Every spike, block and jump serve ends in a landing, and the landing is where most volleyball injuries happen. A safe landing is on both feet, soft, with your hips, knees and ankles bending to absorb the force and your knees staying over your toes instead of caving inward. Learn it before you jump hard, then keep it when you are tired. The camera reads it from the front: two feet or one, how much your knees bend, and whether they cave in.
Land on two feet, balanced
Land on both feet at the same time, with your weight even. Elite players land on one foot about half the time, and a one-foot landing from a jump is the most common way knees get hurt in volleyball, because one leg has to absorb what two legs created.
both feet touch down together, weight even.
Touch down on the balls of your feet with your knees already slightly bent, then let your heels come down. Landing on flat feet with straight legs leaves your joints no room to absorb the force.
toes first, then heels, knees already soft.
Bend to absorb (soft landing)
Land softly: bend your hips and knees together as you touch down, so the landing takes time and makes little noise. A stiff landing with little knee bend and a short landing time is linked to jumper's knee (patellar tendinopathy) in jumping athletes.
a quiet landing that sinks into your hips and knees.
Stay balanced over your feet as you sink, and stick the landing for a moment before you move again. Falling forward, sideways or twisting as you land is how players lose control of the knee.
balanced and still, ready to move.
Knees out, not caving in
Keep your knees over your toes as you land and sink. Knees caving inward (valgus), hips dropping inward, or too little knee bend are the movement patterns most linked to non-contact ACL injury.
knees track over your toes, never buckling in.
Watch your landings after a block or a scramble, not just on clean spikes. Those are the landings that go off-balance and onto one foot.
even after a rushed jump, you still land on two feet.
Feel it
The cues sports-medicine programs use are simple: "land softly", "keep your knees over your toes", "bend your knees and hips". A good landing is quiet, on both feet, with your knees bending and staying over your toes. A bad one is loud, on stiff legs, on one foot, or with the knees falling inward. Front-row players in elite women's matches averaged about 22 jump-landings per game, so the habit matters more than any single jump. In Norway's top volleyball divisions, adding take-off and landing technique training plus balance work cut acute ankle sprains from 0.9 to 0.5 per 1000 player hours. This is injury-prevention guidance, not medical advice. If you have knee pain, see a physio or sports-medicine clinician.
Fix-its
- Your knees cave inward (valgus) as you land Slow down. Do small jump-and-stick landings and film from the front, cueing "knees over toes". Add strength and balance exercises at least 2 to 3 times per week.
- You land stiff-legged and loud Touch down on the balls of your feet with your knees already bent, then sink into your hips and knees. Aim for a quiet landing.
- You land on one foot after spiking or blocking Practise approach jumps and block jumps where the only goal is a two-foot stick. If you land on one foot in a game, bend that knee and get the second foot down fast.
- Your landings fall apart late in practice Stop jump drills when landings get stiff or the knees start caving. Training should be challenging but only at a level where you can keep good technique.
- The front of your knee (below the kneecap) aches after jumping Don't jump through worsening pain. Cut back how much you jump and see a clinician. In young elite volleyball players, more training hours and more sets per week raised the risk of jumper's knee.
Drill
- Jump and stick: from standing, do a small two-foot jump, land softly on two feet and hold still with your knees over your toes. Only make the jump bigger once every landing looks the same.
- Front film check: set a phone in front of you at hip height and record a few stick landings. Check two feet, knee bend and knees over toes, then repeat what needs fixing.
- Block jump and stick: jump as if blocking at the net and stick a two-foot landing. Add a side shuffle before the jump once the landing stays clean.
- Approach jump and stick: do your full spike approach without a ball and focus only on landing on both feet with your knees over your toes.
- Make it a warm-up: put landing, balance and strength work into a 10 to 15 minute warm-up 2 to 3 times per week, before and during the season, every year.
By position
Front-row hitters and blockers jump and land the most, so safe landings and sensible jump volume matter most for you. Back-row specialists jump less but still land from jump serves, jump sets and scrambles. Girls aged 12 to 18 have the strongest evidence for doing a regular landing and neuromuscular warm-up to cut ACL risk. Boys and men have higher rates of jumper's knee.
Sources
- Padua et al. — NATA Position Statement: Prevention of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury, Journal of Athletic Training (2018)
- Tillman, Hass, Brunt & Bennett — Jumping and Landing Techniques in Elite Women's Volleyball, J Sports Sci Med (2004)
- Bisseling et al. — Relationship between landing strategy and patellar tendinopathy in volleyball, Br J Sports Med (2007)
- Van der Worp et al. — Jumper's knee or lander's knee? A systematic review of jump biomechanics and patellar tendinopathy, Int J Sports Med (2014)
- Lian, Engebretsen & Bahr — Prevalence of jumper's knee among elite athletes from different sports, Am J Sports Med (2005)
- Visnes & Bahr — Training volume and body composition as risk factors for jumper's knee among young elite volleyball players, Scand J Med Sci Sports (2013)
- Bahr, Lian & Bahr — A twofold reduction in acute ankle sprains in volleyball after an injury prevention program, Scand J Med Sci Sports (1997)
Last checked 2026-10-26.