Wall balls can mean both the piece of fitness equipment and the exercise. Both can offer valuable benefits for your workout routine and daily life.
One thing to quickly note is that you want to warm up well before explosive exercises like wall balls. Both to improve performance and avoid injuries.
1. Walls balls can grow and strengthen muscles
The first benefit applies to wall balls as both an equipment option and the exercise.
Having pieces of fitness equipment and exercises that can pressure your muscles enough can help you grow and strengthen muscles.
Exactly what muscles wall balls work depends on the specific exercise you do.
Let’s say you do the exercise with the same name, the wall ball (toss).
This movement will mostly work your deltoids (main shoulder muscle) and tricep muscles.
Additionally, you will also engage your core, scapular muscles (shoulder stabilization muscles), glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, and biceps to some extent.
Growing and strengthening your muscles offers a variety of secondary health and aesthetic benefits.
One thing to note is that while more explosive exercises like wall balls can help with these things, they are not always the number one option in terms of effectiveness either.
If this benefit is your main goal, you want to consider implementing separate dumbbell and barbell workouts too.
2. Walls balls are versatile
It is somewhat common that exercise and sports equipment options have relatively specific uses.
This is not necessarily the end of the world if they make your workouts very fun and effective but it is fair to say that versatility is typically a specific aspect of workout equipment.
In that sense, having the option to do a variety of wall ball exercises you can choose from tends to be a good thing.
Some of these exercises include the wall ball exercise, explosive sit-ups, sideways throws, etc.
Walls balls are not as versatile as something like dumbbells or barbells but the big number of exercise options available is still worth mentioning.
3. Walls balls can improve muscle power and strength
Interestingly enough, amounts of muscle can actually vary on a smaller scale. More specifically, they can consist of different ratios of muscle fiber.
How you work your muscles can influence what muscle fibers you grow more (1). In turn, this can influence how well certain daily activities or performances go.
For example, you can use wall balls to focus on growing type 1 slow-twitch muscle fibers by using lower weights and higher repetition ranges.
This can be helpful for people who plan to use their muscles for longer amounts of time.
On the other hand, you can also turn to explosive movements like the wall ball toss exercise and use a good amount of weight.
This can help you grow more type 2 fast-twitch muscle fibers which are helpful for short bouts of explosive performances in for example sprints or throwing.
Wall balls especially stand out in how you can throw them around explosively without caring too much about damaging the pieces of fitness equipment you use.
You don’t want to try doing the same with most other equipment options in the gym.
In short, wall balls can help you work your muscles in a variety of ways. Especially for training muscle power and strength, they can be great equipment options.
4. Walls balls come in a variety of weights
To see optimal training results you need to challenge yourself enough but not too much.
Because different individuals often vary in terms of strength levels and training goals, it is not always easy to make this happen with the same equipment options.
For this reason, many exercise equipment options come in different weights and sizes. Wall balls implement this benefit too.
Wall balls do typically have a diameter of around 14″ (35.56 cm) but in terms of weight, there are models from 4 to 30 pounds (1.8 kg to 13.6 kg).
What a good weight is for a wall ball for you depends on your strength, the exercises you intend to do, and your training goals.
For example, to train muscle power with an exercise you want a weight where you can barely do sets of 5 repetitions.
How many pounds or kilograms this comes down to depends on your current strength level of the muscles you want to work.
5. Walls balls can improve athletic performance
Doing a sport or exercise more often can help too but sometimes you can get big increases in athletic performance by turning to different workouts instead.
The wall ball exercise and the other movements you can do with the piece of equipment can help you train muscle power in a variety of areas.
Improving muscle power in areas like your legs can increase your sprint speed. Doing the same in your arms can help you improve throwing power.
If you do sports that involve one or both of these areas, you could see improvements in athletic performance by implementing a good wall ball workout routine.
6. Walls balls keep things interesting
The health benefits of workouts are definitely important but it can be worth paying attention to how much you enjoy these too.
If you like switching it up with different equipment options and exercises like wall balls, you could find it easier to stay consistent with your exercise routine.
Besides the more logical consequence of this, making your workouts more enjoyable with wall balls can also just be worth it because life is short.
7. Walls balls can improve coordination and balance
Even in wall ball exercises where you don’t have to catch the ball, you will have to use some coordination and balance to complete the movement successfully.
Some people forget this but you can actually improve yourself in balance and coordination by doing things that are challenging in areas like these.
Having better balance and coordination is not only useful for your other wall ball workouts and exercises.
This could also help you avoid accidents in daily activities like walking around and climbing stairs.
8. Walls balls are softer than most alternatives
Something that positively stands out in wall balls is their combination of a soft shell and a challenging weight. Two other popular alternatives, medicine balls and slam balls, are harder.
The softness can make a variety of exercises more comfortable in the good way. Catching a wall ball will be a lot more pleasant than catching a slam ball.
Additionally, the softer shell will damage other equipment (and walls) less.
9. Walls balls can improve shoulder mobility
You can describe mobility as how far joints and tendons can comfortably move.
Wall ball exercises could help you challenge your mobility to safe extents. In turn, this would lead to improvements in this area.
Better mobility in body parts like your legs and shoulders can help you avoid injuries and exercise performance.
You don’t have to stick to wall ball workouts to get this benefit but at the same time, it is still one of the points that make this fitness equipment option/exercise more attractive.
10. Walls balls get your heart beating faster
Just because an exercise or piece of fitness equipment focuses on certain fitness components like muscle power and strength does not mean they completely neglect other areas of your health.
More specifically, wall ball workouts will definitely make your heart beat faster to provide your muscles with the necessary nutrients and oxygen to function at the intenser speeds.
While there are limits, working your cardiovascular system is typically beneficial for your health.
You should likely not choose wall balls if you are interested in optimal cardiovascular health improvements. At the same time, this is a helpful side effect in combination with all the other positive points of wall balls.
11. Walls ball exercises can help you avoid injuries
You can avoid injuries to some extent by strengthening your body before you put it under heavy pressure.
In simpler words, wall balls can help you improve muscle strength and mobility. This can make it more robust to challenges which reduces your injury risk.
For the specific wall ball toss exercise, the strengthening and mobility increases can help you avoid simple things like an uncomfortable feeling in your shoulders but also not being able to move your arms due to injuries.
