The use of medicine ball exercises has been common in many workout routines for a long time. Do you know why people use medicine balls? Or the benefits of medicine ball exercises? I researched this fascinating workout and go into detail about the benefits of working with medicine balls.
When medicine balls come to mind, you may imagine an image of an old brown tattered leather ball sitting in some corner of the gym. Your gym teacher probably instructed you to throw one of these balls around to one other (busted noses were common).
Today’s medicine balls come in many shapes, sizes and colors, and some also have handles. Medicine ball exercises provide versatility, which is not possible with any other gym equipment.
Benefits of Medicine Ball Exercises:
- They provide limitless varieties in your routine as you can do a variety of exercises with them. You can roll, toss, bounce, and do many free-weight exercises with them. It is quite difficult to become bored with medicine balls, and people of all age groups can comfortably use them. Everyone from beginners to elite athletes can effectively use them in their routines.
- You can incorporate other people into your workouts. You can roll, bounce and toss medicine balls with other people, such as handing them off to one another. This makes it even more creative and amusing when you use it with other people as a game.
- Another benefit of working with medicine balls is that they are one of the few proven fitness accessories that will work your core from all angles. Side-to-side movements, front-to-back movements, angled movements, and many others will do wonders for your core muscles.
- Medicine balls are also helpful in improving a person’s performance in a particular sport or activity. Bouncing them back and forth as well as tossing them along with a partner can improve eye-hand coordination. For golf and tennis swing movements, tossing the ball improves your obliques and hips, which are used for twisting movements.
More Facts About Medicine Balls:
- Medicine balls come in a variety of sizes and colors with modern appearances. There are also different textures where some are smooth and others with textures that help with gripping the balls.
- There are typically two types of medicine balls: “Live” medicine balls are those that bounce when you throw them on the ground. “Dead” medicine balls will not bounce when you throw them on the ground.
- Medicine balls come in a variety of weights; some balls can be as heavy as 50 pounds! You can select ball sizes and weights to match the strength needed to handle the chosen ball. Since live medicine balls can easily bounce and be tossed around, they are better for entertaining workouts than ones provided by dumbbell, barbell, and machine workouts.
- There is no other workout equipment that can provide so much versatility in a workout.
The benefits of working with medicine balls are numerous, and they provide a myriad of engrossing movements; hence, you won’t get bored easily with their proven versatility. As a Fort Collins personal trainer, I use and highly recommend them in the workouts of my clients, as well!