Medball Basics, Part One, By: Tony Reynolds, MS, CSCS, YCS II
Important Notice
Tony Reynolds, Progressive Sporting Systems Inc, and their associates
and affiliates are not affiliated with Anabolic Steroids in anyway and
do not promote or encourage the use of these drugs. His articles within this section of our site are published to offer a broad range of fitness and nutritional knowledge that will help you to achieve your health and fitness goals without the use of Anabolic Steroids.
Medball training is an excellent way to peak the accumulative effects of a periodized training program, and to elevate sport specific strength and power. While free weights are an invaluable training tool, they do have their limitations.
One of the major disadvantages of training with free weights is the deceleration phase that is present during the concentric portion of most lifts. Since this phase is necessary to protect the integrity of the joint structures, it must be present, but the ranges of motion that encompass this deceleration phase deserve adequate explosive training.
While you could throw dumbbells and barbells, most gym owners would rather you not. Lucky for us, we have the illusive medicine ball. Medballs come in many shapes, sizes, weights, textures, and firmness. This makes them extremely versatile and quite invaluable.
The best thing about medicine balls is that you can throw them, bounce them, and catch them. They are designed for these types of activities, and if they are used within the constraints of the individual and the environment, they will not damage anything or anybody.
Due to their design, medicine balls allow you to work any possible range of motion in its entirety. This promotes the development of specific strength and power more precisely than any other type of weighted activity. With medballs, you can work the exact multi-planner range of motion that is utilized in sport. This allows for the extensive orchestration of the stabilizers, neutralizers, and prime movers within the same neuro-patterns as the targeted activity.
For instance, while the typical shoulder training protocols for a pitcher consists of internal and external rotational, scapular elevation, depression, protraction, retraction, and rotation, it never truly recruits the muscles in the same pattern as the activity of pitching. If you heed the calling of specificity, this will raise some warning flags. While these activities are necessary for the conditioning of the shoulder complex, the necessity for more dynamic activity is a valid issue that coaches and athletes must address.
Weight of the Ball
Now that I have discussed some of the reasons for using medicine balls, let us look at some guidelines for their implementation in your training programs.
When you chose the weight of the medball, you should consider the following factors:
1) Age and maturity of the athlete-Is there physiological and anatomical maturity factors that must be addressed. Have the athlete’s musculo-tendon units and joint structures developed to a point that they can handle the dynamic loading of this type of training? Lighter medballs do not accentuate the force velocity relationship as extensively, so are better tools to use with younger athletes.
2) Goal and purpose of the training-Is the goal of the training session strength, power, endurance, recovery, or rehabilitation. Each of these requires different loading variables. Typically, strength training involves the use of the heaviest medballs, power training uses moderate to heavy, and endurance uses the lightest. I will go deeper into this later.
3) Physical state of the athlete-How is the athletes physical and mental condition. One must consider the schedule of the athlete to insure that a state of overtraining is avoided. When the athlete has a taxing schedule due to practice, school, and daily activities of living, lighter medballs may be appropriate to avoid injury. In addition, when there is a low level of psychological motivation, performance variable may be affected. For this reason, attention may need to be provided to the loading variables.
4) Quality of movement-Visual examination of the training activity should always be conducted. If the athlete is struggling to achieve the prescribed set and rep scheme with quality mechanics, the weight of the medball should be reduced to a manageable level.
5) Speed of the target activity-If the goal of the training session is to increase acceleration and velocity, than a ball that is conducive to these variables should be used. To train a throwing motion, lighter medballs should be used to allow for the expression of similar qualities of these variables. This will ensure that there is an optimal level of carry over from the training session to the actual sporting event.
6) Musculature involved-If the musculature involved in the movement is small, such as the musculature of the rotator cuff, the weight of the ball should be lighter (1-2 lbs). Due to the high loading properties of medball training, smaller muscles are easily overpowered and damaged, so consideration must be giving to the anatomical and biomechanical properties of the movement. Conversely, training larger muscle groups will require much heavier medicine balls. Insufficiently loading these groups will negate most of the training effects that are desired.
Repetitions
The major consideration for choosing a rep scheme lies in the desired outcome. One must consider the purpose of the training session, which is usually dictated by the periodization of the training model. Here is a basic breakdown of the repetition variables:
1) Power-One to six repetitions
2) Strength-Eight to twelve repetitions
3) Endurance-Twelve to thirty repetitions. A good goal is to perform reps to failure, but to aim for that 30-rep mark. In addition, a 60-second time interval is great for targeting the energy systems that may be utilized in sports that need this type of training.
Sets
There is an inverse relationship between reps and sets. In typical western style periodization, the higher the number of reps, the lower the number of sets.
Typically, power movements are trained with low reps schemes as outlined above. This way the muscles are not targeted, rather the central nervous system. These low rep sets may be repeated for four, six, or even ten sets, depending on the individual situation.
Strength is usually targeted with a moderate load, and a moderate number of sets. Typically, three to six sets are used with this type of training.
Endurance is characterized by high levels of work done with low levels of rest a loading. Usually 1-3 sets of high reps are used.
Rest
As there is an inverse relationship between reps and sets, there is an inverse relationship between load a recovery. As the load of the movement (the weight relative to the person’s maximal ability) increases, the need for larger recovery times becomes apparent. Exercises that elicit large CNS activity such as power movements and heavy loads may require 3-5 minutes of recovery. This will allow time for the “command center” to refresh before the next attempt.
For moderate loads, such as those that may be used for bodybuilding or hypertrophy type training, rest periods of 1-3 minutes are usually sufficient. This will allow for minimal recover and optimal fiber recruitment.
Endurance is known for its short, and even non-existent, rest intervals. Typically, 0-60 seconds are given for this type of training. This type of training will utilizes more aerobic energy system involvement than the other types of training. To ensure that these systems are continuously involved, the physical processes of the body must maintain high levels of activity. The shorter rest intervals will insure this.
Resources:
1) efi/Total Gym and Paul Chek’s Dynamic Medicine Ball Training 3 volume series.
2) Advanced Medicine Ball Training with Vern Gambetta and Steve Odgers.
