High School Volleyball: Dynamic Practice Design and Drills

Use your practice time as efficiently as possible. Nancy Dorsey shows you how with a complete arsenal of fast-paced drills that are easily integrated into any high school practice plan. She also shares several progressions and adjustments for different levels of players.

Using players on the court, Coach Dorsey demonstrates 11 drills that touch on all aspects of the game. She shows drills that get players involved and moving throughout the entire practice. She makes every drill competitive to simulate a game-like situation, and conditions the players through the various drills. Coach Dorsey explains how each drill can be simplified for less experienced players or made more challenging for advanced players.

Coach Dorsey shows six drills that focus on passing skills. These drills give passers multiple reps, passing in all different types of situations. Players are pushed out of their comfort zones as they compete in drills where a specific goal must be achieved. These drills pit passers against passers, and servers against passers. Some are done cooperatively to teach players how to work together to accomplish a common purpose. As an added value, these drills condition players, saving time in practice where conditioning sessions usually take place.

The next segment of drills, which works the offense and defense together, focuses on the attacking aspect of the game while having the defense work against the hitters. These drills also give players a chance to practice multiple positions on the floor, defensively and offensively.

Coach Dorsey explains that scrimmaging without a purpose in practice will not help players improve. She introduces a game called Baseball that challenges teams in all six rotations while keeping things extremely fun. This drill provides the same intensity as scrimmaging but in a more purpose-driven way allowing coaches opportunities to stop the action and make points and corrections.

This presentation single-handedly gives coaches a complete practice that involves all players and all aspects of the game. Players get an incredibly powerful conditioning workout while being pushed to their limits.

111 minutes. 2014.