maratoolMedicine Ball Full Twist
How to do the medicine ball full twist
- For this exercise you will need a medicine ball and a partner. Stand back to back with your partner, spaced 2-3 feet apart. This will be your starting position.
- Hold the ball in front of the trunk. Open the hips and turn the shoulders at the same time as your partner.
- For full rotation, you and your partner should twist in the same direction, i.e. counter-clockwise.
- Pass the ball to your partner, and both of you can now twist in the opposite direction to repeat the procedure.
Muscles worked
The force comes from the rectus abdominis and the obliques, which flex the trunk forward and resist it being pulled into extension or twisted out of line.
A plyometric repetition is over before a slow contraction could contribute anything, so they have to produce that force immediately on contact.
Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range.
Every exercise for:AbdominalsShoulders
How this movement works
The load travels toward you and several joints bend to bring it there. The arms finish work the back starts, so grip and elbow flexors sit in the path of every repetition: when people stall on a compound pull, it is more often the hands giving out than the primary muscle running out of force.
It is filed under plyometrics, which trains the stretch-shortening cycle: loaded fast, released immediately. Contact time matters more than volume, so these belong early in a session.
What you need
A medicine ball can be thrown and caught, which suits movements where you keep accelerating the load all the way through instead of decelerating it to spare a joint.
Every exercise using:Medicine ball
These train the abdominals too, using equipment this one does not:
- Oblique Crunchesbody only
- One-Arm High-Pulley Cable Side Bendscable
- Press Sit-Upbarbell
- Side Bend with Dumbbelldumbbell
- Smith Machine Hip Raisemachine
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 97 abdominals exercises in this database, 69 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.