Medicine Ball Trunk Twist Throw

The Medicine Ball Trunk Twist Throw is a ballistic exercise for beginners to improve energy transfer, neural pathways for explosive shot production, body control, balance and coordination.

The focus of the Medicine Ball Trunk Twist Throw is explosive core activation and powerful throwing motion, emulating the movement mechanics during shots, and hence leading to better performance.

Before you engage in ballistics you may want to take a look at Ballistic Training: How To Optimize Explosiveness for maximum results and a sample ballistic training workout for advanced athletes.

Trunk Twist Throw 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:

1. Beginner: look down during the action
2. Advanced: look up during the action and change to lunge position
3. Professional: alternating one leg action only

Medicine Ball Trunk Twist Throw Description

1. Place 2 agility rings parallel and ~8 feet away from the concrete wall; rings should be shoulder-width apart
2. Step inside agility rings
3. Hold a medicine ball (MB) naturally in both hands in front of the trunk
4. Take on athletic stance position; knees and hips are slightly flexed; upper-body is straight
5. Rotate the trunk outwardly until shoulders are perpendicular to the wall (or as far as possible); maintain neutral head position; keep looking forward
6. Initiate the throw with the hips and trunk, not the arms
7. Extend the hips until standing on the balls of the feet, lean forward with the upper-body, and simultaneously rotate trunk inwardly until shoulders are nearly parallel to the wall
8. Explosively release MB at hip-level and throw MB against the wall; maintain neutral head position; keep looking forward
9. Do NOT catch the rebound

Related Ballistic Exercises

• Squat Box Jump Rebounds
• Medicine Ball Diagonal Lunge Plate Blocks
• Medicine Ball Diagonal Chops

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.