How to Practice Volleyball at Home


partners practicing volleyball outside

Athletes know success is built in the offseason. If you’re wondering how to improve your volleyball skills, we have volleyball drills that players can use to hone their skills on their own  or with a partner or group. With a variety of volleyball drills for beginners and advanced players, our guide will give you tips and tricks for how to practice volleyball at home so you can reach your full potential on the court.

How to Practice Volleyball by Yourself

Many developing players wonder, “Can I practice volleyball by myself?'' There are many ways to practice volleyball alone, even without a net. All you need is a volleyball of your own (if you can’t get a volleyball of your own, some schools or teams will allow you to borrow one). The easiest way to start practicing alone is to start by passing to yourself. The key to this drill is making sure you’re in the proper passing form.

Passing to Yourself

  1. All Water Toys & Pool Floats. 
  2. As you get comfortable with your ball control, you can start moving around and shuffling side-to-side. (Remember to maintain your proper passing form throughout this drill. If at any time you start sacrificing your form, take it back a step before you add more movement.)

Setting to Yourself

You can also use a similar drill to practice setting to yourself. 

  1. Begin by lying on your back on the floor with your knees bent. 
  2. Raise your hands about a foot above your face creating a triangular window between your thumbs and index fingers. 
  3. Push the ball out and begin setting repeatedly, focusing on keeping the ball path straight and maintaining proper setting form. 
  4. As you get more comfortable with this drill, you can transition to setting to yourself while standing or walking for more of a challenge.

How to Practice Volleyball With a Partner

Whether you have a teammate over to help you practice or you wrangle a sibling into being your partner, practicing volleyball at home with a partner opens up a variety of practice options. If both of you want to get reps in, a fun way to practice volleyball with a partner is the Pepper drill. If you’re not familiar with how to Pepper, you and your partner start by standing a short distance away from one another. 

Pepper Drill

  1. Toss the ball to your partner, and they pass it back to you.
  2. You set it back to them.
  3. They hit or tip it back to you.
  4. You continue this sequence until losing control of the ball.

If your partner isn’t interested in practicing along with you or you just want to focus on practicing a specific skill, you can ask your partner to toss or hit the ball to you so you can practice passing, setting, or hitting it back to them.

How to Practice Volleyball With a Group

If you’re hanging out with your friends or family, there are fun drills for practicing volleyball as a group. Whether you have a net or not, you can have fun while also working on your technical volleyball skills.

Circle Pepper Drill

  1. If you don’t have a volleyball net, your group can form a large circle facing each other. 
  2. Similar to the Pepper drill, you can pass, set, and hit the ball around the circle with the focus of not letting the ball touch the ground. 

The excitement of this drill is that you never know who the ball will go to so it’s best to play on a soft surface like grass or sand in case you need to make a diving save.

3-Person Over-the-Net Pepper Drill

If you have access to an outdoor volleyball net or a gym with a volleyball net, there are a variety of drills you can try outside of a typical scrimmage. A fun and challenging drill to test out is the 3-Person Pepper Drill, also called 3-Person Over-the-Net Pepper. 

  1. Start with all three players on one side of the net. 
  2. The first person tosses the ball to the setter then runs under the net to the other side. 
  3. The setter sets up the hitter then runs under the net to the other side. 
  4. The hitter then hits it over the net to the first person who is ready to pass and continue the sequence on the other side. 
  5. The hitter also runs under the net to the other side in preparation to hit again. You can continue this drill until the ball hits the ground.


Players of all skill levels wonder how to get better at volleyball, and the answer is always practice. Practice and repetition are key to improving your volleyball skills. Our guide is a great place to get started learning how to practice volleyball at home. If you’re ready to get started practicing volleyball, check out our wide variety of volleyball gear for players of all ages.