Conditioning Home Workouts

Conditioning is so important in volleyball. My theory is that a player cannot reach its full potential unless their body is well conditioned and strengthen to allow the player to perform the highest skill levels.

The following videos are a few workouts that I refer to players:

Strengthen Arm Muscles

It is important to isolate and condition certain arm muscles to increase your hitting strength. In these exercises there are four types that isolate certain muscles for hitting.

If you do not have an elastic band you could probably use large bottles of water or weights and do the same motions.

Team Setting Warmups

Usually these are done without the ball to warm up so why not add a ball and practice setting while doing them.

• Down and back
• Skip
• Hop
• Shuffle
• Cross
• Lunges

Six Basic Defenses

Six Basic Defenses:

1. Slide 
2. Switch
3. Money 
4. Rotation
5. Rover
6. 22

Visually explained...

Front/Back Row Defense Adjustments

On defense it is always hard for outside and weak front row players to decide if they should block certain balls or back up and play tip cover. A lot depends on the strength of the hitter, location of the set, and the blocking ability of the defender. 

Here the weak player pulls off the net to play tip cover while the right back backs up to cover deep line.

In this play the weak helps in a double block while the RB pulls up to cover the tip.

Players should use the pole as a blocker and how far to block off the line. Don't hug the pole for it is challenging to hit straight down the line.

Make sure that when a player covers line that they have their outward food next to or on the line so they do not have to guess or play balls towards the line that would end up swinging out of bounds.

The following drill helps the front row and back row player to work together on defense. When the front row player blocks, the back row player behind her must adjust according to the front player's location therefore you would not want them stacked and create a hole. Imagine a string attached to both players and the pole and they swing, move, and adjust accordingly.

Have players play 2vs2 and split the court in half while making the defense adjust and the offense tries to find the holes to score.

These notes are from Diane Flick of Western Washington >>

Hand Contact Placement in Hitting

When hitting you want to make sure you contact the ball properly and this coach suggests that you make contact a little on the inside of the ball. Hitting against the wall repeatedly is a good drill to get into the habit of hitting correctly.

A Ball & A Wall

When you want to practice on your own just find a wall near your apartment building or park. This girl went to the tennis court.

As you can see she was able to work on passing, setting, & serving. The key is to move your feet and get the ball even when you make a bad pass as movement is key.

You may want to watch how to connect with the ball when you hit.