How to:Make a medicine ball

So you’re a strong, strapping young gentleman/woman? No? Well, we’re sort that out in no time at all!

In this guide I’ll be taking you through the steps that you'll need to take to make a medicine ball. Medicine balls are thought to have been around at least 3000 years ago and there are many different exercises that you can do with them to strengthen your core, chest, arm and leg muscles.

Now, you could just go out and buy a medicine ball, but if you have all of the materials needed around, you can make one for free! Plus, you get to cut something open which will give you thorough enjoyment if stabbing things floats your boat. On with the guide!

You will need

An old basketball

A knife

Some sand (I used some sand from a hardware store, if you live near a beach, steal steal steal!)

Tape



Something to use as a funnel (I’ve just wrapped up some cardboard)

Something that can be used as a scoop (Cut out the bottom of a bottle if you don’t have anything else to scoop with)



Step 1

First you get to satisfy the inner basketball murderer that has been waiting be unleashed for all these years, by cutting a hole in the basketball. You don’t want to make the hole too big or it will be more likely to burst open once you’ve finished, so just cut a nice smallish hole; but not too small that you have to put the sand in one grain at a time.

Step 2

Now you need to take your funnel and push it nicely into your basketball.

Step 3

Now you need to scoop your sand like you’ve never scooped sand before! Once you have a nice hefty amount of scoopage, pour it down your funnel and start filling up your basketball. There isn’t a picture for this step because if you don’t know how to scoop, you probably aren’t able to turn on a computer, so this won’t concern you.

After a while your basketball will be full of lovely sand! If you are messy like me, you’ll have a nice little ring of sand around the bottom of your basketball! See, you’re not just making a medicine ball, your now creating some kind of surrealist art. Take a photo and put that stuff on eBay!



Step 4

Once you’ve filled up your ball, you have to carefully tape over the hole. Make sure that you use enough tape to ensure that no sand is going to start coming through if you roll it around. You could always stuff the hole with a bit of cork or something but it isn’t really needed if you tape well enough.



Step 5

Now that you’ve sealed your basketball rectum, you need to tape around the rest of the basketball to give it some extra strength and make it look less like a dirty old basketball. I only taped around the whole thing once, but then taped a couple of extra layers over where the hole was because I don’t fancy turning my room into a desert.



That’s it! Five simple steps and you have yourself a medicine ball. This one filled with sand weighs about 12kg or 26lbs, it's pretty heavy so if you're ever on a raft out at sea and this ball is your only friend, it won’t float away.

If you wanted to make it lighter you could always use less sand or replace the sand with something else to fill it up, like rice or some kind of grain. If you wanted to make it heavier you could fill it with ball bearings, molten lead, or bricks; or just buy a bigger basketball and use sand again.

Now go and lift it, throw it, sleep with it. Become one with your medicine ball.