Power Chop Medicine Ball Smash

Power Chop Medicine Ball Smash is an explosive, plyometric exercise that is perfect for developing strength and power in core and upper body muscles. This exercise involves standing with feet shoulder-width apart, holding a medicine ball in front of the body. Lower into a squat and simultaneously rotate the medicine ball overhead and as you stand, explosively chop down on the medicine ball as you come up to full standing position. This powerful movement stimulates the core stabilizing and upper body muscles, contributing to muscular power

Transcript

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This is Brent president of B2C Fitness,
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training for the back. We're working on a chop pattern, or a ground smash pattern.
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We're going to try to increase the amount of velocity we can produce in
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those large muscles of our back, being our lats as well as some of the musculature
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of our anterior kinetic chain. I'm gonna have my friend Vinnie come out and help
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me demonstrate this exercise. It is an exercise that I see kind of incorrectly
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performed if your goal is increased velocity. He's going to grab this
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medicine ball now we've chosen a medicine ball that is not incredibly
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heavy, although vinnie is a very strong and powerful individual. The idea here is
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not to see how much weight he can lift, its to ensure that we increase velocity
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throughout this kinetic chain. If I'm going to get in amortization phase out
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of this exercise I need to put a stretch on his latissimus dorsi, as well as his
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anterior kinetic chain, and then I need to turn that around as fast as I
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can. In this exercise that stretch happens up here. Now I see a lot of
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people hesitate in this position, we're not going to do that. This is going to be
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where the quick turnaround happens. So then he's going to start with a ball
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down here, he's going to lift up, and the goal is going to be to spend as little
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time in this area right here, and throw it back down as fast as he possibly can.
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Now one note of caution here guys, all of our kinetic chain checkpoints should be
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in a line. Things start to fall apart generally when people are lifting up
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they tend to get really really hyper-extended. This is not -he's dramatizing
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this more than I see in most gyms, but we do see this incredibly extended position
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that is probably not a safe position to be in. I'm going to have Vinnie think of
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more lifting straight up, and then coming straight back down with it, throwing the
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ball slightly forward, so it doesn't hit himself in the face. All right you ready
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Vinnie? So what I'm gonna have you do is you're going to start down here, I want
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you to load as fast as you can, spend as little time up here as you possibly can,
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and then try to bounce it over my head. Here, quick turnaround, bounce it over my
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head.
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Nice, nice. You just scared the heck out of me, good job. All right so let's try a
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little bit more up. I want you to try to get a little bit more stretch out of
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your kinetic chain, so you kind of stopped here, I want you to reach up, boom.
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Over my head.
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Nice, nice. Let's try that again. This time just like any other exercise guys, he
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started losing his form after he threw the ball. I want good stability, good form.
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If he's thrown with perfect form, he should be able to stabilize that at the
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end. So after you throw I want you to 'stick' the landing.
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Good, a little faster on that turnaround on top. You ready -and now we're going to
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really start just working on that power production. That's what I'm talking about
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good job. Again, good. You can reach down just a little bit more if you need to, up,
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nice, nice, one more.
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Good, that was pretty good, he lost a little bit of velocity, we can see the
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height starting to come down on the ball. That's the end of Vinnie's set. I know Vinny
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could throw this thing another 20 times it's not particularly heavy, but remember
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what we're working for. We're working for maximal velocity. So this would be one
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set. I would give him his two to five minutes rest for his back, that doesn't
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mean I'm not going to go kick butt and get his chest or his legs involved in
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between sets. That'll give his back to 2-5 minutes rest, so we can come back and get
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maximal velocity again. I hope you guys enjoyed this exercise, watch your kinetic
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chain checkpoints. Make sure you're paying attention to where your