Tag Archives: Serve

Apr 13

How to serve a top spin

Posted on by

I ran across this article on Volleyball.com and thought I’d share it.

How to serve a top spin

A top spin refers to the top of the volley ball spinning forward. It can be a difficult hit that has a great pay off. The ball dives suddenly in front of the opposing team and looks impressive and is often mistaken for a ball going past the end line.

There are some tips that apply to almost all serves, and they apply to the top spin as well. Always use follow through when hitting, which means when serving don’t plan to stop the motion of your arm when making contact. Aim beyond the ball, and hit like the ball is a few feet beyond where it is. Keep your eyes on the ball. Focus on the hit.

The actual motion offers a few techniques that can sometimes take people a few years to learn. A good tip is to practice with a small ball, like a baseball, and flick it against a wall repeatedly.

  1. You need to position yourself so that you are under the ball to hit it. Some players throw it behind the back, or use different hands. The thing to remember is to be under the ball as it arcs upwards, so that you can apply the perfect motion to the perfect spot.
  2. Hit the ball with your hand open, the arm firm but the wrist relaxed. Your arm should be fully extended at the point of contact. Aim for the bottom center of the ball.
The rest of this article can be found under How to Serve a Top Spin on Volleyball.com.

But, I’m more a float serving gal myself. Kindred spirits, check out our post on float serves.

Jan 24

Ask Danielle about volleyball

Posted on by

I recently got a question from a frustrated high school volleyball coach in Canada. His team competes (well) the whole match and loses in the final points of the game, which he attributes to weak serving. He mentions that his young high school players buckle under the pressure and send nice, easy lobbed serves to the other team. Any good team would take advantage of a serve like this and return it with full force.

My advice to him was:

Dear Sir,
I understand what you’re going through. It seems common for younger players to buckle under pressure. I’ve dealt with that most of my coaching career. The only way they’ll truly get past the stress is

by being familiar with those situations. My suggestion to you is to put them in high pressure situations at practice.

In drills, have the starters be down a number of points so they have to fight for a comeback to win (with a consequence, of course). But I’ve also done pressure serving drills. You can run this a number of ways.

1. Have all the girls on the end line with a ball. One by one, they each have to serve an aggressive ball to the zone of your choosing. The girl (captain) who serves first must serve twice. Once to lead off, once to conclude. If you have 9 girls, tell them they must complete 9 tough serves… that means 9/10 must be tough (per your standards).

2. You could pick 1-3 player(s) at the end of each practice and say, “If these players make the (tough) serves I call, practice is over. If they don’t, we run.”

Good luck with your upcoming season.

Danielle

These are just a couple tips for this coach to try to help get his team past the “fear” of serving aggressively at the end of close matches. Do you do it differently? Tell me about it.

Or… maybe you have a specific question for your team? Comment below or email me in the contact form on the right.