Chest Push with Run Release
Also works: Abdominals · Shoulders · Triceps
A medicine-ball chest pass thrown on the move: two steps in, the ball leaves your sternum, and you sprint 10 metres after it. The run is what makes the drill work — it stops you admiring the throw and forces you to reaccelerate the instant the ball is gone.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Find 20 metres of clear space, or a brick wall you can throw at from six or seven metres back.
- Use a 3-5 kg ball. Anything heavier turns the throw into a slow shove and kills the sprint out.
- Load into a half-squat with the shins vertical and the ball hanging at thigh height, tight to your body. Reaching it out in front kills the first step.
- Pick the target line before you start so you are not deciding where to throw mid-step.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Inhale on the first step, exhale sharply through the release. Everything from the second step onwards is as fast as you can move — there is no controlled phase to this rep.
Before you load it
- Check the throwing lane is empty before every set. A 4 kg ball travelling flat at chest height does real damage to anyone walking through it.
- Do not use a bouncy rubber ball against a wall unless you intend to catch the rebound. Use a dead-bounce slam-style ball or throw into open ground.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Start with a 3 kg ball and stay there until the throw is one clean action rather than a step then a push. Progress by measuring distance: mark where the ball first lands, and add a kilo only when you can beat your own mark three sessions running. Adding weight before that just shortens the throw.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Aim flat at a spot roughly chest height on a wall six metres away. A lobbed ball is your hips lifting instead of your arms punching.
Make the first sprint step part of the release: as the ball leaves your hands, your back foot is already driving. Have someone shout "go" on release for a few reps.
Stay at 3-5 kg and chase throw distance instead. Heavy balls slow the arm speed that this whole drill exists to train.
Two steps, from a standstill. A long approach makes the ball fly further and teaches you nothing — the point is producing force in two ground contacts, which is all you ever get in a game.
Why bother
Almost every chest exercise ends when your arms lock out. This one does not: the release is the middle of the rep, not the end. Adding the sprint means the legs have to finish driving forward while the arms are still extending, which is the sequence you actually use when you shove an opponent, a scrum or a blocking sled.
The ball is light — 3 to 5 kg — so the training stimulus is speed, not tension. Distance thrown is your score. When a 4 kg ball that flew 12 metres in set one only reaches 9 metres in set four, the fast-twitch work is finished for the day even though your chest feels fine.
Where it fits
Straight after the warm-up, before any pressing, one or two days a week. Four to six sets of 3-5 throws with 60-90 seconds between sets, and you need roughly 20 metres of clear ground or a solid wall. Never programme it after a bench session — tired arms throw short and the drill stops teaching anything.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
Start here instead
When this gets easy
Asked and answered
Do I need a partner or a wall?
Neither, if you have open ground — throwing into an empty field and sprinting after the ball is the cleanest version, because nothing interrupts the run. A wall works if you stand six or seven metres back and use a ball that does not rebound hard. A partner is the worst option here: catching their return breaks the sprint that gives the drill its name.
Can I do this in a normal commercial gym?
Usually not, and it is better to accept that than to bodge it. You need a 20-metre lane or a wall you are allowed to throw a medicine ball at hard, and most gyms have neither. A car park, a park, or a sports hall works. If all you have is a gym floor, do a standing medicine ball chest pass into a wall instead and keep the sprint version for days you can get outside — a two-step run-up into a mirror is not the drill.
Will this build my chest?
Not meaningfully. Total tension and time under load are far too low for hypertrophy. It trains how quickly you can express the strength you already have, which is why it belongs alongside pressing work rather than instead of it.
How far should I sprint after the release?
Ten metres, and no further. The sprint exists to force reacceleration out of the throw, and that happens in the first three or four strides. Push it to 30 or 40 metres and you have quietly converted a power drill into interval conditioning — your throws in set four will be visibly shorter and you will have trained neither quality properly.