Utilizing medicine ball throws in your training is a great way to transfer your general strength qualities into baseball specific power!
Reason being, power development is plane specific and medicine ball throws will allow you to train more “baseball specific” power by allowing you to work in planes (frontal, transverse) that are required of you by your sport (baseball).
Medicine Ball Drills and Weight Used
Here’s some of my favorite medicine ball drills and the weight I typically program for each variation with my athletes:
Medicine Ball Rotational Throws: 4-8 LB
Exercises: Facing The Wall Scoop Toss, Split-Stance Anti-Rotation Scoop Toss, 1-Leg Scoop Toss Through Swing (Shown Below), Explosive Jump to Shot-Put Throw (Shown Below), Receive and Release Scoop Toss, Rotational Shot-Put Throw, Step-Behind Rotational Shot-Put Throw, Side-Shuffle Rotational Shot-Put/Scoop Toss, Hook-Behind Scoop Toss/Shot-Put Throw, Two-Hop Rotational Shot-Put/Scoop Toss, Seated Box Medicine Ball Shot-Put Throw
Medicine Ball Overhead Stomps: 8-12 LB
Exercises: Overhead Stomp, Overhead Recoiled Stomp (Shown Below), Overhead Double-Clutch Stomp, Overhead Side-to-Side Stomp, Overhead Figure-Eight Rollover Stomp
Medicine Ball Overhead Forward Throws to Wall: 4-6 LB
Exercises: Tall-Kneeling Overhead Forward Throw, Split-Stance Overhead Forward Throw, Crow Hop to Overhead Forward Throw (Shown Below)
Medicine Ball Throws for Distance/Height: 8-20 LB
Exercises: Overhead Vertical Throw for Height (Shown Above), Backward Overhead Throw for Distance, Forward Scoop Toss for Distance, Vertical Chest Pass for Height, Tall-Kneeling Medicine Ball Forward Chest Pass for Distance, Step-Into Medicine Ball Forward Chest Pass for Distance
Effort Level/Intent for Medicine Ball Throws
When performing your medicine ball stomps and throws this off-season your goal should be one of three things (depending on which exercise you’re performing):
Throw the ball as far and as high as you can
Throw the ball through the wall
Throw the ball through the floor
Remember, the goal with your medball throws and stomps is to improve POWER output. You can’t do this by simply going through the motions on your medball work. LET IT RIP!
Recovery/Programming Guidelines
Generally speaking, 60-90 seconds recovery following each set of medball throws is plenty of time for the athlete to maintain high outputs. With my athletes, I like to superset a light thoracic mobility drill, arm care exercise, or catch-all mobility drill with their medball drills. This gives them plenty of time to recover from the previous set.
Complete Medicine Ball Power Development Program
If you’re someone that’s looking for a complete medicine ball program that you can implement into your workouts this off-season check out our 16-Week Medicine Ball Power Development Program
With our Med Ball Manual, you’ll get 16 weeks of carefully progressed throws, slowly building to high velocity, high power variations that will teach your body how to produce force, and transmit it through the body, as quickly and efficiently as possible. This program is designed to supplement your existing training regiment and take out the guesswork so you can focus on ball-breaking displays of power! Click HERE for more information!
