Medicine Balls

A medicine ball is one of the primary pieces of exercise equipment that is used by various athletes. A mainstay of athletic training because of the easy to grasp shape, flexibility of its simple design, and the way in which the concentrated weight makes it convenient to develop speed and power, medicine balls are used by baseball pitchers, football players, basketball players, track and field athletes, boxers and more.

Some of the more popular medicine ball exercises involve either moving the ball by lifting it or performing medicine ball workout exercises that are just like ordinary exercises (push ups and sit ups) but involve the ball in some way so that individual muscles or groups of muscles are affected more than others. Other exercises to do with a medicine ball involve throwing the ball straight at another person (playing catch with the medicine ball, medicine ball throws) and receiving it immediately when it comes back. This can be done over and over again to improve the ability to perform the outwards directed force of the throwing motion and build the arms. Medicine ball abdominal exercises are done by boxers when medicine balls are dropped on the abdominal muscles to make them stronger for deflecting punches so that the vital organs are not affected as much when the boxer is hit in a match.

The history of the medicine ball goes back at least to ancient Greece, where balls would be put together using fiber and hair with some kind of weight in the middle if they needed to be used for exercise purposes. Some of the first medicine ball workouts and medicine ball training seems to have taken place during this era, as pictures of what could easily be medicine balls are seen in images of gyms of the day.

Free medicine ball exercises: the medicine ball wood chopper is an exercise for the medicine balls that uses both the upper and lower musculature. For this medicine ball exercise you raise the ball over the back of your head, gripping it with both hands, then you bring both arms forward in front of you and then down ending with the ball behind you again but now between your legs. A medicine ball core exercise that you can use as a mainstay of various workout routines is the chest pass against a wall (where you hold the ball directly in front of your chest with both hands then push it outwards to toss it against the ball - then you can catch it when it comes back, similar to tossing it with another person) or performing exercises such as the squat while holding a Nike medicine ball.