Medicine Ball Goes Mainstream
Ever feel intimidated by the cost and complexity of the stair climbers, treadmills and weight machines at the gym? What if working out were as simple as a game of catch?
The heavy leather "medicine ball" is an old favorite of professional athletes and personal trainers. And now it's gone director of La Palestra Center for Preventative Medicinemainstream, reports CBS News This Morning Field Anchor Jose Diaz-Balart.
The heavy leather medicine ball that our fathers and grandfathers used to toss around the gym has recently experienced a resurgence in popularity.
The simple tool, invented by Hippocrates for the purpose of "preventing and recovering from certain injuries," has been relied upon by physical therapists for years to rehabilitate injured athletes - hence its name.
Now many people from casual gym-goers to the Chicago Bulls use medicine balls, which come in all weights, sizes, materials and colors.
Erik Stevens, , believes that the trend in physical fitness to isolate muscle groups (one machine for legs, one for arms, one for the abdominals) is outdated.
Medicine balls train multiple muscle groups for real-life applications, he says. For example, most sports demand the dynamic usage of multiple muscle groups simultaneously - such as when throwing a ball, swinging a bat, etc.
"Machines that only allow the linear motion of a single muscle group are not as adept at training for specific sports as a medicine ball can be, when used as part of a complete workout," he adds.
Medicine balls are widely recommended by personal trainers often to the surprise of their affluent clientele who are used to riding $10,000 life cycles and $20,000 StairMasters.
More often than not, the simple medicine ball, which typically costs less than $60, provides a more effective, dynamic workout than its mechanized counterparts.
Furthermore, medicine balls are easy to use, familiar to anyone who's ever played catch and - of vital importance to the reluctant athlete - fun.
Dynamax, a medicine ball manufacturer, has seen sales quadruple since 1994.
Medicine balls are also responsible for 20 percent of total ball sales at Justballs.com, an Internet vendor claiming to have the "largest selection of balls anywhere in the world."
Joe Wright, a 70-year-old former Massachusetts boxing commissioner, has called the medicine ball and the workouts revolving around it, "one of the most productive programs for athletic development." He is considered a leading authority on teaching the proper technique with the medicine ball.
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