Medicine ball training is one of the most enjoyable exercise to use in strength training programs with a focus on core strength, with many fun partner exercises and games used to achieve this. It is also one of the simplest and safest ways to teach power training and rotational power with people and because of that is also very underrated. Elite athletes in many sports are aware of the incredible benefits to using this piece of equipment and understand exactly why and how to use this to generate explosive power that cannot be replicated with barbells and dumbbells. So why is it abused or underused in many gyms and training programs? This is one of the answers we will cover in this article and we will also give you some examples of favorite drills you can add to your training.
Why Medicine Ball Training Improves Core Strength
The main advantage of using medicine ball exercises is all to do with POWER and TIMING!
Many people think that core strength is all to do with holding planks for endless minutes or doing hundreds of sit-ups and "feeling the burn" in your abs. True Stability is all about timing. Being able to react with perfect reflexes to be able to maintain joint alignment ready for efficient and smooth movement. Stabilizers react quicker than any other muscle group, to prepare the body for movement. The stabilizer muscles are smaller and much weaker than the larger moving muscles, and the only way they can work effectively and influence the integrity of movement is to fire first. They are not able to produce movement, they need the larger prime mover muscles to do this, and again this sequence is all determined by how effectively you execute timing of your movements.
We have been convinced that we must "feel the burn" in our muscles for an exercise to be effective. In order for this to happen exercises are often slowed down and prolonged so you can feel the muscles being "ripped". And while this may improve muscle size, it can destroy the timing of many movements that require more explosive fast timing in order to be effective. This is why beginners to sports struggle, and why older adults experience difficulty with everyday movements. It is not the lack of muscle strength they lose first but the lack of coordination, skills and timing. The problem is not just a lack of flexibility, that comes later when their body has to resort to stiffness to combat the loss of stability to the joints. Timing is everything when it comes to efficient movement. Below we have provided some videos with more detail on this.
Their brain just does not understand how to coordinate movement. It has to slow everything down so it can understand and make sense of what is going on! When this happens the timing is disrupted and now you are set for problems as muscles not designed to produce this movement now are subjected to huge forces and demands.
Medicine ball training overcomes this problem for its number one requirement is TIMING! You have to be precise and coordinate in a split second in order to make the movement efficient. Your abdominal stabilizers learn very quickly how to complete their function in order to produce the movement you need with explosive power, and also how to decelerate the body and protect it from injury with the catch or slowing the throw down. The beauty of medicine balls is that they are great for beginners due to the loads being so light, and the risk of injury or disaster is greatly minimized in comparison to other power exercises like power cleans or box jumps.
Anyone playing sports that demand rotational power such as Golf, Tennis, Hockey, Cricket, and Baseball this type of training is essential for improved performance. If your strength training or gym sessions never include this unique power ability you are missing out big time. There are some great exercises featured soon that will show you how important this is.
The only disadvantages to this equipment are you may need quite a few different sizes, a fair amount of space and importantly a partner or concrete wall to throw your ball against. Ball selection is very important and many make the mistake of thinking bigger and heavier is better. With medicine ball exercises this is not the case, for too heavy makes the timing too slow and as we have just discussed this is critical to the success of the exercise.
Great articles to read with more detail on core strength and stability are below
What are the best exercises to use? Well, there are literally hundreds you could use, you just need to make sure it has a purpose for improving how you move. There are also many ways you can incorporate this into strength workouts. Whether it is for general fitness, sports power or even rehab there are many great advantages to using medicine balls. You will find these are featured a lot in our Little Black Book Special Report you can get below that has 101 advanced workouts. Click the image below to get your copy.
Let's take a look at some common medicine ball exercises as well as a few of our favorite ones, starting with some easy partner drills and working our way through to more advanced sporting concepts. With all these drills you will see a need for fast explosive movement all the while the body being able to maintain great alignment and posture. This is where the core is working at it's best and the way it is designed to move.
Partner Medicine Ball Push Up
This is a great drill to use to enhance push up power and reaction speeds. Make sure you use a ball that is relatively heavy for the person using it. The timing has to be perfect with both the partner and the person on doing the push-up or the ball will be thrown into your face!
Partner Quarter Turn Squat & Throw
This is a deceptively hard exercise. A lot of fun and is awesome for building incredible braking power needed for change of direction in sports. You will feel your quads about to explode with this drill. Again timing and body positioning is critical to the success of this exercise. A great tip is to "stay low".
Single Arm Squat & Throw
This exercise apart from providing with explosive power with a pushing movement as in shot put is a great exercise we use in our shoulder injury programs to enhance shoulder stability and serratus anterior function. This movement is how we can teach someone with disrupted timing on a pushing movement to get it back. Often slow pushing patterns can bring on pain straight away so we can use exercises like this to help regain the motor control and timing to enable us to add strength later. This is also again where we use a small soft shell med ball. However, don't be fooled by it's size as the ball featured here is actually 5kg!
Explosive Rotational Throw With Weight Shift
Without a doubt this is the most common form of medicine ball training and also one of the most sport specific movements. I prefer to use the weight shift during this exercise to ensure I am creating the force from my legs and also allowing optimal hip rotation needed to make the throw. The biggest mistake made with side throws is to overload the obliques without the use of the legs. All this serves to do is potentially injure your back as it searches to find extra energy that is lost from lack of leg drive and hip rotation. Show me a baseball pitcher or someone hitting a baseball who does this movement without their legs.
Medicine Ball Bend & Throw
This is actually a sports assessment we use with athletes to determine their ability to move explosively from a stationary start. It is also a great exercise in its own right by giving a person a measurement to reach for. This helps teach their brain and muscles to recruit more fast twitch fibers needed for explosive power and speed.
Tornado Ball
The tornado ball is basically a medicine ball on a rope and this is great for rotational power sports like golf, baseball, and tennis. The explosive power must be driven by your legs with your hips and thoracic region explosively rotating to provide the speed of the movement where the ball remains horizontally in front of you. If the speed is too slow the ball will follow gravity's laws and drop to the floor. Timing is everything.
Single Leg Lateral Bound With Medicine Ball Throw
This last drill is a great one for improving high-level sports ability to change direction. We use this drill a lot towards the end of ACL injury rehab programs to ensure the athletes are able to effectively maintain good alignment of the foot, knee, and ankle in a lateral movement. It is often in a movement just like this we see the injury occur so this drill prepares their body to move correctly before returning to their sport.
There are 2 exercises featured at the beginning of this video that you may need to prepare you for this exercise as this is the only one so far where we have used single leg stability. The medicine ball exercise is the 3rd one shown.
Summary
I hope you have enjoyed this quick look at medicine ball training and can see how valuable this can be to your body. There are endless versions of medicine ball exercises and we could easily stack this page with hundreds of different examples but I think you get the idea. Remember the key to getting the most out of these is all about timing and be able to move fast. If you devote the time to mastering these exercises you will be able to achieve amazing things in the gym, at home, and on the sporting field.
And if you live in Melbourne and would like to know more about any of our Personal Training programs click the image below to request a free consultation. I will be in touch within 24 hours to schedule a time.
