If you’ve been around volleyball very long at all, you’ve probably heard the term, and maybe you’ve wondered what it means. Chances are pretty good that you’ve even seen players pepper before and not even realize what it was called.
In volleyball, to “pepper” is to practice your ball control passing, setting, and even hitting with one or more partners. The partners work together to keep the ball in play in a very controlled way.
Learning to pepper can be intimidating to new players, but the truth is it’s a skill that can be learned by nearly everyone with a bit of practice. I’ve watched some amazingly young children who are able to maintain a 2-person pepper for dozens of hits.
The most common way to pepper is for everyone on the team to break up into pairs and just do a 2-person pepper. If you have an odd player out, either a coach may partner with them or you can form a group of 3. If you can, your goal is to alternate the type of hit in the order below so that each player is making each kind of contact.
| Player 1 | Player 2 |
|---|---|
| Pass | Set |
| Hit | Pass |
| Set | Hit |
| Pass | Set |
| Hit | Pass |
| Set | Hit |
It’s not critical that you keep that order 100%, but that’s the goal. Eventually, you’ll have to pass when you should be setting or volleying when you should hit, or even going for a save. Your first goal is to keep the ball in play, the secondary goal is to keep rotating through the type of hits.
Why Do Volleyball Players “Pepper”?
- To warm-up at the beginning of team practice or a game
- To practice controlling each type of hit
- To practice when you have very few players
- To get many more touches in a short amount of time compared to other drills
- To become a well-rounded player who can play anywhere on the court
- To practice or warm-up when there’s no net available
Tips To Help You “Pepper” More Easily
- Begin about 5 to 8 feet apart and gradually increase your distance as you get better. If you pepper with the same partner, you’ll find you can spread out because you know what to expect from each other.
- Begin at a slow, controlled pace. It’s easy to feel like you have to rush, but start slow and methodical when you begin.
- Focus on good technique with your touches. If you practice good technique, you’ll be ready to play with good technique! Just because you’re hitting in a controlled way doesn’t mean you get sloppy. Get low for your digs, get yourself centered when you’re setting, and extend that arm when you’re reaching for the hit.
- Remember you’re working together to keep it up, don’t hit aggressively! You want to move aggressively, but carefully control your touches to give your partner a playable ball.
- Be ready to move before your partner touches the ball. If you are standing around casually you’re going to get very frustrated. You have to bend those knees and shift your weight to the balls of your feet.
If you’re looking for more beginner-friendly skills and drills, check out this post called Teaching Volleyball Skills in Gym Class.
Why Is It Called “Peppering”?
Many volleyball players have no idea where the name came from or why they call it that. It actually comes from baseball. I’m not much of a baseball player, but I’ve heard that there are 2 different drills that can be called “peppering.”
The first is similar to volleyball where players pair up and two partners that pass and catch the ball back and forth to each other (which certainly sound very basic and simple compared to the volleyball version). The second has a player at bat that hits the ball to the fielders and as they throw it in, the batter keeps hitting it back out.
Pepper Variations
Pepper the Wall
While this is pretty common, it’s not terribly exciting. When a player has no partner they can find a wall and do their best to pepper against it.
Rotating Pepper
When your whole team is doing a pepper in pairs, make them rotate after a few minutes so that they’re matching up with different partners. This can be done on a consistent basis, or just spontaneously, whatever the coach would like.
You have many benefits with this:
- Players will become more familiar with every player on the team, not just their traditional partner.
- Players may be pushed to actually pepper at a higher level because the of natural peer pressure of playing with someone they don’t know as well.
- Rotating can break players out of bad habits or just complacency.
One-way Pepper
In this variation, instead of each partner doing a single hit back and forth, the hitter is just hitting. The digger will pass the ball up to themselves and then set their partner for another hit.
This can run for a certain number of exchanges, for example players switch after 10 hits, OR pairs can be chosen that match up 1 defender against 1 attacker and they just stay in those roles for the whole drill.
3-Hit Pepper
Player 1 tosses the ball to player 2 who then passes to themselves, sets themselves and then hits back to player 1. Each possession should be 3 controlled hits.
Over the Net 3-Hit Pepper
This is the same as the 3-Hit Pepper, but players station themselves across the net from each other.
3-Hit Pepper with Approach
This is pretty advanced, and you’ll need more space between partners. When a player sets themselves, they have to make an approach to hit.
2-Hit Pepper
Each player makes 2 hits whenever the ball comes to them. They either a regular dig to themselves and a hit OR an overhead contact (dig or volley) to themselves, followed by a hit.
Would you like to improve your digging? Take a look at this article about how to improve your digging.
What Is Wild Pepper Volleyball?
Wild PEPPER is actually a brand of athletic gear. They offer a wide range of apparel and accessories for volleyball players and coaches. If are looking for their products, you can access their site here.
BetterAtVolleyball.com is not currently affiliated with Wild PEPPER in any way.
Photo Credits:
Featured image by popo.uw23 available in public domain https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
Digging image by Neon Tommy on flickr.com: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
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