Why Use a Medicine Ball?…Not Just For Boxers
Many people have seen Rocky Balboa train with a medicine ball and mistakenly think they are a training tool for boxers. While boxers benefit from their use, medicine balls are not sport specific. Medicine balls should be used by anyone looking to excel in sports, lose weight, or for general fitness.
A medicine ball is a weighted leather or rubber ball, between 1 to 25 pounds, that you throw and perform various full body exercises. The ball requires coordination, strength, and stamina to keep it under control during exercise. Some balls are as heavy as 200 pounds although it is rare to need one over 25 pounds. Using too heavy a ball will slow down your workouts and you will lose its cardiovascular effectiveness.
MEDICINE BALL BENEFITS
1. Functional Strength – It is one of the most effective tools to train all of the muscle groups in your body, especially your stabilizer muscles to work together for functional strength. This is an athletic advantage that isolation lifting does not provide. Over time, your body will learn to become more efficient with full body exercises.
2. Combined Cardivascular and Strength Training – I like using efficient gym equipment that allows me to shorten my workouts. Who has hours and hours to workout? Medicine ball workouts done properly will have your heart pounding out of your chest and highly fatigued muscles. You will increase your cardiovascular capacity, build strength, and improve muscle stamina all at once.
3. Versatility – They key to a good workout is variety. There are 100s of medicine ball exercises to explore. Because the balls are portable you can workout at home, beach, outdoors, or on the road. Exercises can be tailored for specific sports or to target specific muscle groups.
4. Cheap – You do not need to purchase expensive or complicated equipment for a great workout. Medicine balls are available for under 50 dollars. You cannot find many other pieces of gym equipment cheaper that will provide as much versatility. Many websites have tutorials on making homemade medicine balls from old basketballs and other cheap materials like sand for practically nothing. Homemade medicine ball video, the second video in that article, for instructions.
5. Provides Unique Loads on Your Muscles and Increases Hand Eye Coordination – When a medicine ball is thrown to you or by you, the path it travels is never exactly the same. Therefore, you catch it at a different place every time. You use different muscle groups to balance your body and control the ball for each catch. This trains your body to react faster to catch and control the load.
Medicine Ball History
Believe it or not the medicine ball is most likely the oldest piece of fitness equipment still in use today. Medicine balls have been a standard in exercise equipment for athletes and warriors for over 3000 years. Ancient Egyptians, Roman gladiators, and even Spartans trained with medicine balls. In recent history, Jack Johnson (the first black heavyweight boxing champ), strongmen, today’s professional athletes including Michael Jordan, US presidents, and Olympic athletes trained and continue to train with medicine balls.
Solo Workout Tip
If you want to practice certain throwing and catching exercises but you do not have a partner, buy a cheap or used personal fitness trampoline from Craigslist, ebay, or locally. Set it up solidly on an angle so it can return the ball to you at the height desired.
*Cannot find a cheap trampoline? Try using a solid brick or concrete wall and use a medicine ball designed to bounce.
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