Medicine Ball Exercises - Four Explosive Moves to Increase Power

Plyometric Push-up with Chest Pass

Start on your knees, holding a medicine ball by your chest, with your partner standing five yards away
Throw the ball to your partner (as in a basketball chest pass) and fall to the ground
Catch yourself in a kneeling push-up position and explosively push yourself back up
Once you are coming up, your partner will chest pass the ball back

Woodchop Bounce Pass

Partners face the same direction
Start with knees bent and feet slightly wider than shoulder width.
Thrower: bring the ball over your shoulder, shifting your weight to the same side. Then, as explosively as possible, bring the ball across your body and shift your weight to the other side. Release the ball so that it bounces approximately two-thirds away from you
Partner: catch the ball and reproduce the motion as quickly as possible

Squat Push-Press

With the ball against your chest, dip down into a quarter squat position
Very quickly reverse this motion and try to jump and throw the ball into the air
You may let the ball bounce and repeat, catch the ball and repeat as quickly as possible, or perform a quarter turn while the ball is coming back and catch

Overhead Toss

Start with the ball overhead
As quickly as possible, swing the ball between your legs (your body will be in a position very similar to a deadlift)
Reverse this motion as quickly as possible and throw the ball as far backwards as possible

Note: This is an explosive exercise for the whole body, however, try to utilize the hips as much as possible.

Important Safety Precautions:

Since all these exercises have an explosive nature to them, spend time warming-up and carefully go through the motions before going full effort

Be careful not to over-do it, which could be dangerous, due to the explosive nature of these exercises. To work at a safe level:

Do not use too heavy of a ball

Use inadequate rest intervals

Do not do too many repetitions

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