If you ever want to develop your athleticism or fitness and not just do curls for the girls, what you really need is a BOSU ball and medicine ball.  After all, everyone knows the only real reason for medicine ball work is to get better at Karen in CrossFit and obviously the CrossFit Open!  Plus, the best weightlifting drill for the clean is the medicine ball clean, right? False, in all reality, the medicine ball is an incredibly important tool in any good strength and conditioning program, but if you use a BOSU ball, you are just a tool. 
 
When it comes to great strength and conditioning programs, an understanding of the strength-speed continuum and how it applies to your goals is an absolute must. For example, if your sport is Olympic Weightlifting, then you have to train specifically for it, but if your sport is throwing a ball or hitting other people in the face, then you have to train for that. Olympic lifting requires you not to rotate, whereas other sports not only require rotation but also requires faster movements than is sometimes possible with a barbell.  This is where knowing how to apply the strength-speed continuum comes into play within the design of a program.
 
One way to look at the strength-speed continuum is to understand basic principles of fitness.  Think of it this way: if you want to be a great lifter, good luck snatching big weights if you can’t even squat small weights. Obviously, you need to build up your strength before you try to build up some power or even speed. 
 
Simply put, power is the rate of force development. Force development is more or less muscle contraction.  So power, from a very simplified perspective, is essentially the rate of contraction of your muscles. If you cannot contract muscle (produce strength) in the first place, how are you going to contract it quickly (produce power)? This is where the continuum helps in developing athletes over a period of time. 
 
Generally the continuum looks like this: Strength à Power à Speed.  If you take a deeper look, it can be broken up into even more categories such as: Strength à Strength-Speed à Power à Speed-Strength à Speed.  Each category itself more or less feeds into the next one, and in some cases, they can facilitate the category previous to it as well.  When it comes to the various exercises to select from, it always depends upon what you specifically need but for any form of hip hinging activities it might look like this:  Deadlift (strength) à Power Clean (strength-speed)  à Kettlebell Swing (power) à Medicine Ball Vertical Scoop Toss (speed-strength) à Max Broad Jump (speed). Essentially, different sports emphasize different parts of the continuum, so your training must reflect this.  Of course, there are times you might choose to change the order for various performance reasons in a sport or even to correct another movement. As an example, you might want to throw in some medicine ball vertical scoop tosses in your warm-up to reinforce triple extension in the clean. In the end, it always will depend on what you specifically need.
 
So if you want to punch people in the face for your sport, or throw a ball, or swing a club, you need to do more than lift heavy weights over your head. In many sports, rotation and force absorption are vital components to winning as well as preventing injury. Medicine balls offer a great way, once an athlete is strong enough, to train rotation and force absorption. The trick is to just use basic principles in movement to develop the necessary athleticism. For example, if you can’t complete a split stance anti-rotation scoop toss, then elect to go with a half kneeling anti-rotation scoop toss.  Also, depending on the athlete, a scoop toss versus a shot toss can make all the difference in how an athlete performs on the court, field, or ice. A shot toss is generally a bit more aggressive on the shoulders, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you are working on trying to use your hips more, then a scoop toss is usually a great starting point.
 
There are numerous positions in which to use the medicine ball to improve performance as well.  Vertical tosses, ball slams, and rotational throws all from various starting points or positions are what can make up the staple of a great speed development program.
 
Speaking of performance, sometimes sub-optimal movement is the biggest performance detriment for an athlete.  In the world of team sports or any rotational sport in general, movement is largely one-sided.  This can leave an individual with an asymmetry that can lead to injury.  Using medicine balls to help improve movement patterns is a fantastic type of corrective exercise that is not only performance enhancing, but generally speaking, people buy into much more because it’s not going to look like boring old school physical therapy.  For example, if someone has recurring ankle sprains, a half kneeling anti-rotation scoop toss can help engage the glutes, while also reinforcing better shoulder mobility through improved thoracic mobility.  It also teaches force absorption through hips as well as the core if you do it close enough to a wall or off a trampoline so that you catch it on the rebound.  For correcting a lifter’s triple extension, a medicine ball vertical scoop toss forces an athlete to full extend at the ankles, knees, and hips in order to throw the ball as high as they can.  And since most medicine ball drills have very little eccentric action, they’re great for warming up the nervous system prior to the heavy lifts, similar to doing some light clean pulls in the warm up for your heavy cleans.
 
Bottom line: the medicine ball is not just for CrossFit athletes looking to get good in the sport of CrossFit, nor is it just for the poor souls “learning” Olympic lifting by doing medicine ball cleans. The medicine ball is one of the most versatile tools available to an athlete or coach looking to improve their lifts or performance.  Since medicine ball exercises don’t have much eccentric action to them, they can be a fantastic warm-up.  You can use medicine balls in various positions, which allows for it to become a corrective exercise in its own right, which is a performance-oriented exercise in nature. Medicine ball exercises also allow athletes to progress in their off-season from the phase of rebuilding strength and symmetry to the phase of power or speed development. No matter how you decide to incorporate the medicine ball, just make sure not to use it on a BOSU ball.