If you search for a "beach volleyball training program," you'll find a hundred random drill videos and almost no actual plan. So here's mine — the same 12-week structure I use to get players ready for a season, a tournament, or their first camp. It works whether you call it beach volleyball or sand volleyball, whether you're landlocked or two blocks from the ocean.

I'm Mark Burik. I've played on the AVP Tour and coached thousands of players through our camps and online lessons. This is the plan I wish someone had handed me when I started.

What Should a 12-Week Beach Volleyball Training Plan Include?

A complete 12-week plan trains three things in sequence: a foundation phase (weeks 1–4) for base strength and ball control, a power and skill phase (weeks 5–8) where you add jumping, hitting, and live drills, and a competition phase (weeks 9–12) built around game-speed practice plans. Most self-coached players skip straight to phase three — and that's exactly why they plateau.

Weeks 1–4: Build the Foundation

Three sessions a week. Two on the sand, one in the gym.

On the sand, your only goal is contact quality and volume: serving to targets, passing to a setter spot, and hand-setting against a wall or with a partner. Boring reps now buy you consistency in week 12. If you're not sure what clean technique looks like, film yourself — comparing your film to a pro's is the fastest self-diagnosis there is.

In the gym, build general strength: squats, hinges, lunges, pressing, and core. Sand punishes weak legs. If your training goal leans toward jumping higher, this phase is where a dedicated workout program slots in — strength work is the one thing you genuinely can buy off the shelf and follow on your own.

Here's a full pre-season session I filmed so you can see exactly what an AVP-level gym day looks like:

Weeks 5–8: Add Power and Pressure

Keep the gym day, but shift it toward explosive work: jump squats, med-ball throws, approach jumps. On the sand, everything now happens with a decision attached. Don't just hit — hit against a blocker calling line or angle. Don't just pass — pass off a real serve and transition to attack.

This is the phase where most players need eyes on them. Small technical errors (a late arm swing, drifting on your approach) get grooved permanently if nobody catches them. It's also where our members send in match film for video analysis and get specific fixes instead of guessing. My complete skill courses — serving, passing, setting, attacking, defense — are all inside the membership, and the $1 trial gets you all of it for 7 days.

Weeks 9–12: Train Like You Compete

Now you stop doing drills and start running practice plans: structured sessions with a warm-up, a skill block, a competitive block, and score. Wash drills, sideout games, king/queen of the court. Every session should end with something on the line.

If you want ready-made sessions, this video walks through how I structure 20 of them:

Week 12 should point at a real event: a local tournament, a league night — or a camp. A 3-day camp ($599, never more than 10 campers per coach) is honestly the perfect capstone: it's multi-day lessons and classes compressed into one weekend, and it's where 12 weeks of solo work gets pressure-tested with coaches watching every rep. Browse dates and locations at betteratbeach.com/camps.

How Many Days a Week Should You Train for Beach Volleyball?

Three focused days a week is enough to improve dramatically in 12 weeks — two sand sessions plus one strength session. Four to five days works for advanced players, but recovery in sand training is real, and most adults improve faster on three quality days than five sloppy ones.

Can You Follow This Plan Without a Coach?

You can follow the structure alone, but the players who improve fastest combine a plan like this with coaching before, during, and after: online training between events, plus a camp when they're ready to compete. That's the exact combination our best-improving members use. The $1 seven-day trial at betteratbeach.com/virtualtraining gets you the full membership — every skill course, live Q&As, and a community to keep you on the plan — then it's $49/month or $497/year if you stay.

Where Do I Get the Free PDF?

We'll send you the free printable workout and training plan by email — grab it at betteratbeach.com/workoutforvolleyballoptin. Print it, stick it on the fridge, and check off the weeks.

Start the plan today, and let a coach check your work: get everything for $1 for 7 days at betteratbeach.com/virtualtraining.