Do you have an exercise you really like? One of mine is the wall ball.
I did a lot of them back in my CrossFit days. In fact, when I did a quiz–11 years ago now, what CrossFit exercise are you?–it turns out I’m a wall ball.
What’s is wall ball anyway?
Here’s a good explanation from Muscle and Fitness:
“When you descend into the wall ball squat, the idea is to get proper depth the same way you would with a back squat. Keep your weight over your heels with your knees tracking your toes, and aim to lower the crease of your hips below your knees. Make sure to hold the ball at chest height throughout the downward movement, as letting it dip will cause you to round your back and shift your weight forward. Drive through your heels on the way up, using hip action to throw the ball into the wall. Catch it on the rebound, squat again, and repeat for reps.”
Done right, wall balls are a great all-around conditioning movement. Start with your feet shoulder-width apart, your shoulders pulled back and down, and a medicine ball held at chest height with your elbows under the ball.
Way back when, in the early years of the blog, I smashed my glasses doing wall balls. The problem was trying to do a lot of them fast. Oh, CrossFit.
I was doing 150 wall balls competitively for time. I came in at 11:41. The workout is called Karen.
Of course, I got tired. But did I slow down? I did not. And when I failed to watch the ball, it smashed into my glasses and my glasses cut my nose. I had to take my glasses to get repaired. See here.
Now I’m doing them with Sarah and our personal trainer at Movati. We’re alternating sets of wall balls, say 25 or 30, with dumbbell presses, sled pushes, or farmers carries.
I miss CrossFit a lot. I love the group workouts and the camaraderie. I need to find some group thing in my fitness life since I miss soccer, Aikido, cycling, and CrossFit for the joy of working out with other people. It meets both a social need and a fitness need in my life. Those activities are also where I’ve met the most friends outside the university.
But the competitiveness of CrossFit isn’t a good match for injured me. Yes I know there are modifications you can do but I still get carried away so I’m better off not in a CrossFit gym.
It’s good that Sarah and I work out together with a personal trainer who knows both of is, our sports backgrounds and our injuries. We can playfully compete against one another with someone watching our form and keeping us in line.
These days I’m attracted to Hyrox. It’s why box jumps and sled pulls are back in fashion.
We’re not competing in a Hyrox competition. There’s too much running in between all the fun things. In fact, I say that like there would be some amount of running that would be the right amount. Any running is too much for me. But I’m happy our personal trainer is. I feel like we’re benefiting downstream from all his training. Thanks Cody!
