Excellent volleyball spiking requires more than just a powerful hit. As a large hitter who was known for hitting the crap out of the volleyball, I found that my biggest problem when I was spiking was not that I wasn’t generating enough power, but that I wasn’t maintaining good control over the ball when I hit it.

Hi everyone, Andor Gyulai here, owner and founder of Volleyball1on1.com and former NCAA champion. Over the years I have developed a tried and true method for ball control when volleyball spiking that I learned through experience and careful coaching, today, I want to share my hard earned technique with you.

Technique

When volleyball spiking, most right-handed hitters make contact with the ball on the top right hand side of the volleyball. The assumption here is that by slamming the ball down into the court from the top right hand side you will get the maximum amount of power while maintaining good accuracy. Using this method is not technically the wrong way to spike a volleyball, but it is definitely not the best way to spike a volleyball.

Correction

The reality here is that you always have the least amount of control over your volleyball spike if you make contact on the top right. When volleyball spiking, if you make contact with the ball slightly to the left of the top of the ball, you can maintain the power of your arm swing while gaining excellent control over the direction of the ball and the accuracy of your spike.

Accuracy

While spiking the right side of the ball does generate power, it has a serious downside when it comes to control. If you consistently aim for the upper right side of the ball when you spike you will notice that your ball will have a tendency to waffle out of bounds much more often than it would if you had adapted to the more control oriented left side volleyball spiking technique.

Hitting on the right hand side is a natural tendency for a hitter, and if you never make the effort to break the habit of coming in on top of the ball on the right side then you will never truly maximize your volleyball spiking ability and gain more control over you spike.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my video on volleyball spiking and gaining more control, and I hope you check out more of my instructional volleyball videos at volleyball1on1.com