3 Great Volleyball Drills to Get Yourself Warmed Up

There are any number of ways to get warm and ready to play volleyball. Dynamic warm-ups have become popular, thankfully replacing the old jog-and-stretch routines. To the extent possible, though, it is always better to do something volleyball-specific. To that end, here are three simple options.

Pepper

Watch players and teams getting ready for a match and you are almost certain to see them playing pepper. If you're not familiar with this drill, you can think of it as a 2-person pass-set-hit drill, sometimes called things like "keepy-uppy". It's a continuous action exercise where one player sets the ball to their partner, the partner hits the ball back, the first partner digs that ball, the second partner sets it back, and so on. Pepper offers the advantage of working on many of the major movements of the game, thus it provides a nice full-body warm-up. At low levels of ability, however, there tends to be more ball chasing than continuous action, so a different drill may be preferred.

Co-operative scrimmage play

When time is at a premium and/or you just want to get into playing as quickly as possible, you can play yourself warm. Basically, this just means playing the game at a low level of intensity until everyone is loosened up. When done as a kind of co-operative game, the objective is to keep the ball in play and moving rather than to score points to maximize player movement and touches. It has the advantage of incorporating all kinds of volleyball activity and action, so it provides both a physical and mental warm-up before playing properly.

Over-the-net pepper

A great way to add more movement to standard pepper, while also making it more game like in terms of having the net aspect to it, is to do a 3-person pepper over the net. In this drill two players start on one side of the net, with one at the net and one off it, and one player starts on the other side. The single player tosses the ball to the back row player on the other side. She passes the ball to the front row player, who sets it for her. The passer then hits, tips, rolls, or downballs it over the net to the player on the other side (depending on level of play and progression toward being warm), then ducks under the net to become the setter for that player. The sequence continues from there for as long as the players can keep it going. In a 4-person variation, the hitter does not go under the net, but instead stays on her side to set the next ball while the setter drops back to become the passer/hitter when the ball comes back over.

Obviously, the latter two drills involve playing across the net, so they are more likely to be useful in a training situation or when just doing a kind of pick-up game rather than before a match. They do speak to the value of trying to make things as game-specific as you can to not just warm up your body, but your playing mind as well.