Med Ball Wall Throws Circuit with UNC Baseball Team

Head strength and conditioning coach for Olympic sports Greg Gatz explains the proper techniques of performing UNC Baseball's Med Ball Wall Throws Circuit.

Greg Gatz, Universy of North Carolina's Director of Olympic Sports, explains how the Med Ball Wall Throw Circuit helps strengthen muscles by simulating on field type movements.

TRANSCRIPT

Greg Gatz (North Carolina Director of S+C Olympic Sports): The wall throws we're going to do against the wall actually and it's to develop those wall concepts and teaching how to extend through the big toe all the way out to the hands. So we'll do a combination of different types of movements, whether it's a Squat, Single Leg Squat, a turn, or a rotational type of pattern. Anything where we can kind of mimic what's going on in the field itself and using the Med ball as an implement to accelerate through the whole body to get that power pound step. The first one we're going to do is what we call a Squat Chest Pass. So the ball will be up by the chest in kind of a basketball chest pass fashion. They'll squat through their hips, accelerate through the ground and then drive the ball to the wall out through the hands and then catch the rebound. This is real important. The guys will have to contract and use their core on the rebound as well. So they're going to contract, load again and then accelerate to the next rep. So we'll do about 10 reps. The second one is going to be a Single Leg Squat Chest Pass. So we'll work off one leg as well as a double leg position. The third set will be a Standing Rotation which is going to kind of put these guys, are position guys, into a batters stance almost, and do a backside rotation with the ball. Bring the ball back behind that back hip and then accelerate into the wall. Side to Side where we're actually in a double leg stance squatting and then pushing the ball with one hand and bringing it over to the other hand kind of like a shot put type of action where the balls going back and forth. We'll finish up with them facing away from the wall and rotating to what we call around the back. So they'll stand facing away from the wall, rotate the ball to the opposite hip and then bring the ball around the body to the backside of them and catch it coming off the wall. And again, we'll do pretty much ten reps per exercise on that. We don't want to do a whole lot of reps. We just want to make sure each rep is high intensity and high quality. So that's why we kind of keep it between eight and ten type of set rule.