Best Leg Exercises For Volleyball

13 Best Leg Exercises For Volleyball (Sample Program)

Putting together a good leg training plan for volleyball means picking exercises that will transfer well to the sport.

As a multi directional sport with lots of jumping, you want to make sure your training plan builds explosiveness in different directions as well as the stamina to last a whole game.

 The 13 best leg exercises for volleyball players are:

  • Landing Mechanics
  • Box Jumps
  • Overhead Medicine Ball Toss
  • Lateral Bounds
  • Deadlift
  • Front Squat
  • Single Leg Deadlift
  • Single Leg Squat
  • Lunge
  • Lateral Lunge
  • Standing Tibialis Raise
  • Monster Walk
  • Backwards Sled Pull

Below I’ll cover each of these exercises in detail and provide a program to help you integrate them into your volleyball strength and conditioning workouts.

Why Are Your Legs Important for Volleyball? 

The best volleyball players can jump high because of their explosiveness. However their legs also have to have the endurance to help them change direction quickly for the whole game.

Because volleyball requires a lot of quick changes of direction it is very demanding on your body. Quickly accelerating and decelerating are some of the most physically demanding tasks on your muscles and nervous system.

Because of this there are a few considerations that should be improved through leg exercises.

considerations that should be improved through leg exercises

1. Injury Reduction

If you are injured you are not able to play or possibly workout. While this seems like an obvious statement it is important to remember that strength training first should do no harm to your current physical ability. Next it is a key tool for reducing your chances of future injury.

Exercises like the standing tibialis raise, monster walk and backwards sled pull address muscles that are commonly undertrained, not activating when they need to and or help correct asymmetries between your two legs.

2. Strength

Overall strength plays two important roles in your leg function. 

Strengthening your legs improves your potential for power production. You first have to have the ability to produce force in your legs, before you can learn to produce it quickly.

The second function is that strengthening your legs helps with being able to repeatedly contract the muscle. As the game goes on players who have developed strength endurance will be able to continue to move around the court with ease.

Deadlift, squatting and lunging exercises can be done to building strength in the legs while moving in directions that are applicable to volleyball.

3. Explosiveness

Power production in your legs comes from training two aspects of your legs, the muscles and the nervous system. 

The larger your muscles the more potential they have to produce force. 

The more developed your nervous system, the better your coordination and ability you will have to use your muscles. 

Exercises like the landing mechanics, box jump, overhead medicine ball toss, and lateral bound, work on this coordination and ability to quickly produce force.

What Makes A Good Leg Exercise For Volleyball Players?

Leg exercises for volleyball players are mainly for improving the ability to jump and changing direction on the floor. When picking the best exercise for volleyball players it’s important to consider what directions they have to move.

Deadlift and squatting transfer well into improving the ability to move vertically up and down which is why they are some of the best exercises a player can do.

Lunging transfers into forward and backwards motion and the floor while lateral lunges will improve the ability to shuffle for a block and dig.

Because volleyball players are not running long distances in one direction. An exercise like hip thrusts are not the best as it trains the hips to produce strength and power in a horizontal/ or forward direction online and so has a better transfer to sports with lots of  running or sprinting.

Volleyball requires movements that utilize the coordination of many muscles at a time. For this reason, machine exercises that usually isolate one muscle or joint may have a purpose as part of a rehab program after an injury, but are usually not the best for a healthy volleyball player.

The standing tibialis anterior raise does look to isolate one muscle. However, it has been included for it’s preventative role in jumper’s knee and shin splints, which are very common injuries.

Another consideration for leg exercises is to make sure the exercises selected include bilateral, using both legs at once, and unilateral, single leg, exercises. 

Volleyball players need the ability to jump off both legs for blocking and hitting, as well as driving off one leg for shuffling, lunging and single leg jumping for hitting.

For this reason you will see the list below include both kinds of exercises.

13 Best Leg Exercises for Volleyball Players 

1. Landing Mechanics

This exercise will help in grain habits for good landing technique, reducing the impact your knees could experience and your chance of injury.

How To

  • Start on your tip toes and arms overhead
  • Drop your hips and arms to pull yourself into a squatting position, like from landing from a jump

Pro Tip

A way to know you are landing with good technique is by how much noise you make. The quieter the better. Your finish position and noise you make should be like a ninja landing from a tree. 

2. Box Jumps

This is a plyometric exercise that improves your ability to explode up for a block or hit. 

 How To

  • Stand fairly close to the box
  • Pull yourself into a quarter squat then push the floor away as quick as you can, like you are trying to leave footprints in the sand
  • Land on the box and sink into a squat, like in the landing mechanics exercise

Pro Tip

The purpose of a box is to reduce the forces you experience when you land, possibly reducing the chances of an overuse injury. The best box height is something slightly lower than where your feet hang at the peak of your jump.

3. Overhead Med Ball Toss

Will help you develop explosive power in your legs and improve your ability to jump. 

 How To

  • Stand tall with a medicine ball in your hands and arms like ropes
  • Explode away from the floor tossing the ball as high as you can
  • Land quietly like a ninja landing from a tree.

Pro Tip

A six to ten pound med ball is an appropriate weight as you want to move with speed

4. Lateral Bounds

An explosive movement to help with shuffling sideways for blocking and digging.

How To

  • Stand on one leg in a quarter squat
  • Bound to the side push the ground away
  • Land on your opposite leg, sinking into a quarter squat
  • Stick the landing, and hold your balance before bounding back to the first leg

Pro Tip

Start with small hops side to side and extend the length of your bound as you get more comfortable.

5. Deadlift

Deadlifting develops strength in your hip hinge, which is a key part of how high you can jump. 

How To

  • Hold a bar or dumbbells in your hands while standing tall
  • Squeeze your the air out of your armpits or if you are using a bar, try to bend it around your legs
  • Push your hips for the wall behind you
  • Push the ground away to stand tall

Pro Tip

If your back starts to round, you start to bend more at the knees, or you can’t push your full foot into the ground to stand up, you have tried to push the hips too far back.

If you are having difficulty with technique, try deadlifting with a wall or pole behind you. Set your hips up so the wall keeps you in proper form. Over time you will learn what proper form feels like and move away from the wall.

6. Front Squat

Improves your leg strength, especially for jumping. 

How To

  • Grab the bar just wider than shoulder width apart
  • Drive your elbows under the bar and up to create a shelf across your shoulders and chest
  • Feet shoulder width a part, pull yourself into the squat like you are sitting on a chair
  • Push the ground away to stand back up tall

Pro Tip

If you have trouble with the front rack position, stretching your lat muscles can help. If it is still difficult to hold the bar, goblet squats are a possible alternative.

7. Single Leg Deadlift

Deadlifting develops strength in your hip hinge, which is a key part of how high you can jump. It’s important to be strong and stable on two legs as well as one.

How To

  • Hold a bar or dumbbells in your hands while standing tall
  • Squeeze your the air out of your armpits or if you are using a bar, try to bend it around your legs
  • Reach one foot for the wall behind you
  • Push the ground away to stand tall

Pro Tip

Like the double leg deadlift, if your back starts to round, you start to bend more at the knees, or you can’t push your full foot into the ground to stand up, you have tried to push the hips too far back.

8. Single Leg Squat

This is a unilateral exercise, allowing you to recognize and work on differences between your leg strength. As well as, develop leg strength for jumping and lunging off of one leg. 

How To

  • Stand tall with one foot on the edge of a box the other hanging off
  • Pull yourself into the squat like you were sitting on a chair
  • Keep your standing leg knee over the box
  • Push the ground away to return to a standing tall position

Pro Tip

Holding a light weight in your hands and pushing it away from you as you squat, acts as a counter weight and improves your posture. As your core gets stronger, you can keep the weight closer to your chest to act as added resistance.

9. Lunge

Digging is mostly done in a variation of a lunge position. Lunging will help you stay strong through your core and hips, and move in and out of digs with more ease. 

 How To

  • Stand tall, possibly with weights in your hands as needed
  • Step forward, lowering your back knee towards the ground
  • As you lower, track your front knee over the outside half off your foot
  • Stay tall in your posture
  • Your chest may rotate slightly to face the front knee
  • If your hips bones were headlights, they would shine straight forward the whole time
  • Push the ground away to return to standing tall

Pro Tip

Keep your step short enough that your back knee is almost directly below your hip. Stepping farther than this may cause a lot of stretching in the quad and make it difficult to keep an upright posture and or use your core properly.

10. Lateral Lunge

Lateral lunges help you with the side to side movements in digging and blocking.

How To

  • Start tall, holding a weight in front of your chest
  • Step to the side, loading one leg and slowly pull yourself into a squat
  • Explode back to the start position, pushing the ground away from your loaded leg

Pro Tip

Like single leg squats, pushing the weight away from you acts as a counter weight and improves your posture. As your core gets stronger, you can keep the weight closer to your chest to act as added resistance.

11. Standing Tibialis Raise

Activating and if weak, strengthening your tibialis anterior muscle can assist with transforming force from the approach into your jump and aid in safely landing. 

How To

  • Stand up against a wall
  • Place your hands on your legs to keep your knees straight
  • Bring your toes towards your shins
  • Slowly lower your toes back to the ground
  • The farther your feet are from the wall, the harder it will be

Pro Tip

Place a volleyball between your feet and hold on to it as you raise and lower to keep your ankles from rolling in or out

12. Monster Walk

Monster walks help activate your glute med muscles. This muscle is often weak or not activated in people and plays a vital role in your stability of your legs. 

How To

  • With a band around your knees, sit in a quarter squat
  • Keeping the feet and knees hip width apart, slowly walk forward rolling heel to toe

Pro Tip

Fix your gaze on something that is the height of your eyes when you are in that quarter squat position. This insures don’t bob up and down as you walk and stay low the whole time.

13. Backwards Sled Pulls

A knee extensions exercise that emphasizes the quads and glutes unilaterally and at your very end range of motion, like when you first land from a jump. 

How To

  • Hold onto the handles or have the harness around your hips
  • Sit back so there is a slight bend at your waist
  • Slowly push the ground away, driving yourself backwards

Pro Tip

It is easy to lean and use body weight to pull the sled, try to maintain a fairly upright torso and have your leg extension drive you backwards.             

Related Article: Reaction Time in Volleyball: 4 Specific Drills To Master                                                                          

Sample Leg Program for Volleyball Players

Sample Leg Program for Volleyball Players

To see development in your leg strength and explosiveness, you will need to consistently train your legs multiple times per week. 

As strength training will leave your legs fatigued, competitive players who have practice multiple times a week can make improvements in strength in season. However the priority in season is on court training and staying fresh for games. 

People in that situation should focus on improving technique of jumping and exercises and maintaining strength. That way, when off season starts, you are ready to start improving from where you left off last off season.

Injury Reduction

These injury reduction exercises can be incorporated in your warm up to prepare you for your strength training and reduce your chances of future injury.

Moderate to heavy weight sled pulls could be used near the end of your warm up or heavy sled pulls could be done at the end of the workout.

Leg Warm-Up For Volleyball

  • Monster Walk – 3 sets of 10m, 15 – 30s rest between sets

Volleyball Leg Workout #1

  • Box Jumps – 3 sets of 5 reps, 1-2 min rest between sets
  • Deadlift – 3 sets of 8-12 reps, 1-2 min rest between sets
  • Lunge – 3 sets of 8-12 reps, 1-2 min rest between sets

Volleyball Leg Workout #2

  • Front Squat – 3 sets of 8-12 reps, 1-2 min rest between sets
  • Lateral Lunge – 3 sets of 8-12 reps, 1-2 min rest between sets

Related Article:

Final Thoughts

There are many considerations when picking the best leg exercises for volleyball players. The programs outlined above will help you train the different characteristics your legs need to improve your game.

About The Author

Ian Colburn

Ian started his strength and conditioning career working with elite youth volleyball athletes. Before coaching, he completed a BSc in Biomechanics at the University of Calgary. He has over a decade of experience working as a kinesiologist and strength and conditioning coach, with teens to octogenarians in positions with community gyms to elite sport. Outside of coaching, you can find Ian learning new sports, skiing, river surfing, hiking, and traveling. If you have questions or are interested in opportunities to work with Ian, connect with him via Instagram, Linkedin, or Website.