Coach,
Just thought I would let you know about a little PT session we had. We played Hoover Ball with a 12lb TKO medicine ball, 5 players per side, 6 games to 10 points. It took 55 minutes and everyone was wiped out.
Sincerely,
SSgt Frank Ollis
U.S. Marines
We found Hoover Ball when we were on the Internet looking for something more competitive and sporting for the medicine ball. It has a distinguished history, looked promising as a conditioning tool, and sounded fun so we suggested it on the WOD page and got the response above from Frank Ollis.
We know Frank well enough to know that if he thinks it’s tough, it’s tough.
The game is officially a game of catch played with a medicine ball under a volleyball net on a tennis court and with tennis scoring. The official rules are here. There are even regularly scheduled games and an annual Hooverball competition.
The official game is played with a four or six pound ball. We had to give it that CrossFit flavor so we played on sand with a twenty-pound ball and an aggressive ball snapping Pit bull. It was indeed hard; everyone was tired, and one well known Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Black Belt got bit.
We experimented with two, three, and four men per side. The two-man version is a very athletic game and played well with an 8 lb. ball. The best throws were thrown underhand while the back is turned towards the net with a beautiful hip snap like a clean or kettlebell swing.
The following day a number of the athletes were sore in the trunk and back. As important, the crew has been asking to play again since that afternoon.
This article, by BSI’s co-founder, was originally published in The CrossFit Journal. While Greg Glassman no longer owns CrossFit Inc., his writings and ideas revolutionized the world of fitness, and are reproduced here.
Coach Glassman named his training methodology ‘CrossFit,’ which became a trademarked term owned by CrossFit Inc. In order to preserve his writings in their original form, references to ‘CrossFit’ remain in this article.
Greg Glassman founded CrossFit, a fitness revolution. Under Glassman’s leadership there were around 4 million CrossFitters, 300,000 CrossFit coaches and 15,000 physical locations, known as affiliates, where his prescribed methodology: constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity, were practiced daily. CrossFit became known as the solution to the world’s greatest problem, chronic illness.
In 2002, he became the first person in exercise physiology to apply a scientific definition to the word fitness. As the son of an aerospace engineer, Glassman learned the principles of science at a young age. Through observations, experimentation, testing, and retesting, Glassman created a program that brought unprecedented results to his clients. He shared his methodology with the world through The CrossFit Journal and in-person seminars. Harvard Business School proclaimed that CrossFit was the world’s fastest growing business.
The business, which challenged conventional business models and financially upset the health and wellness industry, brought plenty of negative attention to Glassman and CrossFit. The company’s low carbohydrate nutrition prescription threatened the sugar industry and led to a series of lawsuits after a peer-reviewed journal falsified data claiming Glassman’s methodology caused injuries. A federal judge called it the biggest case of scientific misconduct and fraud she’d seen in all her years on the bench. After this experience Glassman developed a deep interest in the corruption of modern science for private interests. He launched CrossFit Health which mobilized 20,000 doctors who knew from their experiences with CrossFit that Glassman’s methodology prevented and cured chronic diseases. Glassman networked the doctors, exposed them to researchers in a variety of fields and encouraged them to work together and further support efforts to expose the problems in medicine and work together on preventative measures.
In 2020, Greg sold CrossFit and focused his attention on the broader issues in modern science. He’d learned from his experience in fitness that areas of study without definitions, without ways of measuring and replicating results are ripe for corruption and manipulation.
The Broken Science Initiative, aims to expose and equip anyone interested with the tools to protect themself from the ills of modern medicine and broken science at-large.
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