How to Make the Most Out of Volleyball Practice

Showing up to every practice doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to get better. There’s a quote at the Olympic Training Center in CO Springs that says, “If you’re going to be in the gym, be in the gym.” To me, this quote means that if you’re going to show up at practice, you should be intentional, put in the work, and get the most out of it while you’re there. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of practice and get exponentially better:

1) Set goals at the beginning of the week

At the beginning of each week, reflect on the past week or weekend, and pick a skill that you need to work on for the week. Write your goals down, put them up in your room, and pick a mini goal before every practice so you know exactly what you will be focusing on for the day. There is so much going on when you play volleyball, so it’s helpful to focus specifically on certain skills so you don’t get overwhelmed. Then the next week, you can continue focusing on the same skill if it needs a lot more work, or you can move on to a new skill. If you need help with ideas, watch elite players in your position and see what they do well, or you can always ask your coach for ideas too.

2) Reflect on your performance

Take at least a few minutes at the end of each practice and game to objectively reflect on how you did. Be careful with how you talk to yourself if you didn’t play as well as you would have liked. You’re not going to play flawlessly every single time you step onto the court, so do your best to be objective. How was your technique, your mindset, and how did you handle your emotions? What score would you rank them on a scale of 1-10? And what will you do to improve next time?

3) Be intentional every time you touch the ball

Sometimes at practice, we can fall into a trap of just going through the motions. There’s a difference between going up to block by just putting your hands up and going up to actually BLOCK the ball. Same with going up to hit a cross court shot and going up to KILL a cross court shot. Every time you touch the ball, it should be with the intention to win. You should be bettering the ball to put your teammates in the best position possible to score, or if you’re putting the ball over the net you should be putting it over the net with the intention to score or to put the other team in a worse position. If you find yourself just going through the motions, reset and go after it with passion and aggression.

4) Find an accountability partner on your team

If you’re working on a skill, pick a teammate and have them watch you and give you feedback on that skill. You can do the same for them. Usually it’s easiest if it’s someone in your position because you will be working on very similar things. You are on the same team trying to win, so use each other to get better. 

5) Visualize during practice

What I have found helpful is to pretend you’re in a game during practice, so that when a game comes along, you’ve already mentally prepared yourself to be in that game-like situation. So when you’re back at the service line getting reps in at practice, pretend it’s game point, the crowd is going wild, and you have to put a tough serve in to have a chance to win. If you mess up, do it again. Actually keep doing it until you’re calm and focused every time you step back to the service line. Then when you’re in a real game in the same situation, you know exactly what to do and you can feel calmer knowing that you’ve been in that situation before and succeeded. Visualization is an extremely helpful tool to feel focused under pressure. 

6) Enjoy!

The times when I’m not playing well are usually the times when I’m not enjoying myself very much. Just because you’re working on specific things doesn’t mean that you have to be intense without passion. There needs to be a balance of competitive/fun energy with focused effort. Remember that volleyball is a fun game!  

I hope you have found these tips helpful! Remember that showing up to practice alone will not help you get much better. Especially as you get further and further along in your playing career and everyone is equally good, you’ll need an advantage to help you grow as a player faster. So, try these tips out at your next practice, and as always if you have any questions or want me to dive deeper, feel free to reach out to me!