in tipping position and the defense has time to react. When you do this, do your normal approach and hitting motion and then stop the swing and tip at the last moment to reduce their reaction time. That is how to be successful with this volleyball spiking technique.

Tool The Block – Tooling the block means that you purposefully hit the ball into the block so that the ball is deflected off the block and is unplayable.  This is an extremely effective strategy when there is a good block that is up.

When you use this strategy, there are three options on where to aim at. You can hit the ball off of the side of their hands, swing high to go off of the top of their hands, or you can hit it straight into their hands so that the ball goes straight down on their side of the net.

Hitting it straight into their hands only works if they are not penetrating the net (reaching their hands over your side of the net). If they jump up to block and leave their hands on their own side of the net, the hands become an easy target for a kill.

When hitting off of the side or tops of their hands, you want to swing hard, but remember to keep the ball in front of you when hitting so that you can see their hands. Getting a kill in volleyball does not mean that you hit the hardest. It just means that you are playing smartly.

Tip Into The Block – This one is probably the most difficult to do consistently. This volleyball spiking strategy is used only when the ball is set very tightly on the net and the blocker is going to get an easy block.

This advanced volleyball spiking strategy is where you are going to tip the ball into the block in a way so that is comes back down on your side allowing you to pass it back to your setter and rerunning the offense for another hitting opportunity.

The intent here is not to get a kill. It is simply to keep the ball in play and give your team another opportunity for a kill.

These are the primary hitting strategies and when they are effective. Make sure that you practice all of them so that you do not become a hitter with only one hitting technique.

Where to go next?

Volleyball Spiking Videos – These are some great hits caught on video.

Hitting Techniques – This page teaches more of the “how to” technique on hitting.

Volleyball Practice Plans – Download some sample practice plans to make your practices more effective.