Combination Volleyball Drills: Dominate Ball Control & Win More Matches!

with Michelle Collier,
Georgia Tech Head Coach;
2021 NCAA Elite Eight;
2021 AVCA East Coast Region Coach of the Year;
2020 NCAA Tournament, second round;
2019 NIVC Champions;
2019 ACC Coach of the Year;
2019 AVCA Region Coach of the Year;
former Jacksonville University Head Coach;
2013 Atlantic Sun Conference Coach of the Year;
played professionally from 2003-2006 in Spain, Netherlands, Cyprus, Indonesia and Puerto Rico;
as a player at the University of South Florida, was a 2x Conference USA Player of the Year, 2002 All-American, & league Player of the Decade

Ball control. It's the single-most important skill in volleyball. The truth is, without it, your team's chances of success take a serious hit. Your players need to possess ball-control skills in all aspects of their game, whether they're going to attack, set, defend or pass out of serve receive. It doesn’t matter how great your team is, if your ball-control skills are subpar, you won’t get your team to the level. As such, including ball-control skill development in your daily practice routine is a must. 

Michelle Collier, the 2021 AVCA East Coast Region Coach of the Year, demonstrates how she uses a progression of combination practice drills that re-creates scenarios seen in 6-on-6 play, providing viewers with multiple drills to work on fundamental skills. Collier notes that to perform the skills when asked, each aspect of the game must be comfortable and natural for your volleyball athletes so that they’re confident when they need to draw upon a particular skill within the high-pressure situation of an actual match. If players aren’t comfortable, their confidence will fade in a live-match scenario – and a sure way to build up their skill-set is through repeated drill repetitions.

Out of System Setting Drills

Coach Collier stresses that players must learn how to take out of system balls and turn them into an offensive attack by creating athletes that can perform all the necessary skills. Athletes learn to think quickly after performing drills so their reaction times are faster and more accurate when playing. 

Keys points shared for you to teach your players include: 

1) being at a full stop while making contact with the ball, 

2) using your legs for control, 

3) setting the ball in front of the hitter and inside the antennae (so the hitter has offensive options), and

4) emphasizing court awareness and control

Practice Segments

With performing on-court drills that will help players improve their skills, Collier provides instruction on the combination drills that are show, while reiterating the importance of daily ball control drills – outlining that training a player’s mind is a beneficial byproduct of ball control work done as daily activity in drills.

Combination progression drills help create an effective offensive team, teaching court awareness and setting decisions that better the ball position every time, teaching them to place the ball in positions that middles can still be a part of the offense. Each progression of drills trains all your players to move from base to defense and back to base – which, essentially trains their brains to do so in live action.

Coach Collier gives viewers everything they need to know about incorporating ball-control progression drills into a daily practice regimen. You will see techniques that can be a solid foundation to make your team a highly skilled, out of system team.  

In this video, Collier also stresses the best methods for transforming your live practice segments into ‘areas of player growth’ by expressing the purpose of the drills to players and the importance of providing feedback on that purpose. This helps to develop a cultural system that holds players accountable for using the skills training to execute the given purpose.After watching this information-packed video, viewers will understand why Collier-coached teams are 

always competitive and consistently successful. This video will help you run a productive, active practice that develops athletes who can perform in and out of system play!

48 minutes. 2022.