What Is a Dig in Volleyball? The Defensive Save

A dig is a defensive pass that keeps a hard-driven attack — nearly always a spike — from hitting the floor, turning it into a ball a teammate can play. It’s the first touch of a team’s defence, usually made low with the forearms, and it’s what keeps a rally alive after the other team attacks. If you’ve ever seen a player throw themselves flat and somehow keep the ball up, you’ve watched a dig.

The word gets used loosely, so it’s worth pinning down: a dig specifically handles an attack. Controlling a serve is a different skill with a different name.

Dig vs pass vs reception

The confusion between a dig and a pass comes from the fact that they can look identical — both often use a forearm platform. The difference is the ball you’re handling.

Term	The ball it handles
Dig	A hard-driven attack (a spike)
Pass / reception	A serve
Free-ball pass	A soft, easy ball sent over

Statistically, a dig is only credited when it comes off an opponent’s attack. The exact same forearm motion on a serve is recorded as a reception, not a dig. So while the technique overlaps, the situation is what makes it a dig — and that’s why a team’s dig count is a measure of how well it handles genuine offence, not just serves.

The technique

A good dig starts before the ball is even hit. Defenders read the hitter’s approach and arm, get low with knees bent, and present a stable forearm platform angled toward their target — usually the middle of the court, where a setter can run the next play.

Because a spike arrives fast, the dig is often less about generating power and more about absorbing and redirecting it. On the hardest-driven balls the platform barely moves; the ball rebounds off it. On extreme reaches, defenders resort to emergency techniques: an overhand hand-dig, a dive, or a pancake where a flat hand slides under the ball just before it lands.

Where the dig fits in a rally

A dig is a normal team contact, so it counts as one of the three touches a side gets. The classic sequence after a good dig is dig, set, attack — the defensive save becomes the first link in a counter-attack that can end in a kill of your own.

This is why defence and offence aren’t separate in volleyball: a clean dig to the setter gives a team all its attacking options, while a scrambled one forces a desperate over-pass. The block and the dig together form a team’s defence — the block up high at the net, the dig down low behind it. A block, notably, doesn’t count as a touch, while a dig does.

Who does the digging

Most digs come from the back row, and the specialist is the libero, a defender who plays only in the back row and whose entire job is turning attacks into clean passes. Outside hitters dig heavily too once they rotate behind the attack line. Front-row players dig less because their defensive role is blocking, not floor defence.

If you want to see how the libero and back-row defenders slot into the wider lineup, our volleyball positions explained guide covers every role, and volleyball rules explained sets out the three-hit rule the dig kicks off.

Why the dig wins matches

Spectacular attacks get the highlight reels, but at a high level rallies are usually won by the team that refuses to let the ball drop. A great digging side drags opponents into long rallies and turns their best swings into nothing. Watch a top match and count how often a “great point” actually started with a defender getting a body behind a spike — that’s the dig doing the quiet, decisive work.

The short version: a dig is the defensive save on a hard attack, made low with the forearms, credited only off a spike (not a serve), counting as one of your three touches, and it’s the play that keeps volleyball’s best rallies alive.