When you talk about serving in volleyball, the first thing that comes to mind is the Net! Indeed, the whole point of serving is to send the ball over the Net to the other side …
Good News … You don’t always need a Net to practice your serving skills!
In this article I breakdown the best drills and training routines that will help you sharpen your serving skills without the need of having a Net in front of you.
What gear you will need first need?
To ensure you can practice efficiently and safely, I highly recommend you utilize at least some of the gear I listing right below …
- Knee pads (Like these) for protecting your knees in case you are sliding or falling.
- Volleyball shoes to get good traction on the floor and the extra padding for comfort. For example, these volley shoes have the padding you would need when landing after a high jump!
- Padded shorts to protect the hips as you dive for the ball.
Volleyball serving drills without a net to do alone …
Drill for Passing Skills
One of the easiest ways to practice passing a volleyball at home or a park is to find a big wall. For example, the large outdoor wall of a garage or a public wall will do.
Practice your pass against it. This will allow you to focus on getting the form correct and also give you self-feedback on how much control you have over the ball.
Since you will be attempting to keep the ball up, continuously by passing it every time it bounces back off the wall you are practicing against, your success in this drill serves as an excellent gauge of your control over the ball.
You should aim to begin with passing the ball up more than ten times, especially if you are a beginner at volleyball.
For more experienced players, this drill can be made more challenging. You can mark a box with painter’s tape approximately 10 to 15 feet high and practice passing into the box.
You can also practice diving and rolling on flat grass or carpet. Only do so when you have enough open space to practice safely.
Drill for Setting Skills
To practice at home, take a ball and go to the kitchen or anywhere in the house with a hard floor. Sit on a chair with wheels…
Now practice setting so that the ball nearly touches the ceiling. The goal is to keep setting the ball wherever it goes by moving around on the chair. However, before doing this, make sure there is nothing that you may run into or break or injure yourself.
You can also practice setting drills by doing wall sits. Do this by getting your body a foot away from a wall and then setting the ball so that ball just barely goes above your hands.
Keep your hands in the same spot and keep working on your control of the set.
If you want to work on passing and setting together, you can go outside or in any room that has a high ceiling and practice tossing the ball to yourself, passing it up straight, and then following it with a high set to yourself.
If you are a beginner, this drill will have you running all around the place. As you start to get more skilled, you will be able to maintain control of the ball for a longer time.
You can keep track of your progress to see how much you improve over time.
Drill for Attacking Skills
Practicing your footwork is the best way to get better at attacking. Making sure you are jumping when as you practice your footwork will add a vertical workout to your drill as well.
You can practice your snap either in the living room or the bedroom, or anywhere where there are more pillows. Pile the pillows high and in a wide area.
You can do this on top of the bed or on the couch. Now just toss the ball up, making sure you have got your hitting arm back and ready to hit it, then swing through while focusing on snapping the ball down into the pillows. Of course, make sure that nothing breakable is nearby.
Learn more about these other volleyball drills to practice without a net!
Volleyball serving drills without a net with partners …
Here are some drills you can practice without a net but with partners.
Passing Skills with a Partner
You can pepper like you normally do or do a passing variation where you simply pass the ball back and forth with your partner while testing out different types of passes.
You can even try to catch your partner off-guard by giving them quick, low passes, or you can practice by giving them high lofty passes.
This will not only keep you on your toes but also help you gain more control over the ball.
Here are some steps to guide you on how to do a simple pepper drill with your partner. This drill will make you go through the bump, set, and down a ball hit rotation moves.
- To begin with, the first person should toss the ball to the other.
- The second person will then bump the back to the first person.
- The first person then sets the ball for their hit.
- The final hit will be a down ball which forces the other player to get down low for a pass that begins the drill all over again.
This drill is ideal for practicing your controlled hits. It also teaches you how to aim the ball better to get it to the target person.
Setting Skills with a Partner
It is a great idea to practice an intense setting drill. When you have a partner along, get into a sit-up position while keeping your feet together.
You should be facing each other when you are in the ‘up’ position of the sit-up. Now, have one partner set the ball to the other partner, and as soon as the ball leaves your hands, you have to go down and practice a sit-up.
By the time you get up to the top again, the ball should be there for you to catch and set to your partner.
You can simply keep doing this back and forth, and you will be able to build more control of your sets and also get a wonderful ab workout while you are at it.
Toss to Move
Stand at the same distance and partner-facing stance as you did in the pepper drill. Now have your partner toss the volleyball to you.
However, instead of tossing the ball directly to you, your partner’s aim should be to make you move by tossing the ball a little further behind you.
They can also toss it short of you, so you have to move ahead or dive for it. Have your partner alternate between the short and long tosses so that it is not a predictable pattern.
This drill is important as it helps you learn how to move in a better way to the ball and how to get to the ball with your feet first. It also helps you get a better controlled pass back to your partner.
You can also learn about some interesting volleyball drills you can implement by yourself with a net!
Can you practice those drills at home?
All these drills can be practiced from the comfort of your home. Even the drills that need you to have a partner can be practiced at home…
This is because these are simple workouts that you can do anywhere. Not having a net in between means you can practice these skillsets at anyplace.
However, it is important that you first carry out a thorough check of the area where you plan to practice.
Nothing should come in the way of your moving. Make sure you are not causing any damage to your household items, and neither is there anything in the way that can cause injuries to you and your partner.
Keep in mind that you can also practice volleyball diving at home in case you don’t have access to a court to do so …
Final Thoughts …
These drills can make you great at serving even without a net because learning how to do these drills conditions your body …
You can get ready so that you are in shape and aware of your moves when the time comes to play with the net.
These are also some overall great workouts that help boost your endurance and stamina during the season. And they also help to keep you in conditioned shape during the off-season.
These drills help you get better control over the ball and also help you practice the footwork so that when it comes to playing with the net, your body already knows the moves to make.
The drills also teach you how to better aim the ball to get it to the target teammate. You get to learn how to better move to the ball and to reach the required position with your feet first. At the same time, you get better at making controlled passes to your teammates.
It is worth mentionning that there are some volleyball drills you can implement without a ball!