Volleyball Toolbox

Agility Ladder Drills for Volleyball

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If you are wanting to increase the agility and footwork of your players, try these seven agility ladder drills designed to help prepare your players to be neurologically ready for more explosive movements.

In the clip below Reid Hall, volleyball strength and conditioning coach, shows you seven different agility ladder drills that he uses to train volleyball players. He typically uses these as a warm-up exercise as they do a great job of getting blood flowing to the muscles and preparing the body for the more explosive movements in a volleyball workout or practice.  The focus of the agility ladder drills is to move your feet as fast as possible.

The agility ladder drills demonstrated in this video are as follows:

  1. Two in One Out ( some people call this the Icky Shuffle)
  2. Cross Over Step ( the outside foot is the only foot the steps in)
  3. One-Two forward One-Two back (stepping in from the side)
  4. Single leg hops (hop diagonally thru the ladder on one leg – controlled exercise. Down and back on each leg)
  5. High Knees to Sprint (step 1-2 into each space and pull knees up as high as possible)
  6. Two in, Two out. ( straddle the ladder. Step 1-2 into the ladder, then step 1-2 out as you move down the ladder)
  7. Scissor Jumps (Jump into the ladder and alternate your feet as you travel down the ladder)

Coaching Points:

  1. Move your feet as fast as possible
  2. You should be “pumping” your arms as you move through the ladder
  3. After exiting the ladder the athlete should explode with into a 10 yard sprint. Emphasize a quick explosive start to the sprint.

Coach Hall generally chooses two of the ladder agility drills and completes two to three sets of each drill. He completes this portion of his workouts in about six minutes.

For other great volleyball strength and conditioning ideas, check out Coach Hall’s site Reids-Workouts Reid Halls YouTube Channelor see more video at

The YouTube video below has audio, so please make sure that your volume is turned up and that you have access to the site. Note that some schools block access to YouTube.