Training with weighted balls has been around for literally thousands of years. And one of our favourites is a dead ball. Dead balls as the name suggests, are a dead weight with little to no bounce.
Dead Balls are extremely tough and designed to withstand very high impact, making them perfect for exercises such as slams.
Dead ball slams are tremendous tools for training strength and power throughout the entire kinetic chain. Dead balls are hard to grip so help in developing core strength and stability, from the ground up.
THE DEAD BALL SLAM
The medicine ball slam is a full body exercise, utilising the shoulders, lats, abs and quads.
As the slam is a compound exercise it’s fantastic for overall conditioning and quickly gets the heart rate going. Slams are an excellent power exercise that involves rapid shoulder, truck and hip flexion which can transfer over to benefit many other exercises:
- Improves the speed of shoulder extension which can benefit swimmers and throwers
- Improves explosive power for sports like basketball or football.
- Builds strength and stability through the trunk and midline which benefits EVERYTHING you do (one of the main reasons we love them so much).
- And of course, they burn calories, dead ball slams are intense and are required to be performed in short, explosive bursts which get the heart rate up quick.
How to perform:
- Pick up the ball and raise it over your head with arms extended.
- Throw the ball into the ground as hard as you possibly can. (be careful to bend through the knees and not the back - use your legs to generate the force)
- You want to try to get the ball to bounce, even slightly depending on the type of ball you’re using, and attempt to catch it on the first bounce.
*Check out the video and photos below on how to perform the dead ball slam
