Volleyball Drills Three Drills To Enhance Your Volleyball Skills When Practicing By Yourself

Volleyball Drills Three Drills To Enhance Your Volleyball Skills When Practicing By Yourself

I may sound a little bit crazy, but I absolutely love practicing my volleyball skills and developing new ones.

Nothing makes me happier than being with my teammates, on the court, and practicing my jumps, blocking, serving, spiking, passing, bumping, and even conditioning.

This is where I get pumped up and jazzed about playing. It's at these practice times where my team bonds together and we push each other beyond our limits. It's also where we can see where your own skills may be lacking on one area or another.

I used to think about these areas and think that there are other people on my team who excel in my weaknesses, so why should I have to practice and bust my butt to improve.

To Win. Win. Win.

Very simply the idea of transforming my team into a an unstoppable juggernaut where there are no weaknesses in any area of the court.

So how do I enhance my game, build upon my weaknesses and elevate my team? I practice by myself!

No It's Not An Oxymoron

How do I practice by myself? It's really a lot easier than you may think. I've created three great drills that I've used to help me in my weaker areas.

Timed Marksmanship

This is how I get the blood pumping. It's great for conditioning and for placing my serves right where I want them.

On one side of the court make 5-6 "x"'s on the floor with duct tape at various places. These are your targets. Then set a clock for 5 minutes and set up to serve on the other side.

You then practice serving and aiming for an "x". If you hit it grab another ball and go for another. But, if you miss you must run over, retrieve the ball, and try again until you hit it the "x".

The goal is to hit all the "x"'s on the other side within the time limit. It's a gut buster and really helps with your concentration, conditioning, and serves. Both in power and accuracy.

Set Me Up Again and Again

This is where you actually set up spikes to yourself. Another great conditioning drill but also gives great accuracy in your sets.

Again, put several "x"'s on the floor in random places. Then simply throw a ball up in the air where you're standing and simply "set" the ball towards another "x". Quickly run to it and "set" it again towards another "x".

Repeat this for several minutes. You won't believe how this will immediately increase the accuracy, and timing of your sets and ultimately get your team delivering great killer spikes!

Defending Myself

One of the areas, while I wasn't bad, I wasn't up to the level as my teammates was my defensive dig.

So I knew that I needed to both fix my reaction times and my ability to dive for the ball. I then created this drill to work on it and now I prowl the middle court like a lion looking for fresh meat!

Very simply I defend myself. It took me awhile to get use to doing this, but once I got a handle on it, I didn't have any more problems.

Throw the ball up in the air and bump it on the way down. Now, all you need to do for a set period of time is continue to dive, dig, or bump the ball again wherever it comes down.

Like I mentioned, this drill will dramatically increase your reaction times and ability to relentlessly pursue the ball.

Once you become accustomed to the drill you can make it even more demanding my controlling where you actually bump it to.

Work On Your Weaknesses And Your Team Will Be Unstoppable

When my teammates and I began working on self practice techniques on a regular basis we became an even stronger force, both as a team and personally.

Do you have any weak areas? Try these practice drills to further enhance your volleyball game and create the "unstoppable" team.

Volleyball player Hayley Merrett has completed a brand new ebook that contains even more "self practice" techniques, and tactics to instantly improve your volleyball game by your next match! Check out the information by going to http://WinningVolleyballSkills.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Hayley_Merrett

Volleyball Training Videos: How Watching Video Improves Your Volleyball Game

Volleyball Training Videos: How Watching Video Improves Your Volleyball Game

Watching volleyball videos can seem like the most boring aspect of pre game preparation but like most things you just have to know how to MAKE it work for you.

Usually there are two basic reasons why a coach has you watch volleyball videos...in preparation of an upcoming game or to get better at performing a particular volleyball fundamental. It's easy to get lulled into or lost in the moment of the game on the small screen but instead of watching every play just for the sake of saying "hey I finished watching the video" pick a particular volleyball fundamental that you need to improve and watch the best one or two players perform that fundamental over and over again.

If you need to improve your volleyball serve receive skill or "pass the ball" better then that's the part of the game you need to focus on watching other more experienced players do. Unless your volleyball coach has instructed you to watch something in particular (like the way a team plays defense or the way a player transitions off the net) focus on watching a better player perform the skill that you need to work on the most. How does she do that?

What are they doing? How are they standing while the server still has the volleyball? Do they have a stutter step or do they hop jump as the ball is crossing the net? Which foot is forward? Is their upper body straight up or crouched over? Are they straight legged or are they in a slight squat position when they serve receive?

This is what happens to me when I'm watching a volleyball video...

If I'm watching someone serve receive well....I watch this player execute the right volleyball skill or technique over and over and over again. I want to take that "scene" and take that "visual" with me so I start playing that scene repeatedly in my head. I start visualizing that player doing the same thing in my mind after I've stopped watching. When I go home, when I go to bed, when I'm washing dishes, before practice I get used to seeing this player do the serve receive correctly in my mind.

Then... I start hearing my coach's words on how to do this skill correctly. So then I hear my volleyball coach, I hear my coach say "step to the ball", "present my platform", "use my legs", and I keep hearing my volleyball coach's words over and over like a tape recorder in my mind. This is actually kind of easy because when you aren't performing a skill correctly THAT IS when your coach starts yelling at you anyway, right? What they are yelling at the top of their lungs already exists in your mind so you just start playing that mental volleyball videotape, over and over.

Then little by little both what I SEE in my mind and what I HEAR in my head start meshing together. When I re-play this continuously in my mind these two things start coming together where I form a mental volleyball movie of my own. When this mental movie starts playing then after awhile my body starts to respond to the mental voice I hear and the mental picture I've been playing.

My body starts doing the things that I have been rehearsing over and over again in my mind. I start seeing myself -take the place of that player and in my mind I see myself performing the pass correctly over and over.

And the aspects of the game that I am playing over and over start to become automatic and I start doing these things physically- not just mentally- but actually in real life.

That's how I make watching volleyball videos work for me.

It's great when you can hear a volleyball champion who has played for years commentate on the game. Singin Smith, Karch Kiraly, Mike Dodd and Holly McPeak do the color commentary with Chris Marlowe for the AVP Beach Pro Volleyball Tour games on television. All these volleyball Champions represent some of the greatest players in the history of the AVP and all are past Olympians with multiple gold,silver and bronze medals in Indoor and Beach Volleyball. Listening to them talk about the game is like going to volleyball school. The more you do it...the better volleyball player you can become....and that's one way to make volleyball videos improve your volleyball game.

April Chapple is a former USA National Womens Volleyball Team member and Volleyball Professional who created Volleyball Voices the first virtual volleyball mentoring community with volleyball skills, stories by champion women volleyball players and volleyball coaching information sites where females learn how to play better volleyball.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=April_Chapple

Volleyball Training -Training Beginner Volleyball Players!

Volleyball Training -Training Beginner Volleyball Players!

Your team is tied at 22. It’s the fifth game of the state championship and you badly want to beat your cross-town rivals.

Everything looks good, except one of your players goes down with an ankle sprain. You take a long look down your bench – rookies, all of them. Things could be lost – unless you have taken the time to make sure that your greenhorns have learned the basics.

Training your players to contribute as quickly as possible is the key to making sure that your team isn’t caught in a compromising position. Get them on the court in practice as often as possible and put them through the same paces as you do your starters. Where to start? Place an emphasis on learning the fundamentals.

The skills should be presented to the athlete in a sequence that best gives them the opportunity to contribute as quickly as possible in game situations. What’s the first skill they should learn? Passing, of course.

A player needs to know how to start a play before anything else. They could end up being on the wrong side of the opposing team’s best power and they best know how to get into the ready position and dig the cannon coming their way.

Now you need to teach the rookies how to dish out what they are receiving – big hits. If you can shape their attack skills quickly, you could have an extra weapon when one of your starters goes down. Make sure they learn to approach the net properly, and they will start hammering the ball to the floor in no time.

Since most of your setters will be identified during the learning process, this should probably be the last skill you focus on with learning players. While each player should know and be proficient in this skill, there are only one or two setters on the court at any one time, and probably no more than two setters on an entire team.

Coaches – get all your players into game shape as soon as possible. Not just the regulars, but the rookies, too!

You’re going to need them at some point during the season, so teaching them to dig the ball from their knees, make the picture perfect set and then slam the ball to the floor is going to make your team a champion!

You will find All of the drills you need to teach your rookies the ropes in our brand new e-book, “Winning Volleyball Skills.” Including TONS more tactics to instantly improve your volleyball game by your next match! Check out the information by going to: http://WinningVolleyballSkills.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Hayley_Merrett