Volleyball Warm-up Exercises - Get your team ready to go

So you want to know what drills you need with your volleyball team to get them warmed up, right? Well, first you need to think about the context of your warming and their purpose. Let me address these two things individually.

When I say context, I mean the type of team you have and the priorities you have for them. Warm-up for a group of 12 and unders will be significantly different than, say, college-level athletes. The kids don’t need that much to get them physically ready to go, but the college players can. Similarly, warm-ups for a team whose focus is primarily on development can be very different from those in a predominantly competitive environment. A development team can use warm-ups to help develop skills, while for the competitive team it may just want the most effective way to prepare players' bodies due to gameplay and perhaps work on tactical elements.

As for the purpose, what I mean here is what your warm-up is meant to achieve. Is it to get the players ready for training or for competition. Is it mainly physical or mental or both? Using the example above, while a physical warm-up for 12-and-unders is probably not really necessary, a mental one can be very important in getting them to focus at the start of a session. Likewise, being ready for a match can be different than getting ready for training.

Make sure you have a good grasp of both context and purpose when planning your team's warm-up. As for the kinds of exercises you can use, here are some ideas.

A dynamic warm-up is likely to be a good starting point. Basically, a dynamic warm-up is one that prepares the body for action through various forms of movement. You can find examples by searching YouTube. The old jog & stretch routine is proving to be increasingly ineffective, if not down right, which is detrimental to performance due to the effect of static stretching on the muscles. You want to avoid that.

The dynamic warm-up is quite good as a general physical warm-up and does not take as much time. Of course, if you have specialized needs, you will want to address them.

What follows the dynamic warming - or perhaps even replaces it, depending on your circumstance - depends on what you want to achieve. If you want to incorporate skill development into the warm-up, you can do something like ball handling exercises that keep players moving and active, but also work on their foundation. If you have multiple tactical needs, you can put players through low-intensity versions of game-like exercises by removing the jump and / or frame elements. In case of a pre-match routine you will want something that is consistent and not only physically prepares the players to play but also puts them in a good mindset (think exercises with high ทีมอุ่นเครื่องสู้โควิด rate).

There are many ways you can construct a good volleyball warm-up, probably with exercises you already know. You just have to think about the requirements for your heating and make adjustments as needed. Make sure the warm-up suits your team and your situation. Do not get caught up in doing what others do.