Home | Set up for Volleyball

It's no secret that trying to keep kids engaged in activities is extremely challenging if they tasks aren’t fun or exciting. Luckily with things such as volleyball, generally speaking the children attending sessions are there because they already enjoy the sport. However children naturally have short attention spans, this means we need a lot of drills that not only help the kids progress and learn the core skills but they also need to be fun. In this article I am going to give some fun drills that will work on each of the core skills required in Volleyball. These drills will not only be fun and enjoyable but also get the kids used to performing certain volleyball actions that will benefit them later on during their further progression. Once you have the drills, come back here to get your volleyball essentials from Amazon Volleyball Warm Up Games For Kids One of the most important aspects of any sport is getting a correct warm up. Without the correct warm up players risk reduced performance and more importantly a greater chance of injury. Now I know what you’re thinking. 'No one has fun warming up' Well hopefully I am about to prove that wrong with a game called Shark & Minnows Sharks & Minnows Sharks & Minnows is a great way to get the kids thoroughly warmed up by using a fun for all game. To play set up for Sharks & Minnows, pick 3 players to be sharks and have them stand in the center of the court on one half. The rest of the players will be the minnows. The minnows are to stand in a line along the sideline. The aim of the game is for the minnows to safely reach the other side line without getting caught by the sharks. In order for a shark to catch a player they must simply touch them in the court area. If the minnow reaches the sideline they are safe. If a minnow gets caught by a shark they must sit down in whatever spot they are caught. If another minnow touches the caught minnow and states the phrase 'swim free' loudly. The minnow that was once caught is allowed to rejoin the game. The game finishes once all minnows are caught by the sharks. This game not only get the children moving and warming up, but implements the core fundamentals of teamwork as the more minnows in play, the longer the game continues. Knee Touch Game Another game that can be a great way to get the kids moving and warmed up is the K we touch game. To play the knee Touch game ask everyone to get in a pair and space out around the court in their pairs. Once all pairs are spaced out have them get in the defensive position facing their partner. The aim of the game is in their pairs they are trying to touch their partners knee whilst not getting their knee touched. The players will realize very quickly that the higher their defensive stance the more exposed their knees will be. Due to this fact it forces players to get a nice low defensive position but more importantly it teaches players how to stay in the defensive position whilst moving. Another great thing about this game is it not only works on the defensive stance and movement but it also improves players court awareness. If players do not constantly look at the other pairs around them they will likely crash into each other. This drill is a sure fire way to get players moving and warm before a big session. Obviously once these games have been played and players are feeling warmer make sure that everyone gets a good stretch in prior to starting. Volleyball Serving Games For Kids One of the most important skills in volleyball is not the passing, setting or spiking. It is the serving. Without being able to serve the game of volleyball would never actually be played. The serve signifies the start of every single rally in Volleyball and if players can’t get the ball over the net and in the court the other skills are useless. Now depending on the level of the children you are teaching will greatly depend on what serving drills you can do. For the sake of these drills I am going to assume the kids in question can already serve and these drills are designed to improve the kids serving. Servers vs Catchers The first drill I like to play is servers vs catchers. For this drill you want to split the team up into 2 teams. The two teams will line up on opposite sides behind the baseline. One team will be the servers and the other line will be the catchers. One player from the catchers will stand in the center of the court in the receiving position. The first person from the serving team will take a ball and get ready to serve. The idea of the drill is the server must serve the ball within the lines on the other side without allowing the catcher to touch and hold the ball. If the server successfully gets the ball in on the other side without the catcher being able to hold the ball the serving teams wins the point. If the catcher does indeed catch the ball their team scores a point. To make the game harder for both teams if the catching team touches the ball but is not able to catch it neither team gets a point. Pick a scoreline and once the scoreline is reached the teams will switch roles. I personally like to use 11 points. Dead Fish Volleyball Game The dead fish volleyball game is certainly not as serious and sinister as it sounds. The idea of the dead fish volleyball game is to work on service pressure, service accuracy and overcoming problems when at a disadvantage. To play the dead fish game, again split the teams in two and get them to stand in a line behind each service line. One team at one end and the other team on the opposite end. Each player will need a ball, don’t worry if you don’t have that many balls as players will serve individually anyway. The teams will take it in turns trying to serve the ball over the net and into the opposition side. If the serve is successful they will rejoin the back of the line. If they miss the serve or don’t make it over the net they must go to the opposition side and lay down in any spot they choose. This person is now the dead fish waiting to be brought back to life. The dead fish can be saved if someone from their team gets a serve, not only in and over the net, but also is able to make the ball land on or touch their player. If all of the players on the team miss their serve before saving their team mate they are out. The winning team is the team who still has remaining servers. Volleyball Passing Games For Kids One of the next most fundamental skills in Volleyball is passing. I have a full in depth article about the proper technique of passing so I will skip this step and get straight to the drills. Between the legs bouncing The first fun drill is the between the legs bouncing drill. Now I know it’s not a catchy name so please feel free to name this what you want. The name simply describes what the aim of the game is. This drill can be done in a multitude of ways, the easiest way I suggest it to split the team into 2 and make one player from each team the feeder. Make sure the feeders have plenty of balls. One player from each team will step forward into the call and get into the base passing position. The feeder will throw the ball upwards and in the direction of the passer. The passers job is not to pass but instead miss the ball. Let me explain. The aim of the drill is to make the passer move towards the flight of the ball and they want to try and let the ball bounce between their legs. This drill is fantastic for teaching players how to move and get their body behind the ball whilst also teaching players correct timing and that passing the ball in the correct stance at a lower point is much more beneficial for accuracy. If the players are of a much better ability there is much more advanced version of this drills that allows players to work on reactions and also practice giving the ball energy to reach a certain target. Between the legs Advanced Now you know the between the legs drill we can really advance this drill to make it more challenging. Split the team into two groups again and get each time to stand behind the opposite baselines. One team will serve and the first player from the other team will step forward. In this drill the receiving player must track the serve and time it correctly so that the ball will bounce between their legs. If the ball hits their legs or they jump to get over the ball the point is automatically awarded to the other team. Once the receiving player has stepped over the ball the second player in the line must admittedly play the ball back over the net. The person who previously served must now allow the ball to pass through their legs and again the next player in line must dig the ball before it bounces again and return the ball to keep the rally going. This process is repeated until the ball either hits the player when passing through their legs or alternatively the next person in line can not get the ball back over the net. Pick a score line and play the game out until the desired scoreline is achieved by one team. Feel free to add variations to this game. Volleyball setting Games For Kids Much like all the other skills on this list I have a detailed article on exactly how to hand set or volley in volleyball which you can view here. Again for these drills I am assuming that the players already know how to set a volleyball. Volley Battle The first setting game is one I like to call volley battle. This game requires two players, one on each side of the net. Using cones or other markings create a small circle that encapsulates the two players. I would suggest the circle should be approximately 2m in diameter. Once the circle is marked out the game can begin. With one player on each side of the net they are simply going to battle it to try and win the point. A point is won by forcing the other player to make a mistake by not being able to set cleanly or rather not being able to overhand set or by making the ball land inside their opponents semi circle. The ball must be set over to start the rally and the ‘serving’ player must serve the ball from outside the circle. Much like in traditional volleyball. Each player is allowed one contact only and it must be using an overhand motion only. If the ball contacts the net the point is automatically awarded to the defending player. Pick a scoreline and have the players battle it until someone is victorious. 6 v 6 A good way to get everyone in the team comfortable at receiving overhand or setting in general is to play a normal volleyball game however include a rule that every touch must be an overhand set. This game will drastically improve the confidence of all players at receiving overhand but also at getting their body in the right position to be able to receive overhand. To make the game slightly easier I would suggest including a rule that players are not allowed to jump when ‘attacking’. The reason for this is if players are particularly gifted at jumping they could still set the ball directly down making it extremely difficult to receive overhand. The drill also offers players another safe option to return the ball if the set is not very good or the team is out of system. Volleyball Spiking Games For Kids We have made it. The skill everyone has been waiting for. Fortunately for nearly all players in volleyball spiking is fun and therefore we don’t necessarily need any fun or clever games to keep kids engaged in the sessions. There really isn’t much that you can’t do to make spiking enjoyable. Target Practice Everybody when spiking wants to jump as high as they can and spike the ball as steep as they can. Now look I get it. Spiking hard and steep looks cool, but is actually the practical? Against any fairly good team in volleyball they will likely have two blockers making hitting the ball steep very difficult even at youth level. This is where the game target practice comes into play. Depending on the level of the players you can either split the team up into 3, 2 or 1 line. If you have a good standard I would suggest splitting the team up into the 3 hitting positions. That being Middle, Opposite and Outside. You will also want a setter and a feeder for this drill. On the other side of the mark out 2 zones. These zones will run the full length of the sidelines and be approximately 1m in width. The idea of this drill is to help the attackers hit the ball to hard to reach areas. If the player is able to land the ball in these zones they receive one point, if the ball does lands in but not within the zone they receive no points. If the ball is hit out or doesn’t make it over the net the player will lose a point. If you are using more than one hitting line I would suggest the setter alternates which line they set to For example the first ball goes out to the 4 position, the next ball the middle and the third ball to 2. This game can be ended in a multitude of ways. If you really want the kids to all improve at accuracy you could state that each player must reach 3 points, after which they can get a drink. Alternatively if you want to encourage players to take risks you could make it a competition. In this sense every player could have 10 hits each, the person who has the highest score after each player has had their 10 hits is the winner. One way in which you could progress this drill is to make players hit from each of the lines so they are familiar with hitting different angles and from different positions. Attack vs Defense The last game is fantastic one if your team are of a fairly good standard. This drill very closely mimics game situations so it want feel so foreign to them when the time comes to see out a tight set. For this drill you will need a minimum of 11 players. On one side you will need a setter, passer and 3 hitters. On the other 6 you will want 6 players to fill each base position. The drill will start with a free ball being thrown over the net to the single passer on the team of 5 players. The passer will pass the ball to the setter who can decide to set any of the 3 attacking players. The hitters aim is to win the point. If the team of 6 players either get a block or are simply able to keep the ball alive and return a free ball to the passer the defenders win the point. If the attacking team kill the ball or the defenders are not able to get a controlled free ball returned then the attacking team will be awarded the point. The game starts with a score line of 17-19. The attacking side are the team that are down by 2. Much like a normal game the winning team will be the team who reaches 25 points first. The drill is a perfect way to not only improve attacking but it also helps players overcome the pressure of being on the back foot in a game. If you find that the score lines are not suitable for the ability of the session these can be altered to suit. Generally speaking you want the pressure to be on the attackers so if you tweak the scoreline ensure the attackers still have a higher mountain to climb.

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