By the healthiergang writer Marco Ruozi, personal trainer.
Exercises With The Ball
Today we are going to do a rundown of the five best exercises to perform with the help of the ball! The exercises chosen within this article were selected for their usefulness and functionality, as well as, of course, for their effectiveness!
In addition to the above parameters we will look for five exercises for go to work different parts of the body!
Why the ball?
The ball allows us to have a variable weight, a load suited to our level of training and at the same time a load that can be adapted to the different exercise proposed.
The ball, as well as most bodyweight exercises, allows us to train a very important and very often underestimated component: proprioception, that is the ability to perceive and recognize the position of the body in space and, in particular, the state of contraction of one's muscles!
Below, I am going to list an exercise for the main muscle groups, in order to provide you with the best 5 exercises for your workout!
# 1 For the Shoulders
Let's start with one of the most popular parts in the workouts before the summer season! The starting position after a adequate joint heating, must be the following: standing up, let's grab our medicine ball bringing it in front of the face, flex the knees slightly and keep the abdomen in constant contraction.
Once in place, we check that the elbow and wrist are perpendicular between them and forming an angle of ninety degrees. After positioning ourselves, we go to extend the arm in a convergent movement above our head, after which we return to the initial position with particular attention to the position of the elbow with respect to that of the wrist.
Advice. Avoid hyper-extending the lumbar back of the movement, use adequate weight to maintain correct execution and focus on the target muscle.
# 2 For the bibs
For a correct stimulation of the pectoral, through the use of the medicine ball, I recommend a very nice variant of the normal bends on the ground!
What are we talking about; place the ball on the ground (the size of the ball will affect our movement), we lie down as if we had to perform some very normal push-ups (or push-ups, or for lovers of English: push up) and place the palm of one hand wide open to ground, while the other on the medicine ball. Attention, hands must be level with the chest, not the shoulder!
Also in this case, we pay particular attention not to hyper-extend the lumbar spine, but always keep it with the correct physiognomy. Once the set-up is done, abdomen contracted, and we perform our push-ups keeping one hand on the ground and the other on the ball!
Advice. Use a medicine ball of modest size, always pay attention to the position of the torso in relation to that of the legs.
# 3 For the legs
For the legs, I propose a variant of the walking lunges! We grab the medicine ball and we carry it to our chest as if we were to hug it, we position ourselves as if to carry out some very common lunges and ... here comes the beauty!
We carry out the first lunge forward, paying attention to execute it in the correct form and execution, keep the position for a few seconds and we carry out a torsion of the bust, as if looking at the leg that is behind, we bring the torso back into position and execute the lunge with the other leg, remembering to rotate the torso from the side of the leg "behind".
This type of exercise is the combination of two well-known exercises, one for the legs and one for the abdomen, in particular the most oblique part (the common side).
Advice. Always distance your feet for greater stability, perform a quick twist with "braking" in the final part of the movement for greater effectiveness.
# 4 For the abs
As seen for the legs, we will combine two well-known exercises to form one to be performed always with the help of our medicine ball. We position ourselves lying on our back on a mat, knees bent and feet placed on the ground, shoulder-width apart, approximately.
The medicine ball must be tightened by the hands, at chest height but not supported. Firm neck ed we perform a complete sit-up; once we reach the knees, we rotate the torso from side to side, making the ball touch the ground from both sides, after which we return to the initial position!
In doing so we will not only stimulate the rectus abdominis (I self-correct: the sit-up not only stimulates the rectus abdominis but also other muscles outside the abdominal wall) but also the oblique part of the abdomen.
Advice. Air out in both torso twists and inhale before starting the sit-up, neck firm, back as compact as possible.
5. And finally ...
To conclude our roundup, a very functional and very fun exercise, not that very wasteful in terms of energy! This is also an exercise consisting of several exercises and involves several muscle groups; we will leave a squatting position, like at the end of the concentric phase of the Squat!
Arms outstretched, located between the two knees and hands on the medicine ball! Let us always remember the back always extended and never in a kyphotic position! The movement we are going to make will bring the ball over our head, in what is commonly called as Swing!
The crescent that we are going to describe with our movement takes strength from the movement of the pelvis, which it will widely involve the part of the buttocks, not that of the arms and the rachis! The arms will never bend during the movement, they will remain stretched both in the eccentric and concentric phase of the movement!
Advice. Focus on hip movement during movement, core always contracted.
