Beginner Volleyball Drills You Can Do At Home To Improve Ball Control

These beginner volleyball drills are a series of setting and passing exercises to do to increase your reading and anticipation and your ball control skills.  

These beginner drills are great to do at home once you've learned the basic setting and passing skills. 

In these drills you will first work on improving your setting accuracy and your passing accuracy while passing the ball to yourself about 4-5 feet in the air then raising your hands up quickly to set the ball to your partner. 

You will first work on improving your setting accuracy and your passing accuracy before moving onto working on reading, anticipating and moving to balls that don't come right to you.

While passing the ball to yourself about 4-5 feet in the air then raising your hands up quickly to set the ball to your partner you are focusing on 

• when setting having both feet parallel until you contact the ball, then when contacting the ball you step forward with your right foot to help guide the ball to the target
• when setting both your arms and your knees straighten and extend to the ceiling when contacting the ball
• when setting keep your fingers in the shape of the ball with both thumb and pinkie making contact and when finishing your shoulders should be close to your ears
• controlling the ball so much that you can get it to your intended target (your partner) without making them move
• when passing keep shoulders slightly in front of knees
• when passing do not swing you arms let your legs help do the work of getting the ball to the target

These steps are things to work on to physically pass or set the ball to your target. 

When you first learn the game you'll find out quickly that in competition there's alot of visual work you have to be good at which is called reading the play in order to anticipate where the ball is going to be so you know where to place yourself so you can get to that spot before the ball does. 

So while working on basic technical skills in these beginner volleyball drills, you will also work on visual and analyzing the game in this drill. 

You do that by watching your partner's body language--their legs, their shoulders but MOST IMPORTANTLY the angle of their platform..you do this quickly as they are about to and as they contact the ball.

Then...you bring your eyes back to the ball while moving quickly to the spot where the ball is going to come down so you can be under the ball when it comes down...which makes it easier for you to pass the ball right back to your partner. 

In other words, you are working on being in the RIGHT place at the RIGHT time before you have to pass or set the ball back to your partner. 

How to use this simple pass and set ball control drill to improve how to “read” and anticipate what an opposing player plans to do with the ball and where you should be in order to pass or set it to your target.  

Like in most beginner volleyball drills, one player will "guide" the drill while the other player "works" the drill.

In the video, the player closest to the net guides the drill making early decisions on where she’s going to set the ball to her partner, either three feet to her left or three feet to her right. 

The “working” player starts in front of their partner and “reads” the body language of the "guide" partner quickly enough to understand and anticipate where they intend to send the ball.

Learning how to do this is important because in a game situation you’ll need to be able to read the opposing team's players passing platform OR the opposing team's setting hands OR hitting arm to see how they intend to hit it into your court.

Or you need to read and anticipate whether you think they are going to tip it.

Or are they going to hit it?

Or are they going to free ball it over?

For this drill the working partner “reads” the setting hands and then tracks the ball as quickly as possible before using a shuffle step to get to the place she thinks will land ...before the ball gets there. 

In practice we work on believing what you see.

A lot of times you see the ball, where it’s going to land but you don’t move for it because you question in your mind whether you’re “seeing” the right thing.

We work on reacting to what we see, no question.

Then we work on “beating” the ball to where we think it’s going to land, not timing it. If you get there at the same time as the ball, you’re late.

Read it. Believe it. Move.

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I share alot of individual, partner and easy-to-do volleyball serving drills we do in class with my followers.

Many of these beginner volleyball drills you can do at home by yourself or try at your next practice with your teammates.

If you're a B team or JV player trying to make varsity next year...your goal should be to complete 1000 reps a day of at least three of the basic skills on your own...volleyball passing, serving and setting should be at the top of the list. 

Your three options are: 

1. You can learn more about Drills by visiting the Related Links below.  
2. Follow the suggested reading on our Sitemap page  Learning How To Play (Sitemap)
3. Or visit the pages in the How to Play Volleyball section in the drop down menu at the top of the page to get started. 

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Volleyball Drills For Setters, Hitters, Liberos, Passers and Blockers

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Beginner Volleyball Drills You Can Do At Home To Improve Ball Control

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