123: David Donatucci: “Optimizing Medicine Ball Training for Rotational Power” | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features pro trainer David Donatucci.  David is the the owner/director of The Florida Institute of Performance in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida where he provides comprehensive sports performance training programs for professional, collegiate, high school and senior athletes.   David is well known for his work with high-level golfers, but his diverse resume includes training athletes of all levels and types.  He has been using medicine ball training for decades, and has honed in on essential biomechanical and kinetic parameters that can make this form of training optimally effective.  David is a coach who truly knows the biomechanics of swinging sports and how to use that knowledge to create better transfer in the weight room and with medicine balls. When it comes to medicine ball training, it is easy to think that picking up a ball and throwing it against the wall will automatically transfer to rotation, but in talking to David and learning about things like launch angle, power transfer and ball velocity, we can easily see that what we are doing with our medicine ball work needs to have a high level of specificity, especially as the ability levels of the athletes we are working with increase. On today’s episode, David talks about the key components that bind rotational sport actions together, as well as the differences across sports such as baseball and golf.  He talks about how to optimize the various components of medicine ball training, be specific to sport skills with medicine balls, as well as how to select proper weight and velocity (David is the inventor of the Ballistic Ball). For those fellow track coaches out there, David makes shot put and discus references which can certainly make us appreciate this smart episode even more. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com/podcast-123-david-donatucci