23 Volleyball Drills for Middle School

Volleyball drills are essential to build basic volleyball skills. If you are leading a volleyball club at your middle school or simply want to support your child as a middle school volleyball player, check out the list below to find volleyball drills for middle school students. Some of these drills can be done in a group setting and some are best taught one-on-one with your young volleyball athlete.

1. Wall Ball

Using the space you have on hand is perfect for this drill. Utilizing the wall creates a simple drill that will act and serve as a warm-up for your middle school students whether they are on a volleyball team or in gym class.

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2. Passing Skills

You can begin by encouraging your middle school level volleyball athlete to practice their passing skills by bouncing their ball off of a wall they can find or they can practice with a partner in order to practice volleyball passing drills.

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3. Conditioning and Warm-Up Drills

This type of warm-up drill is suited for a group to practice together. Incorporating warm-up drills will ensure you are strengthening those basic skills while coaching volleyball. This drill will benefit beginner volleyball players and experienced players as well.

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4. Loading

Teach your students how to load properly by carrying out this excellent volleyball drill. Loading and passing are fundamental volleyball skills. These learned and practiced skills will translate to a real volleyball game when the time comes. The students will show their hard work!

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5. Forearm Passing

Looking at platform discipline and footwork, this drill will complement the volleyball workout that you might also be incorporating into your next volleyball lesson during a team practice or gym class. Proper forearm passing and passing techniques are of paramount importance.

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6. Target Practice

Encouraging your students to practice hitting a specific target will service them during playing time. This type of drill practices ball controls as your players will learn to aim and follow through while working on their precision and technique.

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7. Mini-Volleyball

A simple ball control drill takes the form of this mini-volleyball game students can play. They will play for roughly 10 serves and have a couple of players hold up a rope to act as a net and a mini volleyball court. The rope holders will rotate often.

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8. Passing Circle

This drill encourages proper ball technique and has a few volleyball enthusiasts all in a circle together. This circle involves the players focusing on moving their feet and practicing their precision as well. A few friends can come together to participate.

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9. Ball Controls

Students will get to practice different positions over time. Giving the players only a certain amount of time to complete their drill will add a sense of urgency and efficiency to their movements. Time expectations require an additional layer of skill.

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10. Two Player Pepper

This type of drill practices many different essential volleyball skills and it will fit nicely into your warm-up time with the children. Skills such as passing, setting, digging, and hitting will increase over the period of time you are allowing them to practice.

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11. One Hand Ball Control

Passing or keeping the ball up as the player is passing the ball to themselves using one arm will ensure they are practicing making solid contact with the ball and learning about how much force to put behind the movement each time they do.

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12. 2 on 6

When learning about playing defense and practicing certain defensive skills, playing 2 on 6 will ensure your players become masters at communication or at least increase their communication skills as that will be what it takes for the smaller team to win!

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13. Core Strength

One of the ways to work on your blocking skills is to strengthen your code. Building on muscles in your shoulders and back will ensure you have the upper body strength to participate fully in the game of volleyball.

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14. Off The Ground

You can have from 3 to 8 players playing this game. The main goal or objective of this activity is to loosen up the player's body and raise their body temperature, This would be suitable for a warm-up activity.

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15. Beat The Ball to The Setter

Looking at the diagram key for this drill can provide some clarification on which movements your players will be doing. This drill is especially interesting because you can use as many combinations of sets as you would like to use. It is customizable in this way.

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16. Scrimmage

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Running scrimmages during practice time is the perfect way to judge how your players are most likely going to play during a real game. Including a scrimmage in your practice, or even better yet- tryouts, is an excellent way for players to showcase their skills and for you to evaluate them.

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17. Using Your (Fore)head

This drill is best carried out with 2 players at a time. They will face one another and set balls back and forth. This drill enhances essential movements that the players will have to carry out and the partner setting aspect of it creates a sense of relying on teammates.

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18. Practice Serving at Home

If you are on a budget or do not have any volleyball equipment at home, you can still work on your skills. You can work with tape and a wall at home to practice serving in your own house.

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19. Setting the Fan

This activity reinforces correct footwork by allowing the setter to strengthen their setting skills by practicing setting balls that are coming in from a lot of different directions and angles.

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20. Amoeba Serving

This activity will help your future aspiring servers. Utilizing this drill at your next tryouts will ensure you get a chance to judge and assess students' serving skills.

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21. Mintonette Volleyball Drills

Showing your middle school athletes videos or demonstrations would be very helpful. Learning about effective footwork and maintaining good posture when playing are important skills to refine.

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