Medicine Balls - dual purpose?

[Allen Yeh]

Hey everyone I'm looking to buy a medicine ball or 2. I'd really like one 2 fit 2 purposes but if I have to end up buying more than one, oh well.

Purpose 1: My son Hunter is supposed to utlize MB's in his PT right now we use just regulat b-balls/soccer balls but they are pretty light and don't challenge him much. Mostly it's throwing them to him and back standing on one leg, on a bosu ball....etc.

Purpose 2: Conditioning...throwing across a field, slamming, all that fun stuff

I was looking at the CAthletics store:
http://www.performancemenu.com/zen/i...ex&cPath=14_35

It looks like the Rage balls are like the Dynamax balls and the slammers are like slam balls. I'm opting towards the slammers? As you can get more weight for less $, I'm just wondering if throwing a 15# MB for PT would be a bad idea the Dynamax type balls we've used before and were great for PT purposes but I know they are not suited for slamming.

Thanks for any thoughts.

[Dean Saunders]

Easy solution, cheap basket ball, cut a small hole, stuff with rags and sand to get weight you want and wrap with lots and lot of duct tape, when it inevitably springs a leak, wrap with more duct tape.

[Mike ODonnell]

Most all balls will break/crack slamming at some point....make your own, use outside....have a broom handy....repeat.

Just don't be this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuHMlvN0pX8

[James Evans]

Making your own ball is a bit fiddly but worth the effort in terms of cost. Get Hunter involved. The one I made at home weighs 11kg, retail that would be around £70, it cost me about £10 in materials.

You slam the ball and it pretty much sticks to the floor so you have to squat down to pick it up. The 9kg ball we use at the rowing club bounces back to chest height, hard work but still less work. We destroyed the old 5k ball within 3 months of me introducing more punishing exercises.

Dynamax type balls are far more forgiving on the fingers in catching and throwing drills.

[Craig Brown]

What was said above! For tossing, the Dynamax balls are great. I use an 8# ball for warming up the folks I train. My slam ball is a 23# sand filled basketball. It's held up fine for a long time. Shoe goo is your friend.

Craig

[Geoffrey Thompson]

I mean, if you really want to use medicine balls for what they are designed for, the 6-12# range is best. For slamming, something cheap enough that you won't mind replacing when broken unless you want to spend piles of money on a 20# ball you will only use for slamming (see above comment about the weight range for optimal use of a medicine ball). If you want to use it for checking squat depth, Dynamax 20# is still the gold standard.

If I were you, I'd have a sand-filled basketball (or maybe just a few sandbags of varying sizes) and an ~8# medicine ball.