You can scale up your whole volleyball game by scaling up your speed! You should be fast in your actions and reactions.
This is what will make you prevent the ball from touching the ground and then initiate fast and effective attacks that could take your opponents by surprise.
Keep in mind that movements aren’t just front and back, but sideways too. When a player can move quickly around the volleyball court, his or her hitting, blocking, setting, and digging skills will improve. Hence speed plays a crucial role in volleyball.
In this article, I breakdown the key elements to build your Speed. I also, provide some highly effective drills to help improve your quickness for volleyball in the best possible ways.
3 Key Components to Speed in Volleyball
Endurance: Volleyball is quite intensive. It will challenge your endurance to a great extent. The game of volleyball ends when a team hits 21 points. This may sound like a short target, but it can take a long time to complete this if the teams are equally capable. Lacking endurance means that you won’t be able to be as fast in the later points (that matter the most)
Agility: Refers to the ability of the body to move swiftly and efficiently to another position. You need to move to the position where the ball moves.
Flexibility: While endurance and agility are needed, flexibility is more of a must. A person needs to shift from one place to another very quickly. If your muscles are stiff then these movements will not be possible.
Helpful Tip: These attributes are just examples, you can learn more by checking this helpful resource where you will discover other important volleyball attributes.
3 Important Drills to become Faster in Volleyball
You volleyball Speed can definitely be improved with practice. Below are some effective drills that should help …
Quick Recommendation: To be able to simulate the real case scenarios, it is better to consider executing some of these drills wearing proper volleyball shoes. If you are not familiar with them, then this is an example of a good pair of shoes.
Explosive step-ups
This is an amazing drill that will improve your explosive energy thereby making you faster. To perform this drill, you need to have a steady bench in front of you.
The height of the bench shouldn’t be more than 10 inches and can vary according to the player’s height.
The player needs to rapidly step up and down the bench. This will train the legs to generate explosive power to climb up and down the box.
A person must do 3 sets of 60 seconds each. If the player gets comfortable with the process then he can hold up a dumbbell in one hand during the drill.
Extra weight will not only add up the difficulty but also create imbalance. This will help the body to generate the same energy when the ball moves in a different direction and the player has to reach them immediately.
Learn how you can be positively aggressive in volleyball …
High knees
This is a drill that more athletes perform. It is mostly undertaken during the warmup session.
The player here needs to run by pushing the knees up. The pace need not be high during the initial time, but the form must be accurate.
The knees must come up till the waist level and the back must be straight with the chest pushed out.
The player can lock his hands on the waist with his palm open. The athlete should make sure that the knee touches the palm in every step, this will ensure good form throughout.
Shuttle run
This classic drill helps to improve both the speed and endurance of an individual…
Two cones must be placed at a gap of 60 meters. There must be two cones placed in between them placed at equal intervals.
The player needs to stand at the starting point and sprint to the first cone, touch it with his hand and rush back to the starting point.
Then he must go for the second cone, touch it with his hands and again rush back to starting point.
And at last repeat the process with the last cone as well. This increases the sprint speed of the player which is very helpful during a game.
2 Volleyball reaction and quick reflexes Drills
As mentioned earlier, a player needs to be very attentive during a volleyball match. He must know when to do what…
Reflexes play a major role in this regard. Below are some drills that help …
Don’t let the ball drop
This drill is commonly known as the race to the ground. In this, the trainer needs to hold a tennis ball or some other small object in each of his hands.
You must stand straight and look at his trainer. The latter will drop you the ball at any moment from his hand.
You need to prevent the ball from touching the ground by catching it. Then your will hand over the ball back to your trainer.
The trainer will continue the process till your starts to continuously drop the catches!
The drill may sound easy but it tests the player’s concentration to a great extent. This drill will make your spontaneous movement very smooth.
You will notice a massive improvement in your game after practising this drill for a few weeks.
Reactive gear drill
In this drill you need to fix two cones 30 meters apart. You will start to jog in between the cones.
The trainer will manage the speed of the athlete by mentioning the gear. Gear 1 will be jogging, gear 2 will be 3/4th of the maximum speed and gear 3 will be a full sprint.
This drill will enhance the speed reflexes of the player.
Volleyball Positions that need speed the most
While every player needs to be physically fit and must have good speed there are some positions where the player needs to be faster than his teammates.
One such position is an opposite hitter. This is by far the most versatile position in volleyball.
He has to play for both offence and defence.
The opposite hitter also needs to possess solid jumping skills.
Another such position is an outside hitter. He somewhat plays the same as the opposite hitter, but he has to focus more on the defensive side.
Is running enough to help your speed for volleyball?
Many players just focus on running. They just think that running for hours and hours will enhance their speed.
This is actually not quite accurate.
Instead you should focus on a wider perspective. You should mix up a variety of exercises in your training.
These should include various drills as mentioned above in this article. Also other than cardio exercises, a person must focus on aspects like flexibility as well.
Learn how can running help your volleyball abilities …
Final Thoughts …
If you are a beginner, then I highly invite you to not focus too much on developing your speed at the beginning. You will notice speed improvement naturally just by regular practice …
However, after couple of months you should reassess (preferably with a coach) your overall speed and implement the necessary drills to help improve that.