Powerball

[billyg]

Anybody ever used one of these?

http://www.nsdpowerballs.com/store1.cfm?gclid=CPmivv_MwpMCFRSO1Qod0hGACw

I just ordered one as it's meant to help with rehabilitating tendon and muscle strains but it offers a wider application for strengthening muscles for amongst other things golf.

Just wondering if anyone had used one and if it was any good or just another £20 down the swanny?

cheers,

bill

 

[barb]

Hi Billyg
My husband and his bother both have one, they are very good for strengthening but be aware when you use it as it gets heavier the faster it goes, so the smaller the circle or rotation the faster the ball goes and to slow it down just make bigger circles. If you have weak wrists I would keep your wrist rotations fairly large to start with until you get use to it.
If you use it too much (as my brother in law did) you can damage the tendons in your wrist and across the back of the hand, particularly the little finger and it was aleast a week before he was able to use his wrist and hand properly again.
They both think they are great, let us know how you get on with it when it arrives.

 

[brendy]

Im hoping to get into town next week to buy one, one of the fairly standard ones will do me. I think my arms have plenty of strength but want to work on my wrists, id love to be able to shift the ball further out of the rough, so Id say go for it, for the sake of 20 quid its not like you are buying cheap golf, these should really help from what ive seen and heard.

 

[birdieman]

Billy
I do but it's gathering dust. I suggest a far better investment for the same money is a gripmaster.

Powerball is good BUT you will be able to work it great with your dominant hand but badly with your other hand (unless you are ambidextrous) so will be building up different amounts of strength with each hand which I think is bad. I just can't work it properly with my left arm, get it spinning great with my right.

With the gripmaster I can make sure I do the same workout for each arm.

 

[TonyN]

O dear, be prepared to get addicted.

My mate got one and we spent hours trying to beat each others scores!

Some people can do it straight away, others take ages to get it going.

One thing is for sure, it will give you sore hands, possibly even blisters as you grip it tighter the faster it spins.

Interested to know what you think of this once you get it!

 

[Kaizer_Soze]

Just bought one myself, there is a guy selling them on ebay for £12.99 ono, I offered £8.50, he accepted.

Looking forward to giving it a 'spin'

 

[USER1999]

Got one too. It also is gathering dust. My advice would be to use it but not to go mad trying to get max rpm. View it as similar to doing lots of reps with a low weight, and go easy for a longer period. Just doing short bursts of high rpm will completely screw up your wrist (lots of really unnatural forcees at work here, and probably not as good at building up muscle as going gently for longer). It took my right wrist ages to get back to health, and I have lost confidence in this as a training aid.

To use it equally with both wrists it helps to start it with the dominant hand, and then swap it over once it is spinning.

 

[billyg]

Update:

Turned up yesterday.

Fraction smaller than a tennis ball. This one's got a little LCD on the top for monitoring things like peak revs., total revs. etc.

Comes with a mini cd which ive managed to jam into the front of my laptop - nice one Bill.

Struggled to get it going to start with. It's supplied with a wrist strap and some little red bits of string. You need the string to get it going. This is done by inserting one end into a small aperture in the ball and winding it in like you would with a yo-yo. Once 'primed' it needs quite an abrupt yank to get it spinning. From there it's up to you to generate the required action to keep it going and speed it up as required.

The faster you spin the greater the gyroscopic force/torque and the harder it is to hang onto.

Takes a bit of practice but ive got the knack in less than a day.

I'm mainly using my dominant hand(right) until I see a physio on Monday and get the all clear that it's not contra-indicated for my left hand injury.

As far as muscle strengthening I can say that it seems to generate quite a 'burn' in the inner forearm (Brachioradialis) and front (anterior) deltoid*

Fun - yes

Addictive - certainly

Glad I got it - yes

Bill

* names taken from the quite brilliant and timeless 'Strength Training Anatomy' by Frederic Delavier

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strength-Trainin...4599&sr=8-1

I can't recommend highly enough. An absolute classic for anyone interested in gym work and targeted muscle fitness training.

 

[TonyN]

Can you get it going with out the string yet> Thats the tricky part!

 

[billyg]

Can you get it going with out the string yet> Thats the tricky part!

No chance...but I can let it to slow down and 'save' it from low revs most times (like when changing hands)

Simply cant imagine ever being able to 'jump start' the thing. Can you Tony? If so , what's the trick? (Those strings are going to go west at some point)

bill

 

[TonyN]

You just put your index and middle finger on the wheel, apply quite a bit of pressure and flick down on the wheel as HARD as you can and then start rotating th wrist, it took me ages to learn but beats loading the string everytime! All about technique!

Also if you have decent carpet, you can drag it on floor quickly to get ball going!

Check out the powerball freaks on youtube!