Medicine Ball: A Gift of the Classics

The medicine ball or fitness ball is such a common sight in gyms that we take it for granted. For those who don't frequent gyms, a medicine ball is a slightly heavy (weighted) ball used for strength training. It is also used in sports medicine and physical therapy to improve strength and neuromuscular coordination.

Modern exercise with a medicine ball

While it looks like a modern concept, its origin can actually be traced back to ancient Greece and Hippocrates who used such balls to help injured people regain mobility. Of course, the original version differed from the modern medicine ball -- the balls Hippocrates gave his patients were made from stuffed animal skins or bladders filled with sand. Galen also wrote extensively about them in the self-explanatorily named treatise, On Exercise with a Small Ball, noting:

The form of exercise most deserving of our attention is therefore that which has the

capacity to provide health of the body, harmony of the parts, and virtue in the soul;

and all these things are true of the exercise with the small ball.

Turns out the ball he described is very similar to the medicine ball used in gyms today. Exercising with balls was popular even in ancient Rome, as found in many murals and artwork. Gladiators also reportedly used them to prepare for fights.

Mosaic showing women with different ball exercises

The name for medicine ball is attributed to a Renaissance physician, Hieronymus Mercurialis, who advocated "medicinal gymnastics" with balls for healing injuries as well as general fitness for preventing injuries. The word "medicine" I guess stuck with the ball because it sounds important and authoritative. And it was in a Boston YMCA gym that an instructor by the name of R. J. Roberts first introduced the medicine ball in a fitness gym. It has since become a staple of every gym!

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fitness-medicineballs/medicine-balls-are-ancient-fitness-tools-that-keep-bouncing-back-idUSKCN0HV0O020141006

https://physicalculturestudy.com/2020/06/01/the-long-history-of-the-medicine-ball-2/

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