POWERBALL: Tips and suggestions for achieving those high speeds (courtesy of Akis Kritsinelis March '05)

Here are a few powerballing “tips”, meant to assist you in raising you scorings and generally improving your powerballing ability.

Spinning technique: 
Firstly you should get accustomed to the correct spinning technique. There are detailed guidelines and also some videos in the official site, but generally you should keep in mind the following:

-You should always rotate your wrist and never your forearm.

-You should “listen” to the ball and try to be synchronized during the session, “following” rotor’s rotation.

-You should not whisk it either faster or slower than it is “willing” to take.

-At very high speeds, there is no actual rotation of the wrist, but high intense “jolts”.

-A very tight, “locking” grip should be established in order to reach really high speeds.

Exercising:

Repeated exercise with the powerball is absolutely necessary in order to improve your ability. You should not try only highest rpm sessions. Training under strength / endurance mode is essential.

I would suggest you to use 30-sec and 60-sec sessions on one hand and 90-sec session on both hands (switching during session). Make sure to spin the rotor up to a sufficient level before resetting the counter.

And don’t think that you will improve by just spinning to a modest level (like 5000-6000 rpm). This is useful only for relaxation and rehabilitation purposes. In order to improve your strength and ability you must literally suffer!

You should use about 80-90% of your capacity when practicing and feel like your arm is about to fall down! This way, not only will you be improving your powerballing ability but you will also exercise your arms and feel strengthened and “pumped’ from shoulders to fingertips.

The frequency and tension of the exercise should be formed according to your temperament and capacity. A general scheme would be to exercise for half to one hour day after day.
I would also recommend that you use two powerballs. One for high scores and another for practice. This is due to the fact that while practicing you will often become exhausted and it may be difficult to always keep a firm grip on the ball. This results to rotor “bumps” and generally improper operation, which may reduce the ball’s highest speed capacity (though it does not really affect it as an exercising tool). On the other hand, a ball which is used only for high score attempts, is easier to be held firmly and will progressively be “settled” in such a way that all inner parts co-operate most efficiently hence allowing it to achieve really high speeds.

Reaching really high speeds:

In order to achieve really high scores, try the following:

1. Perform exhausting exercising sessions for a week. Practice more intensely than you usually do.

2.If you exercise with weights, you may need to “lighten” your weight exercising for that week. Weights may make you stronger, but will generally make you sluggish and reduce your wrist’s and forearm’s mobility.

3.Select a day on which you will have enough time available and generally be in a good physical condition.

4.Commence highest speed sessions and persist eagerly until your scores improve.

5.After some time (it might well be a few hours so don’t be in a haste!) you will enter a really “hot mode”, where you will magically begin to hit scores far higher than usual.

6.Now you should really go berserk until you hit 15k. Or at least until you hit a really smashing score!

Hope the above helps a little!

Akis

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