This week we'll look at developing power, the ultimate expression of strength.
You can build strength in the gym but strength, max strength in particular, is a high load, low velocity movement meaning the weight might be bloody heavy but that means the actual movement is pretty slow.
This is great to build foundation strength that can be turned into what you want or need it to be but on it's own, its not optimal.
Enter medicine balls.
The best part of medicine balls is the release phase. Some of you might be familiar with dynamic effort weight training where you use 40 - 60% of your max and do 8 - 12 sets of 1 - 3 reps focusing on acceleration except there's 1 big problem.
For just about any free weight exercise you can think of, there's a deceleration phase which is actually protective tension of sorts from the brain so that you don't keep accelerating and snap your arm clean off. Quite dramatic I know!
But with medicine balls this deceleration phase doesn't exist because you accelerate and accelerate until you release the ball so it trains true power.
For the upper body your best options are chest throw variations either from a lying, sitting or standing position. To focus solely on the upper body muscles the lying or sitting against a wall variations are your go to variations.
For lower body you can use variations that train the lower body exclusively or you can use full body power options. For the lower body you can use scoop throwing variations and foe the full body power you can use push press or chest throw variations.
As for sets and reps it's all about power so your best served with doing single reps with about 15 - 30secs between them which you'll probably need to retrieve the medicine ball with anyway. Do these at the start of your sessions too because you want to be in a fresh state to get the full benefit from them.
So all up do 10 - 15 sets of 1 w/ 15 - 30secs reps between them doing 1 - 2 exercise variations.
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