Fun Volleyball Games for Practice

A monotonous volleyball routine can be boring at times. You just wake up every other day to follow the same boring warm-up routine. If you continue these boring practices, you can reach a state of burnout pretty soon.

But don’t worry.

We bring you fun volleyball games for practice that will help keep you interested in the game while helping you develop the necessary skills at the same time.

Fun Volleyball Games for Practice That Will Break Monotonous Routine

Here are the unique, fun games that you can incorporate into your play.

Volleyball Scramble

How to play this game

• The coach throws a ball into the court to a random player.
• Players have to scramble to set up and return it to the opposition.
• Both teams continue to play until the end of the rally.
• Now the coach will scramble the ball to the other side, and the fun will continue.

How Does It Help Players?

Scramble volleyball drill helps improve reaction times and agility. It trains players to be ready for unexpected shots and improves their adaptability on the court. The coach is the one who will toss the ball to the player of their liking, so every player has to be prepared to receive the ball once the rally ends.

Volleyball Dodgeball

How to play this game

• Divide players into two teams.
• One team serves or passes the ball, trying to hit players from the other team.
• If a player is hit, they’re out. If they catch the ball, the server is out.
• The players who are out will be replaced with those who are waiting.

How Does It Help Players?

Volleyball Dodgeball helps improve serving and passing accuracy. It also enhances the players’ agility and dodging skills, which are vital during intense matches.

Volley Tennis

How to play this game

• The game is played like tennis but with volleyball rules.
• If you have a tennis court available for this, well and good. Otherwise, you can use a long physical obstacle as a net and play the game.
• Players take turns serving and then volley the ball back and forth over the net.

Like this:

How Does It Help Players?

Volley Tennis improves control and placement of the ball, teaching players how to aim their hits and serves strategically.

If you don’t have a tennis court available, use obstacles like a long and wide piece of wood instead of the net. Or just have a court separated by a line with no net at all.

Getting a volleyball net with adjustable height is also a good option, as it will also be useful during the game.

Volley-Square

How to play this game:

• Divide the court into four squares.
• One player is standing in each square of the court.
• Players serve the ball into another square.
• The player in that square has to return it to another square.

How Does It Help Players?

Volley-Square improves serving, setting, and hitting. It helps players practice accurate placement and control of the ball.

Also, no player knows whether the ball will come on their part of the court or not, which also keeps them attentive all the time.

This fun volleyball game practice is the same as quad volleyball.

King/Queen of the Court

How to play this Game

• Divide players into multiple different teams.
• Start a mini-match between the first two teams.
• The team that wins a point stays on the court.
• The losing team eliminates, with a new team joining the winners on the court.

How Does It Help Players?

The King/Queen of the Court promotes a competitive spirit, and it enhances endurance. It tells players that losing is not an option in competitive play, especially when both teams are going head-to-head in the game.

You can play different variants of this game for even more engagement. Swap the players within the losing teams to try different combinations on the court.

Serving Relay Race

How to play this game:

• Divide players into two teams, with both teams standing on the same side of the court.
• One player from each team will serve the ball to the opposite end at the same time.
• The server then goes to the other end of the court to collect their volleyball and give it to their other team member.
• If the server makes a faulty serve, they will need to do it again, while the opposite team can continue with their other players.
• The team whose all the players serve and collect their balls first wins the game.

How Does It Help Players?

Serving Relay Race improves serving accuracy and speed. It helps players learn how to serve quickly under pressure.

Also, players run to the opposite end of the court to collect the ball, which improves their stamina.

Volleyball Soccer

Just like volleyball, tennis is played with the hands. This variant of the game is played with feet and heads.

How to play this game

• Divide players into two teams.
• Players can only use their feet and heads to hit the ball over the net with the net being grounded, just like on the tennis court.
• Each team has three turns to return the ball to the opposition, just like the normal volleyball rally.

Like this

How Does It Help Players?

Volleyball Soccer helps improve ball control and spatial awareness. It develops a different set of skills that can improve overall coordination among players.

Volleyball Keep-Up

How to play this game

• Place one player in the center, while the rest of the players will make a circle.
• The players in the circle will have to keep up the ball without letting it touch the ground.
• The player in the center will have to put the ball to the ground by chasing the ball.

How Does It Help Players?

Volleyball Keep-Up improves coordination and ball control. This game encourages players to work as a team and also trains them to react quickly to keep the ball in play.

Increase the number of players in the center for even more competitive play.

Target Practice

How to play this game

• Set up targets on one side of the court, like cones or hula-hoops.
• Each player has to serve the ball from the opposite side to try to hit that target.
• Play the same game as a hitter/spiker to improve hitting accuracy.

How Does It Help Players?

Target Practice improves accuracy and power in hitting. It trains players to aim their shots, which can be beneficial when trying to hit specific areas of the court during a game. Serving Knockdown helps practice serving accuracy. It allows players to focus on their serves’ direction and power, making them more precise during actual games.

Tip-Top Passing

How to play this game

• Position two players approximately 10 to 15 feet apart.
• Each player passes the ball back and forth to one another, squatting under the ball and tapping it only with their fingertips.
• Keep track of how long the players can keep the rally going without double-hitting, palming, or missing the ball.

How Does It Help Players?

Tip-Top Passing improves the essentials of volleyball passing techniques while fostering a strong bond between players. The game encourages precise control, finesse, and impeccable timing, all of which are vital for the game of volleyball. 

Sharks and Minnows

How to Play this Game

• One player, the ‘shark,’ starts on one side of the court while the rest, the ‘minnows,’ line up on the other side.
• The objective for the minnows is to run across the court without getting hit by the volleyball that the shark is tossing.
• Those who get hit join the shark until there are no minnows left.

Something like this. The only thing is that the shark will have volleyball in their hand which they toss to minnows instead of physically touching them.

How Does It Help Players?

The game “Sharks and Minnows” helps volleyball players by enhancing their agility, speed, reflexes, reaction time, and spatial awareness on the court.

By requiring quick movements, dodging, and changing directions to avoid getting hit by the volleyball, players develop these important skills that translate to better performance in the game of volleyball.

Two-Ball Volleyball

How to play this Game?

• It is just like a normal volleyball game, with one big difference: there are two balls in play.
• The game starts with both teams serving the ball to the opposite team at the same time.
• Both teams keep on continuing the game, and they need to keep both balls in the rally at the same time.
• The objective is to maintain rallies with both balls as long as possible.

The game will look more or less like this.

How Does It Help Players?

This fun game enhances players’ multitasking abilities as they need to simultaneously focus on two balls in play. This improves their ability to make split-second decisions. Also, it improves communication and teamwork, as players must coordinate with their teammates to manage both balls effectively. This game also challenges players’ reflexes and reaction time, as they must react quickly to the movements of two balls.

You can play two-ball volleyball with volley tennis or volley soccer as well.

Round the World Serving

How to Play this Game?

• Players take turns serving from all areas of the service line.
• They can only move to the next spot after a successful service from their current position.
• The first player to serve from every spot is the winner.

How Does It Help Players?

This drill improves serving skills and accuracy while helping players to focus on pressure situations.

Pinball Volleyball

How To Play This?

• One team works to keep the ball alive and continue passing it within their team.
• The other team tries to disrupt their flow by hitting another ball into their play area.
• The opposite team throws the volleyball again and again until they make the first team’s ball grounded.

How Does It Help Players?

This drill increases focus, communication, and reaction time. It enhances players’ ball control skills, as they need to make accurate passes under pressure from the opposing team’s attempts to disrupt their flow.

Final Words

Bringing variety to your volleyball routine is a great way to spice things up. It allows you to motivate yourself to practice when you feel burnout.

After having new practice drills in the bucket, you have the opportunity to hone your skills in a better fashion to bring your A-game to the court.

And if you are someone who is struggling to get practice partners for these drills, social volleyball events are your way to go.

Or joining a club volleyball is yet another idea, as it bring you both players and coaches for these types of fun practices.