You Can Still YEET!
10 Medicine Ball Exercises for Developing Combat-Relevant Power
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The Power of Power
The “yeet” has been yeeted! While this article is not an opinion piece concerning the fate of the Standing Power Throw (SPT) as the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) dropped both the event and the word “combat” during its transition to the the Army Fitness Test, I must confess I found the SPT logistically intensive and overly influenced by skill compared to simpler alternatives.
Honestly, I am less concerned with validity and reliability of selected assessment events while I am more concerned with their influence on the Army’s physical culture. The military’s tail of testing tends to wag its dog of training and the inclusion of a power focused event placed a previously absent degree of value on the role of power production in combat actions. Soldiers tend to be underpowered, in large part due to a historic overemphasis on muscular endurance and corresponding underappreciation for developing strength and speed - the two extremes of the continuum that influences power - Not to mention enhancing the coordination of an increasingly unathletic population.
If all soldiers did to improve their Standing Power Throw was perform the Standing Power Throw, then it failed to sufficiently influence the Army’s training culture. However, if soldiers started incorporating explosive training like plyometrics (jumps, hops, bounds, sprints, throws, slams, passes, tosses, etc.), weightlifting exercises and their variations/alternatives, as well as strength work and movement diversity, then the Standing Power Throw achieved its objective. I would even award bonus points for training rotation and deceleration!
The SPT might have received the death penalty, but I suggest you don’t bury any of those 36,000-ish 10-pound medicine balls just yet. You can still use them to develop power that supports several battlefield actions like those performed during react to contact, evacuating a casualty, hand to hand interactions, breaching, and throwing grenades (my only solo confirmed kill was the result of a pretty damn far grenade toss because we were too close for launching a 40mm).
If you don’t foresee stepping onto the battlefield anytime soon, power-focused medicine ball (MB) exercises can positively affect the general health of your feet, ankles, knees, hips, spine, and shoulders. They can make you safer and more effective in recreational sports and outdoor activities. Maybe most importantly, they aid in establishing neighborhood and parenting dominance while providing an acceptable outlet for any anger you might be feeling. Personally, I find medball exercises a refreshing break from (and complement to) the less dynamic staples of classic strength and conditioning.
The Exercises
You’re welcome in advance for the appropriate length inseams displayed in these demo videos.
Slams
For medicine ball slams, I am referring to exercises where you start overhead and aggressively propel the ball toward the ground. Keep your arms long to maximize energy transfer as you aggressively throw your hips backwards and hands downwards. Avoid getting too squatty with the movement or letting gravity take the wheel. You’re not just throwing the ball TO the floor - You’re throwing it THROUGH the floor. It’s cheaper than anger management therapy…
1. MB Alt Rotational Slam
I love this one for sneaking some very approachable rotational power into the mix.
2. 1-Leg MB Slam
If we focus on the landing, then this is a great stability-limited exercise for increasing confidence on one leg.
Passes
For medicine ball passes, I am referring to pressing the medicine ball away from your body like a chest pass in basketball. Passes can be more upper-body or lower-body dominant, depending on how they’re initiated. I like performing upper body dominant passes while challenging the lower body and torso to hold static positions like a hinge, kneeling or half-kneeling, high or low split, and single leg stance. With static positions, your core is acting as a solid foundation from which to generate force through your upper body. These are less explosive than total body passes but place a greater emphasis on rapid force development from your chest, triceps, and shoulders. With dynamic passes, your core transfers force from your lower body through your torso and, ultimately, out to your arms.
3. Low Split MB Noncountermovement Chest Pass
I like this one for generating pushing power from a dead stop (not too different than the Hand Release Push-Up).
4. Lateral Shuffle to MB Rotational Chest Pass
Be sure to train the subcomponents of this more complex exercise before diving right into the movement in its entirety.
5. Staggered Stance Chest Pass to Sprint
Don’t overthink this one… Throw the damn ball and run after it. Forgive the hitch in my left leg after smashing my knee on a rock while mountain biking!
Tosses
For medicine ball tosses, I am referring to an underhanded throw in any direction. Like passes, they can occur from static positions or more dynamically through explosive total body movements. The now-deceased Standing Power Throw (RIP) was a total body toss that generated power from an extremely flexed position to an extremely extended position.
6. MB Countermovement “Granny” Toss
Instead of trying to combine height and distance, we just aim for birds on this one (mind your dome on the descent).
7. Lateral Bound to MB Rotational Toss
This is an absolute favorite but certainly not a starter exercise.
Miscellaneous
Medicine ball exercise options are limitless. You can choose or create them based on your desired training effect. Here are a few of my random favorites.
8. MB Hip to Hip Rotation
I like the hip-to-hip rotation as well as chops and lifts that demand an aggressive acceleration immediately followed by an equal deceleration.
9. MB Muscle Snatch
I like the muscle snatch because it forces you to generate a lot of force rapidly from the ground up. You can use a heavier ball to aggressively accelerate and decelerate power elements or a lighter ball within a conditioning set where the goal is rapid-fire reps.
10. MB Sit-Up to Overhead Throw
I stole the sit-up to overhead throw from a course attendee (Thanks, LT!), and I’m not even sure I can communicate why I like it so much. I’ll say this - When coordination is lacking, it lets you know with a sad silence as it touches the wall with minimal power. And when coordination is crushing, you’re rewarded with a smack that feels even better than the best high-five.
The Constructs
Without going too deep, let’s take a moment to touch on variables that give you options for how to execute your yeet ball exercises to achieve a variety of training effects.
Weight - You’re not limited to training with a 10-pound ball (unless it’s all you have). Moving a heavier ball might bias strength, while moving a lighter ball biases speed. Maximizing power expressed in the moment (not necessarily to be confused with maximizing its development) requires using a ball that has some weight to it but can still be moved explosively. Typically, using a ball between 5% to 10% of your body weight is most appropriate.
Sets, Reps, & Rest - Lower reps and longer rest maximize recovery needed to perform as explosively as possible. For power, I tend to assign between 3 to 6 sets of 3 to 10 reps (5 per side if unilateral) with a 1:5+ work-to-rest ratio. The ball should be projected with maximal intent (aggression).
That said, I’m not scared of assigning more extensive submaximal power endurance work for higher reps and/or shorter, incomplete rest. These could be something intermittent, like 30 seconds of work with 30 seconds of rest x 6 to 9 sets of 1 to 3 different exercises or something more continuous like 1 to 3 sets of 5 to 10 minutes of unbroken work (divided between 2+ exercises) with 3 to 5 minutes of rest between sets. While the ball will not be moved at max effort for these bouts, the intent should be to find a max sustainable output that still emphasizes explosiveness. You can also use these less for power endurance and more for a cardiovascular conditioning effect, not that they need to be mutually exclusive.
Placement - There are endless possibilities for where to place medicine ball work within your training program. Generally, you want to frontload power work while you’re still fresh, but you can certainly make a case for needing to train it under fatigue. I generally assign it early in the session when the intent is to increase max power or learn the movement skill involved, and assign it later in the session when the desired effect is power endurance or conditioning. All of these can certainly be stand-alone sessions as well.
I often pair medball work with heavy lifts, placing it before the lift as a primer or after the lift to benefit from post activation potentiation (in other words, the ball feels light because you just moved something heavy and now you can really launch the damn thing). Imagine performing a heavy Barbell Bench Press before a light MB Chest Pass. This paired approach typically means choosing exercises that use similar movements or muscles. Contrarily, you can pair it with something completely different to minimize the potential for interference. This presents an easy option for training some upper body on a lower body-focused day or lower body on an upper body day.
You’re welcome to email me with any questions about what exercises to include, where, and for what volume and intensity.
Initiation - Generally, we initiate medicine ball exercises from either a dead stop (non-countermovement), an elastic effect (countermovement), or in a continuous fashion.
Continuous reps are best performed with a reactive, bouncy ball, while a dead, nonreactive ball is great for launching without worrying about the rebound. The popular semi-bouncy, semi-dead larger medballs provide a decent middleground.
Related to initiation, you likely noticed I combine MB exercises with different positions (kneeling, staggered/split stance, tall, athletic, etc.) and different movements (shuffle, crossover, sprint, jump, bound, etc.). My recommendation is to start simple with noncountermovement repetitions performed from a balanced position like an athletic stance or tall kneeling, and progress with more dynamic movements performed from less stable positions.
The Endex
Don’t let those 10-pound medballs collect dust in an ACFT museum on your installation. Continue to develop your athleticism by slamming, passing, tossing, and throwing that rubber sphere like it were the decapitated head of your enemies. Heck, you can just squeeze it until it pops if that’s what resonates with the warfighter within you.
Nate Palin specializes in physical, mental, and emotional resilience for both the front lines and the home front. He coaches, consults, and educates through Any Given Day while serving as a strength and conditioning specialist with the US Space Force and part-time Endurance Director for the reputable nonprofit Soldiers to Sidelines..
Nate served as a leader in the 2nd Ranger Battalion for seven years prior to his transition to human performance coaching. Over the course of five combat deployments in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom, Nate experienced the military’s physical and cognitive preparation shortcomings firsthand and observed the need for enhanced training to better support mission-critical tasks.
He began his coaching career in 2010 as the owner of The Movement Project, then narrowed his focus to the tactical sector as a performance specialist for EXOS in Washington, DC in 2012. Nate coached Special Operations Forces at Joint Base Lewis-McChord from 2015 to 2018 before leading the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s (NSCA) Tactical program, where he co-authored Preparing for the Army Combat Fitness Test for Human Kinetics.
Nate was an adjunct professor for CalUPenn’s graduate program in tactical strength and conditioning and briefly served as Director of Education for the FitOps Foundation before he collaboratively launched The Initiative in 2021 and independently launched Any Given Day in 2022.
Find out more at his website, Any Given Day