Can i use a basketball to replace a medicine or swiss ball?
Not really
Depends on what you’re doing. I’d hate to perform heavy Swiss ball bench presses or crunches on a basketball. And it’s not really heavy enough for most med ball work. In short, it’s not going to work for most exercises, but maybe for things like med ball pushups.
I dont know how you’d replace a swiss ball with a basketball but you can surely replace a medicine ball with one. Simply deflate all the air out of it and then fill a tub with water and grab your pump and pump water into it instead of air. Because of the water sloshing it’s a bit harder to use than a regular medicine ball.
Ok, I get your idea, but I’m a little confused as to how to actually do it. Wouldn’t ruin your pump? How do you get the water into the pump? Sounds like a good trick to use up some of my old balls.
Well I’ve made a couple of homemade medicine balls this way with old basketballs. The first time I filled up the sink with water, stuck the needle and pump in the basketball (one of those small, cheap, handheld pumps), submerged the pump and pumped away. This took forever and the basketball I used was rubber so it became deformed and eventually split within 2 weeks. The 2nd time I used an old leather ball and this time I filled a bathtub with water…this was much easier and since the ball is made out of leather it’s still going strong. The pump has to be submerged underwater so when you pull back you’re taking in water instead of air. It won’t ruin the pump because you just pump all the water out when you’re done.
Thanks Kelly! I’ll give it a shot with an old ball I have this weekend if I get the chance. How far did you fill the ball. Halfway? Full?
The fuller you fill the ball the easier it is to work with because the water doesn’t slosh around so bad. I imagine if you filled one all the way up it would weight well over 10 lbs. The leather ball I used is a girls ball and it’s probably filled up 3/4 of the way and weights 8 lbs.