Ebenezer Samuel,  C.S.C.S., David Otey, C.S.C.S.

Medballs are among the most versatile tools in the gym. You can use them indoors and out, and you can use them for a variety of training effects. They can be used for power training or athletic performance, and they can also enhance your core stability (translation: abs!) too.

The medball seems like a basic tool (essentially, its a heavy ball, right?), but it can be used in a complex manner that challenges your biomechanics. The applications are endless. You can hone rotational power, tap into full-body output, work end-range strength in extended positions, or do stability work.

Even better, you can get out of the gym easily. A medball works just as well against the wall in your gym as it does against a wall outdoors, making this a great option to train anywhere.

<h1> The Versatility of the Medball </h1>

Heres the thing with most pieces of equipment in the gym: You can use them one way for each motion, with little room for variability. Its hard to make subtle changes to the way you initially load, say, a dumbbell biceps curl. That can limit the variation in the training program.

Medballs arent like that. They adjust to what I call footprint and handprint. By footprint, I mean your stance. You can change the space between your feet as you set up to throw a medball, or stagger the feet (a split stance) or keep them parallel to each other (bilateral stance). That change lead to adjustments in how your core, glutes, and shoulders must act on the medball.

Handprint is hand positioning, which alters the force potential and torque that other joints apply to the medball. Grip a medball with both hands in similar positions, for example, and youll likely have to finish each throw with your shoulders square. Thats very different from the way youd finish each medball throw if you gripped the medball more like a basketball, with one hand behind it and one hand along its side. Explore these different positions, depending on your training goals.

Explosive moves are a great way to tap your bodys power potential. Its easy to brush off power training and think you dont need it, but power training is more relevant for everyone than you think.

To build a well-rounded body, your training should be a mix of what you need to do everyday and what you need to do on occasion. Even if youre not tapping the power you build in power training daily, the explosive strength you build helps in even the smallest tasks, delivering just a little bit of bounce even when you walk.

Training your power has plenty of virtues. It can preserve tissue integrity, improve joint health, and hone your basic ability to move. And medballs allow you to do that.

Most fitness training theory includes a discussion of planes. Your body can move in three planes. Theres the sagittal, which is essentially when you move directly forward. Movements like walking and front raises occur in the sagittal plane. Theres also the frontal plane, which essentially occurs when youre moving laterally. Lateral shoulder raises are a movement in the frontal plane.

Finally, theres the transverse plane, which essentially encompasses twisting motions. Imagine cutting your body in two, and having your hips turn in one direction and your upper body in another. That twisting motion occurs in the transverse plane.

Many traditional gym exercises occur in one plane, but medball movements are unique in that theyre multiplanar. Youll get to move in multiple planes, with some parts of your body moving sagittally, some moving in the transverse plane, and some moving in the frontal plane, all in one motion. Thats real life -- and it prepares you for real life, too.

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BlCD_tBFj_v/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading&amp;utm_campaign=embed_locale_control" id="6bef2efe-f549-3abf-a375-3c4ca0425f41"> View this post on Instagram </a> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BlCD_tBFj_v/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading&amp;utm_campaign=embed_locale_control" id="74c50b5b-799c-3ddf-a5d9-f5a15aa73404"> A post shared by Eb Samuel (@ebenezersamuel23) </a> on Jul 9, 2018 at 6:29pm PDT

Its easy to get into a habit of doing medball work for only metabolic gain, piling up tons of reps. This has benefit in enhancing your work capacity, but dont let it be the only way you use medballs. When you pile up those reps, your explosive ability in the workout gradually diminishes and you fail to truly train power. Spend some time using medballs for shorter, more explosive sets to get the most out of them.

<h1> The Best Medball Moves For You </h1>

Add these medball exercises into your routine, or do them as a full workout. However you do them, dont always think about reps. Instead spend some time working for only short bursts of time. Your goal on every rep is to be as explosive as possible, and working for too long will lead you to compromise form and waste each rep.

Think of doing each move for 3 to 4 minutes, working for 20 to 25 seconds, then resting for the rest of the minute.

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BnMvaqFnUg4/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading" id="e8779826-cc3e-3f59-a317-a2ea6978eae0"> View this post on Instagram </a> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BnMvaqFnUg4/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading" id="5947c2a6-b42b-3601-aa87-9767e87a3000"> A post shared by Dream Big Athletics (@dreambigathletics) </a> on Sep 1, 2018 at 2:54pm PDT

Why: One of the key functions of your core is to rotate your torso, and this exercise will teach you to do that explosively. It does so in a way thats natural to your body, involving your hips and glutes as well.

How To: Stand with your side a few feet from a wall, holding a medball. Your feet should be in athletic stance. Rotate your shoulders away from the wall (your hips may rotate too), then explosively rotate toward the wall. Release the ball into the wall as fast and powerfully as you can. It should bounce. Pick it up, reset, and begin another throw. Work for 6 to 8 minutes, switching sides every set.

Why: Athletes frequently train something called triple-extension, the idea of straightening (or extending) at the hips, knees, and ankles all at once. This contributes to upwards explosive moves like jumps and, to some extent, faster running. The opposite of triple-extension is something called triple-flexion, bending at the knees, hips, and ankles all at once. Youll train both triple-extension and triple-flexion with the medball slam, while revving up your heart rate and stimulating your abs, too.

How To: Stand with your feet a little wider than shoulder-width apart, knees bent, a medball held in both hands. Explosive stand onto your tiptoes, raising the medball high and throwing your arms over your shoulders. (You should be in triple-extension now.) Now explosively bend your knees and hips and throw the ball straight at the ground. Catch it on the bounce, reset, and begin another rep.

Why: This is another great core exercise thatll hit your abs and obliques and force you to do so in a natural, explosive way. It also incorporates coordination, getting you moving from a high position to a low one.

How To: Start in athletic stance, with a medball over your right shoulder, arms extended. Breathe in. Then exhale and chop the ball across your body and downwards toward your left knee; let your torso and hips rotate as you do this. Be explosive as you do this; your knees and hips will rotate. Return to the start position and repeat.

Why: This move will fire up your legs, glutes and core, and its another great example of triple-flexion, challenging you to explosive bend at the hips, knees, and ankles all at once while blending in a rotational component. Its a great way to build coordination. The workout below incorporates rainbow slams and crushes your core.

How To: Start with the medball on the ground near your right foot. You should be in athletic stance, feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, knees bent. Keeping your feet facing forward, grasp the medball with both hands; your torso will have to rotate for this to happen. Explosively lift the medball overhead, standing onto your toes (triple-extension). Your torso will rotate as this happens. Continue that rotation and the movement and explosively throw the ball into the ground near your left foot. Thats 1 rep; grab the ball on a bounce (or off the ground) and rainbow slam the ball onto the other side.

Your Ultimate Guide to Medicine Ball Training

Theres nothing quite like slamming a medicine ball into the ground. Its a chance to build muscle, power, and strength. It lets you feel badass. And it just might relieve a little stress and anxiety, too.

How You Should Use Medicine Balls In Your Workouts

Thats the beauty of circuit training, a workout style thats perfect for anyone whos super-busy.

Theres a good chance youve done some form of circuit training before, even if you didnt know it. Really, the concept of circuit training is pretty basic: Its a sequence of exercises done in a specific order. Typically, this is done with little to no rest between each exercise, until the full round of exercises is completed.

And therein lies the greatest strength of circuit training: With rest periods very limited, you get to spend more of your workout time actually working out. Consequently, you finish your workout earlier, building muscle and breaking a sweat in less time than some two-hours-a-day, five-days-a-week marathon training plan.

Its a perfect formula for the busy gym guy.

<h1> How Many Exercises Make Up A Circuit? </h1>

If you google the term circuit training, you find plenty of ambiguity about how many exercises you actually have to do to be doing a true circuit. But dont overthink this. Basically, any number of exercises in sequence, with rest largely withheld until the end of that sequence is a circuit.

Personally, I like to build circuits around at least four moves. That doesnt mean you cant do it with more moves (or, technically, fewer moves, too). Different circuit setups can help you work toward different results. Here are a few common terms youll hear thrown around when it comes to circuits.

Triset: A sequence of three exercises, with rest held until the end.

Quadset: A sequence of four exercises with rest held until the end.

Complex: Four or more exercises done using the same weight and the same training tool (such as a kettlebell or barbell). This means you dont need to put the tool down; you can flow directly into the next move.

Circuit: The classic interpretation of the circuit is four-plus exercises with rest held until the end of the sequence. But again, to some extent, all the above workouts have circuit qualities.

<h1> The Benefits of Circuit Training </h1>

For the most part, youre doing circuit training to increase the volume of work you can do in any given period of time. With fewer rest breaks, youll get more work done, right?

This is obviously a time-saver, but its more than that. Research has shown that this is going to build your endurance, while still allowing you to make significant strength gains if you plan your circuits right. Youre also attacking multiple energy systems; constant effort back-to-back on multiple exercises is going to keep pressure on your nervous system, muscular system, and aerobic system.

Now, to be clear, youre not going to, say, bench press 500 pounds while working through circuit training. From a strength-building aspect, your ability to up your gains is somewhat limited. But overall, youll still get to add some strength, even though our focus here is going to be more on muscular and total-body endurance.

<h1> But Do Circuits Really Burn Max Levels of Fat? </h1>

Sometimes. Most people gravitate towards circuits because they feel them working. With so much work but small periods of rest, you sweat, get exhausted, and breath heavier earlier than you would if you were working through a classic strength workout.

When somebody starts to sweat during any kind of training, they tend to think theyre torching fat. That can be the case, but its not always true. Most of the heavy breathing that comes from circuit training is due to restricted blood vessels during the movement of muscular activity, plus consistent work and adaptation of our energy systems. Whenever your body is trying to acclimate to a workload, it adjusts and works to find the appropriate energy source.

Young man Practicing Walking lunge with Kettle bell

This energy system switching is one of the great things about circuits, and it does lead to some fat burn. Think of a circuit as a run with weights and exercises. When you first start running, you arent immediately breathing hard and relying on your aerobic system; first your phosphagen energy system goes into action, then the glycogen-lactic acid system, and, finally, you shift into your aerobic zone. Because of the heavy workload without the ability to kick into your aerobic zone, there will be some post-exercise oxygen consumption, and thatll have you tapping at fat stores not just during your workout but in the time after it, too.

Thats not the only strength of circuits though. From a workload standpoint, youre simply getting a ton done. The consistent stress on the muscular system demands certain feedback from the body to help it recover and get stronger. Beating this fatigue will also make you more productive in future workouts; fatigue is a huge limiting factor in your training. Working through circuits, long-term, will make you more proficient in your future strength programs.

<h1> Circuit Training is Perfect for Full-Body Workouts </h1>

One common flaw I see in many people in the general population: They skip full-body workouts. They get to the gym and immediately start training one bodypart a day. Now, this is fine, and has plenty of benefits, but for this style of training to work, you have to be committed to a five- or six-days-a-week training plan.

That can be intense and harder to stick to than you think, which is why, very often, its better to start with a simpler, more base-level full-body training program. That way, if you can make the gym only, say, three days a week, you still hit all the major muscle groups and movements that you need to stay healthy and active and maintain and build muscle.

The body will get plenty of benefits from working out with full-body circuits. Youll train all your muscles, and get great responses from recovery hormones which will aid in nutrient transport and long-term muscle sustainability.

<h1> Circuits Force You To Limit Rest Periods </h1>

Most people dont really pay attention to their rest periods when theyre in the gym, period. The amount of time thats wasted because youre on Instagram between sets can often be detrimental to your long-term training goals. Thats the greatest thing about circuits: Youre paying attention to your rest periods because, well, theyre barely there.

You have to stay focused to do a circuit. The good part: You dont have to stay focused as long, because a circuit of, say, bodyweight squats, pullups, pushups, and planks is over much more swiftly than all four of those exercises, done individually, with rest between each.

Circuit training has lots of benefits, but there are some things to be cautious of when circuit training.

Dont Go Heavy: Youre not going to hit your max weights when circuit training. With no rest between sets, your body isnt ready for that kind of strain.

Dont Pack In Too Many Reps: Thirty straight burpees in a circuit is so exhausting that you wont have strength or focus to do anything else cleanly. Be smart about your reps and sets in circuit training, and dont try to overwhelm your body. The nature of the circuit, with minimal rest between sets, will take care of that for you.

Dont Get Too Technical: This isnt the place to be doing power cleans and snatches with barbells. Avoid technique-heavy lifts, especially at the end of a circuit, because you have to move quickly with limited rest. Think of frontloading your circuits: Do the most technically demanding and heaviest exercise first, then shift to more bodyweight moves and simpler moves (or isolation moves) near the end of a circuit.

Sure, you could build your own circuits. But try these circuits if youre looking for a starting point.

Do each move for the reps required, then move to the next exercise. Rest two minutes between rounds; do 5 rounds.

Barbell Deadlift

The Single-Arm Biceps Blast

Complete each exercise on your right arm, working with no rest between any movement, then immediately do all exercises on your left arm, working with you rest between any movement (although your right arm is resting when the left arm works). Do 3 total sets like this.

Long-bar biceps curl

Kneeling hammer curl

Single-arm preacher curl

Use Circuit Training to Do More Work in Less Time

Whats the most common excuse youll hear somebody make for not going to the gym? You know it: I just dont have enough time to get there! Its not unfair, either. After all, we all have super-busy lives, and its not easy (or practical) to prioritize fitness over work, family, and relaxation.

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Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S., David Otey, C.S.C.S.

Articles written by the author

How You Should Use Medicine Balls In Your Workouts

Use Circuit Training to Do More Work in Less Time