The Medicine Ball Slams is a plyometric exercise for beginners to develop neural pathways for explosive shots, body control and coordination.
The Medicine Ball Slams may be implemented to improve power. The focus is on explosiveness, rather than the total amount of resistance being used.
Therefore, you emphasize on the speed of the action and control of the body.
Before you start implementing plyometric exercises into your training program you may want to learn more about tennis plyometric training. Also take a look at how to develop neural pathways for maximum power for better results.
Medicine Ball Slams Progression
If you use additional weights…make sure you use appropriate weight so you can control the action throughout the entire range of motion. Otherwise you defeat the purpose of the exercise.
Very often, people use too much resistance and they become sloppy. Especially when it comes to maintaining dynamic stability and hitting in the same spots repetitively.
Also, don’t just progress with adding more weight. First, maximize the speed while maintaining perfect form.
Here are the progression levels:
- Beginner: look down during the action
- Advanced: look up during the action
- Professional: alternating one leg action only
Medicine Ball Slams Description
- Take on athletic stance with feet hip to shoulder width apart.
- From overhead position flex the shoulders and bring the arms forcefully in front of the body. Hips are slightly flexed and lean forward with the upper body.
- As the bending of the lower back occurs, the abdominals should be contracted.
- Released the medicine ball near chest level and catch the rebound in the same position.
- As the rebounded medicine ball comes into contact with the hands, the arms are extended back over head to perform another full range of motion slam. Thus, the deceleration of the ball occurs from the shoulders and abdominals.
- Contact time with the ball is to be limited as the focus is on quick explosive repetitions and plyometric power production.
Medicine Ball Slams Targeted Musculature
- Rectus Abdominis
- Latissimus Dorsi
- Deltoids
Common Errors
- Catching the rebounded medicine ball and releasing it again without bring it back overhead.
- Failing to absorb the rebound as quickly as possible to limit medicine ball contact time.
- Failing to utilize the abdominals and hips to increase the velocity of the slam.
Related Plyometric Exercises
- Low-Level Lateral Box Jump Rebounds
- Abductor Box Jump Rebounds – Single Leg Landing
- Medicine Ball Chest Pass
Training Zone
We provide you with some more workouts and training tips you may be interested in to optimize your training.
Also, make sure that you warm up properly before and stretch out after your training session.
