Chest Push (multiple response)
Also works: Abdominals · Shoulders · Triceps
Repeated kneeling medicine-ball chest passes into a wall or a partner, catching the rebound and firing it straight back. The catch is the whole point: it loads the chest and triceps eccentrically at speed and gives you a fraction of a second to reverse it, which no barbell press can reproduce.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Kneel on a mat 1.5-2 metres from a solid wall — brick or concrete, not plasterboard or a mirror.
- Use a firm, low-bounce 3-4 kg ball. A soft slam ball will not rebound and a heavy one will not move fast enough.
- Sit tall with your hips over your knees, ball held tight to the sternum with elbows in.
- If you are using a partner instead of a wall, agree a target height and a rep count before you start.
- Check the ball is not slick and your hands are dry — a 4 kg ball squirting out of a catch hurts.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — One short sharp exhale per throw, matched to the rhythm; do not try to hold a brace across the whole set. Absorb the catch over roughly 0.2 seconds and reverse immediately — if you can count the pause, it is too long.
Before you load it
- Only throw at a wall that can take it. Plasterboard, mirrors and rack uprights are not targets.
- Stop the set if a catch surprises you or slips. Fingers get jammed by badly caught medicine balls, and that happens once fatigue arrives.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
3-4 kg — lighter than you would use for a single throw, because the ball has to travel fast enough both ways. Progress first by moving closer to the wall, which shortens the reversal time, then by adding one or two throws per set. Adding ball weight is the last resort and rarely the right one.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Move a step closer to the wall so the rebound arrives before you can settle, and count a steady rhythm out loud. The value is in the reversal, not the throw.
Meet the ball with the arms nearly straight and absorb only 15-20 cm before reversing. A deep catch bleeds off the elastic energy you are trying to reuse.
Cap sets at five to eight throws and rest a full minute. Stop the set the moment a catch feels heavy or your rhythm breaks — after that you are absorbing impact and adapting to nothing.
Point your thumbs at each other as the ball arrives — that grip pulls the elbows under the ball on its own. Throwing at a narrower target than your shoulders helps too, since the ball comes back on the line you sent it out on.
Why bother
A single throw trains one thing — how fast you can accelerate a load with no braking phase. Adding the catch adds a second: the ball arrives at speed, your arms have to absorb it and reverse it before the elastic energy in the tissue dissipates. That coupling of a fast eccentric to an immediate concentric is what makes it a plyometric rather than just a throw.
Stand close enough that the rebound reaches you at speed and time is genuinely tight — around 1.5 to 2 metres from the wall. Too far back and the ball is a slow lob you catch, reset, and re-throw, which is just a series of single throws with worse rest. Ground contact time is the metric here, transposed to the hands.
Where it fits
First movement after the warm-up on an upper-body day, once or twice a week. Three to five sets of five to eight continuous throws, then a full minute of rest. It is tempting to run this for 45-second intervals as conditioning; do not. The reactive quality disappears the moment your catches get slow and mushy, and the elbows keep taking the impact anyway.
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
Can I do this standing instead of kneeling?
You can, and it throws further, but it is a different drill. Standing lets the legs contribute, so the throw stops being a clean read on how fast your chest and triceps reverse a load and the reversal moves down to the ankles and hips. Kneel for this one. If you want the standing, moving version, use the three-point stance throw instead.
Can I do this without a wall?
With a partner, yes, and it works well — they kneel facing you a few metres away and you pass back and forth continuously. Without either, use the single-response version and throw for distance instead. Do not substitute a slam ball on the floor; the rebound direction is wrong for a chest pass.
Is this better than bench press for building the chest?
No, and it is not trying to be. Bench press builds size and maximal force with far more total tension. This trains how quickly you can absorb and reverse a load, which pressing cannot. Run them together — throws first, bench after — rather than choosing between them.
My elbows ache the day after. What am I doing wrong?
Almost always catching too deep, catching with locked elbows, or using too heavy a ball. Drop to 3 kg, meet the ball with soft but nearly straight arms, and absorb over a short range. If it persists, cut the set length — the ache is accumulated deceleration, and that accumulates fastest at the end of long sets.