Medicine Ball Push
I couldn’t think of a better name for this so we’re running with “medicine ball push” on this one. This came out of a sequence of medicine ball exercises being taught at Northwest Fighting Arts in Portland, OR. This is my favorite piece of the sequence as it targets muscles in my shoulders that I’ve never been able to hit with any of the other modalities I’ve been working on for the past few years.
So go grab yourself a medicine ball (something in the 6-15lb range depending on your size and strength), and get ready to move across the room. In the Instagram video I suggest squeezing the ball. The reason behind this is to engage your lats. Stagger your feet as though you were in a boxing stance. Push the ball out until your arms are fully extended, then bring the ball back to your face.
To turn this into a push and a pull “corkscrew” your shoulders back and pull back with all your might as though you were doing a TRX row or dumbbell row. The speed of the exercise is totally up to you and what you’re going for. If you go slightly heavier with the medicine ball and move slower this turns into more of a shoulder stabilizing exercise and is geared towards fitness. If you move quicker, this turns into more of a punching training drill to try and improve your speed and power.
To utilize the full range of the room, push / pull step or push step then pull. At Fighting Arts this is trained with a partner, where a partner stands in front of the person with the ball and puts his hands up to provide a target for the ball holder to aim at. Both partners step across the room, then go back the other direction (the ball holder moves forward across the room, then backwards across the room.) Doing this as a partner drill adds an additional degree of footwork for boxers, but isn’t necessary for those just looking for an additional way to train their shoulders.
I put up a short video walkthrough of this on the Instagram, if you try it at home please tag your instagram video #gbifwow.
