Home-made Medicine Balls

[Editors Note: When I started writing this article, I had no intention of including jokes about balls... that is the private part balls... not medicine balls. I can assure you, we at Agile Life Fitness hold our journalists (all two of them) to a very high standard of professionalism. Ball jokes are definitely beneath us. Unfortunately, as I started writing, I found that the ball jokes really just wrote themselves. It also didn't help that one of the balls was blue and I make several references to old balls. So, in order to avoid confusion, I've included pictures wherever possible. As a side note, if you know any killer medicine ball jokes, I'd love to hear them.]

Today's article will be about home-made medicine balls.  Firstly, I have to give credit where credit is due.  I got this idea from the www.CrossFit.com website where they cite David Heyer as the original creator.  I thought it would be beneficial to try out this little project, provide some detailed instructions with illustrations and talk about some of the pitfalls I encountered.

Disclaimer: I do not make any claims that these instructions will produce an indestructible medicine ball.  If your medicine ball breaks, busts, cracks, leaks, explodes or otherwise functions in a manner that harms yourself, your neighbor, a cat, yo mama (yeah I went there) or the ozone layer, then I am not liable.  If you get bigger, stronger, and faster as a result of using it... well then yeah... you can blame that on me. 

So let's start with some of the items you'll need to make your own home-made medicine balls:

Old balls...

1. Old balls - Everyone's got 'em (yup, I wrote that).  Check your garage, check your local park, steal 'em from your neighbor (that too).  You're bound to find some balls that are passed their prime (sorry).  Just a word of caution: try to find basketballs that were once decent quality so they'll hold their shape while taping.  Playground balls (like the blue one in the pic to the right) don't tape up really well .
2. Funnel - Mine used to hold Root Beer :)  I actually started out with a pretty nice funnel from the store, but I found that the spout was too small for the clumpy sand to pass through.  That's when my roommate had the great idea of using an old soda bottle (thanks Mike!).
3. Razor Blade - Remember safety first!

Genius points: Buying sand in FL

4. Sand - I didn't know what the laws were about stealing beach sand so I went to the local hardware store and picked up some Play Sand.  This 50lb bag set me back a whopping $3.47.
5. Duct Tape - Somehow all my projects end with duct tape... this time I actually planned on using it from the beginning :)
6. Scale

And that's about it.  Let's go through the steps.

1. Cut a slit in the basketball seam a little less than 2".  You can use the length of the seam as a guide as I've shown below.  It'll take a little bit longer to fill, but the smaller the hole, the smaller the possibility the ball will bust mid-workout (um...).

2. Stuff the funnel in to the hole and load up your sand.  The play sand was pretty clumpy so I had to use my hands to push it through the funnel.  It took about 10 minutes.  You can get about 20lbs of sand in a regulation size basketball.  That's a little fun trivia for your next dinner party.

 
3. At this point, if you really want to go the extra mile, you can use an adhesive meant for plastics to close up the hole.  You can also sew it shut if you're feeling really ambitious.  I chose to go the duct tape route.  I made a small 'X' across the slit followed by a larger 'X' wrapped around the ball.  Finally, I wrapped some tape around the equator of the ball and voila!

And there you go.  You now have a cheap and versatile piece of workout equipment that usually goes for at least $60.  By the way, between the duct tape and sand, I spent about $6 and made a 10lb and 20lb medicine ball.  Can't wait to use 'em!  So go ahead and pull those old balls out of the garage and make some use of them :)

Dan