Toss Medicine Balls into Your Training Regime

By your Fitness Trainers at Century Fitness

Medicine balls have been around for thousands of years dating back to ancient drawings detailing sand-filled bladders used for training by wrestlers.  Century Fitness currently has three types of medicine balls: 1- traditional compact weighted balls, 2- improved compact weighted balls with handles to enhance training especially for the core and with a partner, 3- Dynamax medicine balls were the first balls on the modern market with enough padding to be used safely at high velocities.

Ball training is an excellent functional tool with many exercises, variations and progressions.  Most any goal can be achieved with ball training: cardiorespiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, speed, power, accuracy, agility, coordination and balance.  Holding a ball slightly away from your body or off-center creates an instability that forces coordination from stabilizing and core muscles.

Since all the training balls are built tough you can slam them around for more explosive power or speed movements.  The Dynamax balls can be thrown and slammed on concrete walls or floors.  You can use ball training at any point in your routine.

Here are ideas for tossing ball training into your routine:

• Replace a dumbbell or barbell exercise (in this case with a lighter weight so you can take advantage of velocity).
• Offset your step or walking lunges by moving the medicine ball across your body (cross the ball over the leg that goes forward or even twist both ways).
• Russian Twists, typically on a mat in a v-sit position.
• Pushups or mountain climbers with hands on the ball or balls to challenge stability.

You can easily enhance your above routine by making a circuit out of the above moves and adding slam ball “slams” to the floor or high throws at the concrete wall.

Many of the ball maneuvers involve total body movement: upper, lower, and core.  The nice thing about ball training is that you control the speed and intensity.  So go have fun with your this new addition to your routine, in fact have a ball!

This article is intended to be provide knowledge of general health and fitness principles and is not medical advice.  Please consult with a physician if you have questions.