The Athletic Stance Catch-and-Hurl

Trail Log · Movement Breakdown

This one's for all you team sport athletes out there — and for anyone who's ever played catch in the backyard and thought, 'What if this were a workout?' The return push from stance has you starting in an athletic position — two or three points of contact, knees bent, ready for action — and then on a signal, you prepare to receive a medicine ball pass from your partner.

You catch the ball with both hands and immediately throw it back, like a very intense game of hot potato where the potato weighs between six and twenty pounds and your shoulders are doing all the work. The key is the immediacy — no pausing, no holding, no admiring the ball. You receive and return in one fluid, explosive motion that trains your ability to absorb force and redirect it, which is the fundamental skill behind throwing, hitting, and not getting knocked over.

You can modify this exercise by running different routes before receiving the pass, adding a movement component that makes it even more sport-specific. Decelerate, catch, throw, repeat. It's plyometric training for your upper body, building the kind of reactive shoulder and arm power that serves you in every sport from baseball to basketball to competitive pillow fighting. You'll need a partner who can throw accurately and catch reliably — so choose someone whose hand-eye coordination you trust, because a medicine ball to the face is nobody's idea of a good workout.