Random Views on Sports General performance Schooling – Installment 37
Created on June 18, 2021 at 8:38 am, by Eric Cressey
This version random feelings from about the subject of overall health and human performance is extensive overdue. Simply because of this week’s sale on my Medicine Ball Master Course (30% off at www.CresseyMedBall.com), we’re heading to hone in on medicine ball do the job.
1. Higher than all else, medicine ball do the job is brilliant for the reason that of the insane frequency at which it can be properly trained.
One of the forgotten capabilities of medicine ball work is that it is pretty much purely concentric in nature. Aside from a little bit of rapid preloading, there is not a ton of deceleration function involved – and that usually means it’s really rare for athletes to be sore after collaborating in drugs ball drills. To that close, you can teach rotational electric power quite regularly and athletes won’t truly feel banged up.
In numerous methods, this parallels what you see with tennis players, baseball players, soccer gamers, and soccer quarterbacks, and a host of other rotational sport athletes. They can take part in significant velocity rotation pretty much each and every working day and not split down. All we’re executing with medicine ball get the job done is relocating a bit further up on the force aspect and down on the velocity side of the force-velocity curve – and that almost certainly essentially will make it safer.
2. If the approach seems awful, the initially move is to lighten the weight of the drugs ball.
Let us get this out of the way: throwing medicine balls is not lifting weights. You do not get reward factors for heading heavier alternatively, the intent is to transfer a presented load as fast as achievable to improve electricity output. For most people, in the context of rotational power perform, the ideal load is 4-8lb. Extremely rarely will you see an individual throw a 10- or 12-pound medicine ball truly rapid. The reason is straightforward: gravity produces a vertical path for the resistance (up/down), whilst we’re trying to venture the ball horizontally (this is one critical gain of Proteus, but that is a dialogue for another day).
Beyond just the airplane/load mismatch, you are going to generally see athletes’ strategy falter when the load gets heavier. Rotationally, the head often dives in entrance of the overall body as the centre of mass is projected away from the load (and outside the house the foundation of support) as a way to counterbalance the load of the drugs ball. This stops us from remaining again (“head guiding the tummy button”), which is vital for us to operate into the entrance hip. If the head has currently drifted as well far ahead, entrance hip pull-back just can’t just take spot.
In overhead stomp variations, you can normally do the job much heavier with medication balls with out compensations – specifically with bilateral variants. As soon as a staggered or split stance goes into area, although, athletes will normally “run away” from the med ball: they laterally flex the backbone absent from the drugs ball. In carrying out so, they make it not possible to operate into the front hip.
We have 240-pound rotational activity athletes throwing med balls as light as 4-6lbs. Prepare power, not egos.
— Eric Cressey (@EricCressey) November 20, 2014
3. Experiment with “layering” your medicine ball drills.
An method I have utilised a lot more in the earlier 12 months is “layering” medicine ball drills. Fundamentally, you transition from simple to innovative over the training course of a several sets. Each individual development builds on the crucial competencies great-tuned in the earlier sets. In this online video case in point, the progression is:
1️⃣ Rotational Med Ball Scoop Toss
2️⃣ Shuffle to Rotational Med Ball Scoop Toss
3️⃣ Adjust of Path to Shuffle to Rotational Med Ball Scoop Toss
4️⃣ Double Engage in Rotational Med Ball Scoop Toss
https://www.youtube.com/enjoy?v=UJ2a_2Phd0E
The possibilities are infinite as long as you know exactly where to start and wherever you’re striving to conclude up – and you enjoy which athletes are really prepared for the progressions. On top of that, you can boost them even additional by operating in fillers amongst sets to handle whichever movement limitation is the bottleneck to their functionality.
If you’re interested in digging in further on the subject matter of rotation, I would strongly inspire you to test out my new Medicine Ball Learn Class. I made this new resource in collaboration with Athletes Acceleration and it contains more than 50 exercising demonstration video clips, as nicely as my rationale for such as them. Just stop by www.CresseyMedBall.com to master additional. It is on sale for 30% off the standard rate via Sunday at midnight.
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