The Medicine Ball Is A Largely Useless Training Tool

I said it. I do not think the medicine ball is a very useful training implement for really any goal. Let's think about why medicine balls (referred to as med bell from hereon) may be used by trainees:

The famed medicine ball, used by many sports performance coaches as an inefficient means of developing power in athletes

1. Power Production

What is power production. Power is the ability to generate force quickly. Are we producing force quickly during a med ball slam or toss? Yes, we are. But we are not producing LARGE force quickly. Using a medicine ball will probably provide you with 10kgs of max resistance. How are you going to load more weight? How many reps are you going to add? Practically, med ball work doesn't seem conducive to long term gains in power production.

But also, what unique benefits are we getting from med ball work that is conducive to performance in any sport? For example, the olympic lifts, which are a tested way of developing power, train many qualities powerfully. They train triple extension, absolute strength etc. What qualities are we training with med ball work? Some claim that med balls allow us to develop "upper body explosiveness". But do they? Explosive work is ALWAYS dependent on ground reaction forces (think punching, kicking, jumping, olympic lifts). So when we do some explosive work for the "upper body" using a med ball, we aren't really building upper body explosiveness. Also, the upper body is NOT built to be explosive! The BODY is built to be explosive. Every explosive activity is some mix of both upper body and lower body strength and coordination (even jumping!), but the large majority of this power is from the lower body due to it being a much stronger part of the body. In saying this, you can do explosive work that targets BOTH the upper body and lower body! You could do a push press, a snatch grip high pull, or a variety of olympic throws (shotput, discus). 

Olympic weightlifter Dmitry Klokov mogging a 225kg (495lbs) push press. Push pressing this amount of relative weight is a clear indication of both upper and lower body strength.

Therefore, the med ball is not a useful tool in developing power, and you would be better of incorporating olympic lifts if your goal is to target the upper body. 

2. Sports Performance

Many throwing coaches believe that med ball work could help their shotputters get more distance out on the field. Many boxing coaches thing doing med ball side tosses will increase punching power. These statements are false. 

Why would med ball work help our shotput throws? Med balls do not provide enough resistance to grow the muscles required for the shotput. They don't hypertrophy he triceps or the shoulders; if we did want to grow those muscles, we would do basic conventional exercises like dips and overhead presses. If we wanted to get better at throwing a shotput, then we would throw a shotput! There is no reason why low specificity med ball work is useful when we can simply allocate that time to actually throwing the implement. 

And how is the med ball going to help us develop "rotational power" for punching? If we wanted stronger punches, we could hypertrophy the relevant muscles through standard weight room exercises for the obliques, core, shoulders etc. And if we wanted to get better at the skill of punching, we would just do more punching and more specific work! If we wanted to develop power in the body, then we would do the olympic lifts, which just like punching, rely on the ability of the lower body to produce force quickly!!

Discus throwers should spend more time throwing a discus rather than a non-specific med ball. A med ball weights differently, is shaped differently, and provides no unique benefit. Same applies for hammer throwers and shotputters.

The point I am making is that substituting our sport specific movements will med ball movements in unnecessary. If we want to get better at our sport, we should play our sport more! If we wanted to develop strength and power to benefit our sport, then we would do traditional weight room exercises and olympic lifts! Med balls provide no unique benefit here.

Now there is a caveat here. If you are actually training for an event that requires you to use med balls, then you should definitely train with those same med balls. This obviously applies to crossfit, and I know that the US army tests the med ball power throw as well. But the amount of technical prowess required for these events are VERY minimal, so you would probably be better of just building up your traditional lifts. If you increase your back squat and power clean, then you med ball power throw WILL increase.

I have used med balls for some time and only recently realized that they are largely useless. Maybe they have a one-off training effect by potentiating the nervous system or as a warmup, but these is rarely what people use them for. Med ball work should NOT be a staple in your program, and you should NOT rely on them to make any gains in power, strength or hypertrophy.