Sitting volleyball was created in the Netherlands in 1956 by the Dutch Sports Committee, combining elements of volleyball with sitzball, an earlier German sport played without a net by seated athletes. Designed originally as a rehabilitation activity for injured veterans, sitting volleyball grew into a fully competitive adaptive sport for athletes with lower-limb impairments and made its Paralympic debut as a demonstration event at the 1976 Toronto Games before becoming a full medal sport at the 1980 Arnhem Paralympics; a women's competition was added later, debuting at the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games.
The sport is played on a smaller court than standing volleyball, roughly 10 by 6 meters, with a lower net set at 1.15 meters for men and 1.05 meters for women, and follows most of the same rules as the standing game — the same three-touch limit, the same rally point scoring, and a best-of-five set format. The sport's defining rule is that a player's pelvis must remain in contact with the floor for any contact with the ball to be legal, which shapes every aspect of technique from serving to blocking.
A rule unique to the sitting game
One notable rule difference from standing volleyball is that in sitting volleyball, a player is allowed to block an opponent's serve — a contact that would be illegal for a blocker to even attempt against a serve in the standing game — reflecting the sport's own distinct rulebook developed specifically around seated play rather than a strict one-to-one adaptation of standing volleyball's rules.
A competitive, athletic sport in its own right
Because the court is smaller and the net lower, sitting volleyball rallies tend to be faster and involve less travel distance per play than standing volleyball, but the sport demands its own distinct athleticism — explosive upper-body power for attacking and blocking while seated, and rapid pelvis-anchored lateral movement across the floor for defense — rather than simply being a slower, easier version of the standing game. Elite sitting volleyball players train specifically for these seated movement patterns, which differ substantially from the jumping and running mechanics that dominate standing volleyball conditioning.
