Being Deceptive as an Attacker

Stop showing your cards to your opponent before you play them! The same way you wouldn't want to show your hand in poker before you play your cards is the same way you don't want to show what you are about to do as an attacker in volleyball.

And while you are probably thinking, "Well, duh." You may be doing this without knowing it...

A good defender and blocker are always going to be looking for reads on what you are about to do as an attacker. So, the more you can be consistent with your approach and deceptive with your attack, the easier it will be for you to score.

So here are a few ways that you can focus on when attacking to make sure that you are not giving away what you are about to do.

An Aggressive Approach: As an attacker, you want to always come in with the ability to hit the ball. This means that you need to be aggressive with your footwork and show hit. This will cause the defender to have to sit down, and it will also allow you to hit or roll the ball. As an attacker, you want your approach to always look the same, and then from there, you can read the defense and then execute the right swing or shot. By doing this, you can be much more deceptive on offense.

Don't Drop Your Shoulder: A well-executed roll shot is a great way to score a point, but in order for it to work, you must convince the defense that you are going to hit. In order to do a roll shot, you will need to drop your shoulder, but you want to make sure that you don't drop it until the very last second. If you drop it early, a good defender will read that and then stay light to get your shot.

Hide Your Hand: A good offensive player should be able to go up and execute a cut shot, line shot, jumbo shot, etc., with any good set. It is critical, though, that you are not showing what type of shot you are about to do. This means that you need to keep your hand in a neutral position before, at the very last second, turning it one way or another to execute the shot that you want. The better you can hide your hand, the easier it will be for you to exploit the defense.