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Medicine Ball Exercises

As an older age group swimmer, I followed the path of many who had come before: I experimented with lifting weights to augment my swim training. I realized that I needed to stimulate my muscles in a way that was different from what they were used to in the pool.

The trick was to shock them in a new way, as often as possible, doing different sets and different strokes. But as I gained size physically, I saw little improvement in the pool. I was certainly stronger, but while those new muscles were great at pressing iron up and down (and impressing the girls, or so I wished), they did very little when asked to perfomn in the complex manner required to swim the four strokes.

Actually, one thing these new "beach muscles" did was to draw precious oxygen from the muscles that were truly doing the work in the swimming pool.

Much to my social despair, I decided that lifting weights was not going to improve my swimming enough to be worth the time it took. It was just about this time that I met swimming guru Joszef Nagy. Among the 32 billion changes he made in the pool, he brought with him an idea for a new style of dryland training: the medicine ball. When he asked me where to find a medicine ball, I didn't know what one was. He told me, "You know, like Rocky Balboa."

It turned out that each high school in my county had bought some in the late 1950s and had not used them since. This was a great thing, because as we wore them out, we had a steady source available for donations. (They thought they were useless-little did they know! Great improvements had been made in the balls since the days when I wore goggles to stop the sand from raining in my eyes on each catch!) The beginning of a new era of medicine balls was born.

A secondary workout, in addition to swimming, is a must for improvement after the first few giant leaps of the novice athlete are complete. The body as well as the mind need different stimulation away from the pool. If I gave 100 percent to the swim workout, I had nothing left. But I could still have a good medicine ball workout because many of the supportive muscles were not used in the same style during the swim workout and were, therefore, fresh.

But why the medicine ball? There were many advantages that I could see very quickly. The most obvious was the similarity of movement and speed between the medicine ball movement and the actual stroke movement. Actually, over 50 percent of the muscle movement done during our dryland workout is exactly the same as the muscle movement during swimming. In addition to many muscles moving in a similar way, almost the same number were moving in the exact opposite manner. This was a superb way to strengthen those injury-prone muscles that were neglected so many times by even the best athletes.

Another quick-to-be-seen advantage was the joint stress, or lack thereof. During the medicine ball workout, the maximum weight carried by any part of the body would be the body weight plus a maximum of only about 12 pounds. This meant that even younger swimmers-those who were old enough to need a little extra, but were not quite ready for weights-had a great, fun way to supplement what they were doing in the pool. For them, it was also a way to begin learning about speed and intensity, even if they were not yet at that stage in the pool.

For my coach and me, though, it became something of an art to develop that "concise" program that would benefit my 200 meter breaststroke. It took several years for us to come up with the right mix, but in the end, it included a multitude of exercises that spanned about 55 minutes. The medicine ball was, of course, at the center of the action, but also included some sit-ups, push-ups, squats and jumps, stretch cords and many other isokinetic exercises.

The most important aspect was that once it began, the workout would not stop for any reason. A continuous 55 minutes was the goal. If you weren't sweating after the first five, something was very wrong. By the end, we'd be soaked-and most certainly exhausted.

I trained with two of the world's best swimmers. Together we tried to learn all that we could about how best to use the balls. This meant everything from exactly how to catch the ball for maximum strength conditioning, to just how precisely to aim the ball to get through your opponent's hands and directly onto his nose-the latter being extremely useful on many occasions when the training was not going well for me!

The results of the program were both obvious as well as stunning. Before I began the program, my weakest link was my forearms. In the end, that was by far my strongest. The quickness in my stroke on the recovery phase was due mainly to the medicine ball workouts. The power of my kick and push from the wall was again from the dryland program. Many benefits came from the program that could not have been accomplished from simply swimming.

These benefits are certainly available to anyone. It's best to start off easy with a light weight ball and work your way up to about a 10- to 12-pounder when things become more natural. Of course, in the beginning, the ball will go flying all over as it takes a while to get the forearm muscles in shape to catch and hold the ball. But once this is accomplished, holding the ball is a key to the workout. Missing the ball becomes only a subconscious method of rest and an interesting mental challenge.

The workouts we designed were built specifically for my 200 meter breast, but are a great starting point for anyone (experiment with bits and pieces). Once there is some understanding of the reasons behind each exercise, the program can be tailored for anyone swimming any event, with a goal to reach the level where all of the outlined exercises can be completed in approximately 55 minutes.

Give the program a test run-not just a few weeks, but a true season. This is the bare minimum before any results can manifest. Be patient and find what works best for each individual. With this in mind, success is a certainty.

Copyright Sports Publications, Inc. Oct-Dec 2003
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