The Situation Escalates

After 10 rewarding months with a 45 pound slam ball, I now have had a 100 pound slam ball for 3 hours.

The 100-pounder is just slightly larger than the 45-pounder, which is about the size of a basketball. Both of them can go slightly non-round, because they're not fully inflated, so they don't bounce, not even when you slam them down to the floor with all your might, hence the term slam ball. Although, the heavier they get, the more common it is to call them dead balls rather than slam balls, and the less common it is to actually slam them. Slamming a ball expends much more energy than simply lifting it, and very few people actually slam dead balls which weigh as much as 100 pounds. Lifting them is plenty of work.

Lifting a 100 pound ball is much more difficult than lifting a 100 pound dumbbell. I have made many visits to a local used-sporting-goods store, looking for a good deal on a heavy ball, and they usually have 100 pound dumbbells, and I can lift them with no problem. Several reps with each hand of a 100 pound dumbbell row:

-- is not a big deal for me. Lifting this 100 pound ball with both hands has been a big deal. I can do it, but after doing it once, I put the ball down again very soon and really, really don't want to do it again. Several dumbell rows on each side leaves me feeling refreshed and energized and pleasantly tingly. Lifting the 100 pound ball off of the ground with both hands and holding it off of the ground for just a couple a seconds makes me hurt all over and want very badly to take a long nap.

This is good. This is how muscles get stronger.

I found the wooden box containing the ball standing on the sidewalk in front of my house in the pouring rain today. I don't know whether Fedex even tried to get it up into the porch. There are are only 2 small steps up from the sidewalk to to the porch.

At first I tried to get the box into the porch using a dolly, but one of the dolly's wheels fell off, so I just lifted it up and took a step or two and set it down inside the porch.

And that's been about the extent of my workout with this "beast." "Beast" is a very common term used appreciatively to describe dead balls which weigh 100 pounds or more -- or even 50 pounds. What I mean when I say that that's been about the extent of it, is that I've lifted it off of the ground several times, using the correct technique so that I lift with my legs and don't hurt my back. I haven't even tried yet to lift it higher than knee-level. I will do many more such low-level lifts, just getting the thing off of the ground, before I even try to get it to chest level. After chest level comes onto the shoulder. Then pressed overhead. Then maybe slamming, or maybe that would just really be an absurd thing to try. Anyway, it will be a while before I have to decide whether or not to slam a 100-pounder.

My readers: are you beginning to feel the awesomeness of this sort of fitness equipment? Or do you suspect that there may in fact be nothing awesome about balls as compared to dumbbells or barbells, and that I may be wrong to think otherwise? You know what? You may be right. Then again, maybe I'm right, and in any case, I'm having a lot of fun, and getting stronger. I strongly encourage you to see for yourself. Medicine balls can be had in every conceivable weight from 1/2 pound all the way up to 300 pounds. Compare a ball of any weight to a dumbbell or barbell of the same weight, and immediately you'll see what a huge difference the different shape makes.

Scenario For a Mockumentary About People Obsessed With Heavy Slam Balls

The first subject is a great big guy, about 6 foot 3, 300 pounds, who is constantly carrying a 45 lb slam ball -- much like this one --

-- around with him, as he putters around at home, as he socializes, as he shops for groceries -- and also as he mows his small lawn with a non-motorized push mower. He's not always able to carry the ball on one of his shoulders and push the mower at the same time, and he ends up dropping the ball, pushing the mower for a couple of paces, and then retrieving the ball, and repeating the whole process.

While the man walks down a sidewalk with the ball on a shoulder, the interviewer is off screen, but we hear his voice: "Why don't you just leave the ball at home when you do things?"

The big man acts surprised, as if the answer were obvious. He sputters for a while before getting the words out: "If I left it at home, I'd miss it!" He looks toward the offscreen interviewer, frowning and shaking his head as if the question had been completely bizarre.

Next we see a young woman carrying around a ball like this one --

-- around the office where she works. She's rather small and slender, but has some muscle tone from working with the ball. There's a montage of her carrying the ball around while she struggles to do other things which are more routine in office work. There is a fair amount of grunting, groaning and sweating. One of the woman's co-workers, a man, says that he could see how it would be difficult to carry around an 85 lb ball all day, but was it really this tough? The offscreen interviewer informs the man that the "85" on this particular ball does not refer to pounds, but to kilograms. This ball, the interviewer tells the man, weighs over 187 pounds. The man is silent. He looks both shocked, and sincerely sorry that he had made any disparaging remarks about how difficult it was to do what his coworker is doing.

Finally, there is a man standing on a large yard in front of a large house. The lawn is dotted with dozens, if not hundreds, of yellows balls like this:

Like the woman in the previous segment, this man is not large, but his muscles have become somewhat defined from working with theses balls. He explains to the offscreen interviewer that each one of these balls weighs 300 lbs.

"It's strange," he says, "but each and every one of these balls was given to me, paid for and shipped to me by someone else, and in each case, the donor has been anonymous. It's strange, because, you know -- I'm a billionaire! These 300-pounders aren't cheap, but I could very easily have afforded to buy all of them for myself."

From offscreen comes the interviewer's voice, asking whether the man has donated any of these balls to gyms or other organization or individuals. The man is plainly shocked and appalled by the question: "Donated?!" he replied. "But -- these balls are mine, don't you see? I've bought plenty of other slams balls and given them away, but these ones are mine!" He stares in horror at the unseen interviewer, and asks, "Would you donate your pets or your children?"

We cut to another scene. The tension from the previous moment appears to have passed. From offscreen the interviewer asks whether the man can actually lift these 300 lb balls off of the ground. The man smiles at the question and exclaims, "I can certainly try!" He rushes over to the nearest ball, squats down next to it in the proper position for lifting something like this, or like an Atlas stone in a strongman competition: ball between his feet, bending with his legs until he can put both hands under the ball, holding his head up high and sticking his butt out to keep his spine braced. After a long moment of strain, during which the camera zooms in very close to the ball, daylight is clearly visible between the ball and the ground. The man splutters, "I got it off of the ground!"

And then suddenly he drops the ball and falls full length face down onto the lawn beside the ball. With his voice muffled because his face is pressed down into the lawn, the man says, "I think I may have injured myself."