Handball
In handball, flywheel training with the kBox and kPulley is rapidly gaining momentum for performance, prevention, and rehabilitation of athletes.
Handball teams have many good reasons to use both kBox and kPulley for strength and conditioning. Developing sprint speed, jumping ability, injury prevention being the main ones.
Sprint Speed
Sprint speed in short sprints is highly correlated to squat strength, but like most other athletes outside of weightlifting, handball players are not very schooled in Olympic lifts or powerlifting. The kBox allows these athletes to perform squats both with high loads and high power in a safe way to increase strength and performance without risking injury.
Jumping
Studies involving similar sports with a lot of jumping (volleyball and basketball) have also shown that a low volume of in-season training with flywheel squats significantly increases jumping ability without increasing the risk of tendinopathy (Gúal et al 2015).
Injury Prevention and Rehab
Handball specific prevention can be the strengthening of the back of the shoulder and upper back, and prevention of the very frequent shoulder disabilities. Drills can be different row variations with and without eccentric overload and external rotations.
During periods of injury to the upper limbs or hands, the athlete can continue heavy resistance exercises such as squats and lateral squats thanks to the Harness or Squat Hip Belt.
It is quite common that you have to work around your athletes’ problems, bad knees, sore back, and so on. Eccentric squats are used by many players with knee problems and waist loaded squats for those with back problems.
Benefits
The benefits of flywheel training in handball, as compared to traditional training with gravity-based equipment, include:
- Easy to train in a group with individual differences in strength and height.
- Effective sessions due to the short time in shifts between users.
- Safe training, less technique dependant.
- Mobility, possible to train in the field combined with play or sprints or to bring on tours and games away to work with the resting or injured players.
- Wide range of training modes: heavy or explosive, unilateral, or bilateral.
- Train despite upper limb or shoulder injuries using the harness or belt.
- More effective in building functional strength and increase performance than weight stacked machines and traditional free weights.
References
Users of kBox and kPulley in handball include elite teams in Croatia, Finland, Spain, and Sweden.
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