So you want to know what exercises to use with your volleyball team to warm them up, huh? Well, first you need to think about the context of your warm-up and its 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-ups for a 12-and-under group will be considerably different than for elite college athletes, for example. Kids won’t need as much to be physically ready to play, but college players will. Similarly, warm-ups for a team that is primarily focused on development can be quite different from those for a primarily competitive environment. A development team may use warm-ups to aid skill development, while the competitive team may simply want to have the most efficient way to prepare players’ bodies for the rigors of the game and perhaps work on tactical elements.

In terms of purpose, what I mean here is what the warm-up is intended to accomplish. Is it to prepare the players for training or for competition? Is it primarily physical or mental, or both? Using the example above, while a physical warm-up for 12 and under probably isn’t really necessary, a mental one could be quite important for them to focus on at the beginning of a session. Similarly, preparing for a game can be very different than preparing for practice.

Make sure you have a good handle on both context and purpose when planning your team warm-up. As for drill spells you can use, here are some ideas.

A dynamic warm up will probably be a good starting point. Basically, a dynamic warm-up is one that prepares the body for action through various types of movements. You can find examples by searching on YouTube. The old jogging and stretching routine is increasingly proving to be ineffective, if not outright detrimental to performance due to the impact of static stretching on the muscles. You will want to avoid that.

The dynamic warm-up is pretty good as a general physical warm-up and doesn’t take that long. If you have specialized needs, you’ll want to address those, of course.

What follows the dynamic warm-up, or perhaps even replaces it, depending on your circumstances, depends on what you want to achieve. If you want to incorporate skill development into your warm up, you could do something like ball handling drills that keep players moving and active, but also work on their fundamentals. If you have more tactical needs, you can put players through low-intensity versions of game-like drills by removing the jumping and/or hitting elements. In the case of a pre-game routine, you’ll want something that is consistent and will not only physically prepare players for the game, but also get them in a good frame of mind (think high-success-rate drills).

There are many ways to build a good volleyball warm-up, probably with drills you already know. You just need to think about the requirements of your heating and make the necessary adjustments. Make sure the warm up is right for your team and situation. Don’t get caught up in doing what everyone else is doing.