Serving Volleyball Drills For Beginners Who Want To Be On Varsity

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Serving Volleyball Drills For Beginners Who Want To Be On Varsity

Looking to make the varsity volleyball team? Discover essential serving volleyball drills for beginners that will elevate your skills and help you score points.

Serving Volleyball Drills For Beginners: I dedicated this page to providing beginner-level serving drills that will help you kickstart your journey towards becoming a super strong confident server.
(photo by Matt Duboff girl jump float serve)

Serving Volleyball Drills For Beginners: I dedicated this page to providing beginner-level serving volleyball drills that will help you kickstart your journey towards becoming a super strong confident server.

Dear Volleyball Mom, Did you know your player can Upgrade their volleyball skills with an expert college volleyball prep coach Las Vegas based April Chapple (that's me!) creator of the Breakfast Club for College Players.

Welcome to my webpage on Serving Volleyball Drills For Beginners Who Want To Be On Varsity!

If you've been playing on a JV volleyball team and have hopes of making the varsity team next season, you've come to the right place.

I dedicated this page to providing beginner-level serving drills that will help you kickstart your journey towards becoming a super strong confident server.

Lena working on a tough cross court standing float serve.

Serving is the MOST important skill (in my opinion and others who matter) that can help you score points on your own, without relying on your teammates.

In order to improve your serving skills, it's important to focus on technical aspects such as

foot positioning
core movement
consistent toss
precise contact with the ball

Master these fundamentals and you'll be well on your way to becoming the best point scorer on your team.

So let's dive into these serving drills and start improving your skills to help you achieve your goal to secure your spot on the varsity team!

What Is Serving in Volleyball?

Serving is your first opportunity to score a point and its the one skill you can do by yourself without the help of a teammate.

Since that's the case one of your goals has to be ...to become the best point scoring server on your team.

In my 30+ years of coaching experience, including my current work with the Vegas Volley club teams and private clients, I've developed specific drills that help players become consistent point-scoring servers.

Let's start with one of my favorite serving drills that I use with both my beginner and advanced players.

Standing Float Serve
Serve and Chase Drill

I focus a lot on serving because I want my clients and players to be strong point scoring servers. When they are...they get more playing time than most of their teammates.

Lets just keep that secret between you and me...

Standing Float Serve Serve and Chase Drill

1. Decide on the zone of the court you're going to work on serving. In the video we're serving to down the line to Zone 5.

2. Set up in your standing float ready position.

3. Serve

4. Jog and chase your ball and then get set up on the opposite court and repeat.

5. Do this drill for

a certain amount of time (5 minutes jog and chase) or
do this drill until you've met a certain goal or time (say 30 times down the line and in the court) or
both get 30 balls in the court down the line in 3 minutes

Here's the same drill with goal of serving short serves to Zone 2.

When you learn how to serve a volleyball, even though it's your hand that makes contact with the ball,

🏐the correct positioning of your feet
🏐the movement of your core and lower body working together
🏐a consistent volleyball serve toss made with your serve step approach
🏐where your hand contacts the ball when serving

are four things that will help determine how successful your overhand serve is.

Now that you understand the key components of a successful serve, let's look at some specific drills I use with my Vegas Volley club players to help them track their progress and challenge themselves during practice.

Serving Volleyball Drills For Beginners To Do
Standing Float Reps - Keep Your Score

If you are by yourself doing your own serving drills here's how to challenge yourself while doing them.

1. Plan a certain amount of serves you're going to complete so lets say 30.

2. Plan where you're going to serve and be very specific. so lets say cross court seam to zone 1/6. That means between middle back and right back area.

3. You can put a chair or a towel or something down to aim for and serve to.

4. Keep you own score so when your first serve goes right to your target thats 1 for 1. If you do it again that's two good serves to the target our of two total attempts. If you miss the target or serve out then your score is now ..still two attempts because you didnt make the third attempt..but you add one to the total times you attempted to serve so you're 2 out of three. If you miss again you're 2 out of 4. If you make the next one then you're 3 for 5.

See what's happening here?

Keep going until your total attempts reach 30.

You want to shoot for a goal for at least getting 50% of the balls to your target out of the total serves you attempted. So in this case you want to get 15 serves out of 30 total attempts.

If you don't get 15 then give yourself a penalty. Sit ups, pushups, run a lap and then try again.

Keep going until you get above 50% and you start regularly serving to your specific target, hitting it 70-80% of the time.

The Volleyball Jump Serve: Serving Harder To Score Aces in Volleyball

The two most common forms of the volleyball jump serve comes in two forms, the jump float serve and the jump topspin, both done by contacting the ball in the air behind the service line after taking a three or four approach jump to the ball after the toss.

Serving Volleyball Drills for Beginners: The Jump Serve Comes In Two Forms The Jump Float and The Jump Spin

Why Jump Serve?

The volleyball jump serve is designed to create a lot of speed and pace so the ball hits the ground before the passers in serve receive on the opposing team can move into time to get to it to keep it in play.

In order to serve more aces in volleyball for your team, there are two versions of the jump serve that you can learn to do

-the jump float serve
-the jump topspin serve

While these advanced serving techniques are important to learn, it's equally crucial to practice them in game-like situations.

Here's a serving drill I use with my college athletes during their summer training that you can modify for any skill level.

Serving Volleyball Drills For Beginners: Full Court Serve Receive With Two Passers and Two Float/Jump Servers

So this isn't a beginner drill but its something for beginners to shoot for.

In the video this is my collegiate group working on Serving and Passing

Two servers on both sides
Two passers on both sides
Two setters on both sides

Its a simple drill but I like a certain rhythm to my drills so the drill goes at a certain pace and players aren't standing around wasting time.

Left back server on one side serves cross court to passer
Right back server on the same side serves cross court to the cross court passer after the setter sets and has time to look back for the next pass
Across the net left back server on the other side serves cross court
Then right back serer on the same side cross court to the cross court passer after the setter sets and has time to look back for the next pass
Repeat

Each round servers can continue to serve only cross court or they can alternate one round cross court and the next round down the line.

After coaching thousands of players, from beginners to college athletes, I can tell you that consistent practice with these serving volleyball drills will significantly improve your game. The key is to practice with purpose and track your progress.

If you're looking to further develop your serving skills, check out my detailed guide on "How to Master the Jump Float Serve".

And for those ready to take their overall game to the next level, my article on "Serving Volleyball Court Zones" provides additional strategies for scoring points.

Want personalized guidance on your serving technique?

As someone who works with players daily in private and small group sessions, I'd be happy to help you develop your serving game.

Remember, becoming a strong server isn't just about getting the ball over the net - it's about becoming a consistent point-scorer for your team.

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I share alot of individual, partner and easy-to-do volleyball serving drills we do in class with my followers.

Many of these volleyball practice drills you can do at home by yourself or try at your next practice with your teammates.

If you're a B team or JV player trying to make varsity next year...your goal should be to complete 1000 reps a day of at least three of the basic skills on your own...volleyball passing, serving and setting should be at the top of the list.

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Serving slang is not just about individual techniques; it also relates to overall game strategy. A coach might instruct a player to serve a "short serve" or a "deep serve" to target specific areas of the opponent's court or exploit weaknesses in their serve receive formation.

Ari, my private training client and I are working specifically on serving on jump float cross court serves ...short to Zone 2

There's so much we work on to get to this point where she can contact the ball with

the same toss height and same toss location
the same armswing speed
the same timing for when her serving hand contacts the ball
the middle of the hand contacting the middle of the ball every single time
getting use to watching her serving hand contact the ball at the highest point of her jump ...before she starts to land
and finally contacting the ball in the precise spot on the ball so it goes where the coach wants the player to put it so in this case ..a short serve in the farthest short right corner on the court also called Zone 2.

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Tommi Stockham All Big West Conference sophomore former Coach April Chapple private client 3 years

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