8 Best Slam Balls & Best Medicine Balls for Slamming in 2024

Slams are a great exercise, working your pecs, shoulders, back, and abs, among other muscles. To add slams to your routine, you’ll need a ball. Most medicine balls work for slam exercises, and you can use a slam ball just as well as a medicine ball. The primary difference between the two being size, weight, texture, construction material, and some medicine balls come with handles (not ideal for slams!) To help you choose, we present the four best slam balls, and the four best medicine balls for slamming. We’ll even tell beginners what size medicine ball to use when they’re just getting started. Look through this list and you’ll have the best slam ball for your next workout, so let’s get started.

Bounce through why each ball in our ranking landed where it did.

Top Picks: Best Slam Balls and Best Medicine Balls for Slams

• Best quality slam ball: BalanceFrom Weighted Slam Ball. With a wide variety of weights to choose from, BalanceFrom is the best quality slam ball in our ranking.
• Best price slam ball: RAGE Fitness Slam Ball. Look no further than RAGE for the best price slam ball on the market.
• Best selection: Titan Fitness Slam Ball. Go with Titan Fitness for slam ball weighing as much as 150 lbs.
• Best for Crossfit: Lifeline Slam Ball. Our research shows the best slam balls for CrossFit come from Lifeline.
• Best medicine ball for slams: Power Guidance Medicine Ball. Choose from Power Guidance for the best medicine balls for slamming.
• Best budget: Amazon Basics Medicine Ball. Some medicine balls cost a lot: get a slammin’ deal on yours from AmazonBasics.
• Best leather medicine ball: Crown Sporting Goods Leather Weighted Medicine Ball. Nothing says quality like leather. The best leather medicine balls for slams are made by Crown Sporting Goods.
• Best for Beginners: Fitness Gear Medicine Ball. Not too heavy, not too light, Fitness Gear makes the best medicine balls for beginners to try slams.

Best Slam Balls:

When just getting started with slams, it’s crucial to find the right weight slam ball. It’s the wide variety of weight options that helped earn BalanceFrom weighted slam balls the best quality slam ball distinction in our ranking. What size slam ball to use for beginners varies a lot on your general conditioning. We (very) generally recommend that women try a slam ball from between 10 to 40 lbs, and men start somewhere between 20 to 40 lbs. 

No matter what size slam ball you need, BalanceFrom has you covered with weights starting as low as 4 lbs and going as high as 75 lbs. The balls are filled with beads and made from rubber and synthetic leather with a nice, grippy, tread surface. Those who’ve worked out with the ball call it good quality, solid, robust, and well-balanced. They’re on the smaller side, better suited for slamming, and maybe best of all, very reasonably priced.

RAGE Fitness slam balls are our pick for the best price slam ball. With only three weight options, the balls are heavy-duty rubber with a textured, non-slip surface. RAGE slam balls offer a no-bounce design (crucial for the full effect of the slamming exercise) and an air valve to adjust firmness; less air equaling less bounce. The balls are full of sand. Unlike other slam balls, we learned RAGE balls only increase in diameter about one inch for every 10 lbs as you move up in weight, keeping them small and compact as the heaviness increases.

Experienced users say RAGE slam balls are durable and take a lot of punishment. According to input from consumers, RAGE balls aren’t so small that you have to lean or push off them. They do tend to lose air, but they’re easy to reinflate with a simple bike pump. One satisfied slammer used it on a concrete garage floor, and the ball stood up to the test. 

As previously mentioned, the right weight matters when it comes to slams, which goes for those experienced with slamming just as much as those just starting. For the best selection in weight, going as high as 150 lbs, choose from Titan Fitness slam balls. With a tire-like tread surface for grip, Titan Fitness balls are encased in a rubberized shell. They’re about 14-inches in diameter and filled with sand, with a slightly squishy texture and no bounce. Those who’ve used the ball like the grip, commenting that their diamond formation hand position slowly inches outward to the sides of the slam ball as their grip strength declines throughout the workout. 

The tread on the balls also gives a reference for gauging how much your hands have moved, an important consideration for proper slam form. Balls as heavy as those available from Titan Fitness aren’t for everyone. However, if that’s the level you’ve reached, don’t hesitate to choose Titan Fitness slam balls: the balls many call durable, easy to grip, and well made—heavy enough for the most advanced slam ball workout.

Slam balls are a great addition to any Crossfit routine, and our choice for the best slam balls for CrossFit come from Lifeline. Sold in three different weight options and made from plastic, the balls are filled with sand and offer a grippy, textured surface. CrossFit is all about explosiveness, and Lifeline slam balls have a flexible plastic exterior that withstands repeated impact. They’re full of a gel-substance for weight, and they’re easy to grip. They sit flat on the floor like a flat tire. However, they go round again as soon they’re picked up due to the gel substance on the inside. 

Roughly the size of a basketball, these balls land with a thud when they’re dropped—just what you want from a slam ball—and the texture feels great under your palms. According to some reports, there is just a little bit of bounce, but that’s ok—it only makes it easier to scoop the ball back up. In addition to Crossfit, one user chose Lifeline to build-back upper body strength after a surgery. 

Best Medicine Balls for Slamming:

There are subtle differences between medicine balls and slam balls, but if you stay away from medicine balls with handles and choose a ball on the smaller side, the average medicine ball works just fine for slams. Our pick for the medicine balls for slams come from Power Guidance. With seven weights to choose from, Power Guidance balls and made from rubber and filled with iron sand (iron sand—just sounds tough, doesn’t it?) What we liked, in particular, is these no-bounce med balls are versatile enough for slams, but also playing wall ball. 

Reviewers call Power Guidance solid and stable, commenting that you can barely feel the sand move, with excellent grip. Some caution: if you’re new to slams, start light. For medicine ball exercises besides slams, some found the ball too squishy to use for push-ups.

Weights options: 4 Material: Rubber/Iron Sand Surface: Textured Price: 💰💰

To get yourself into slams without spending a bunch of money, choose a medicine ball Amazon Basics. These textured balls come in four weight options with a textured surface. They are rubber, and they look a bit like a basketball. Though affordable, these balls hold up well over repeated use with a textured surface providing exceptional grip for slams and other core, strength, and conditioning exercises. 

Fitness industry professionals who’ve used the balls say they’re the same balls you can expect to find in a commercial gym. Others say the ball is seemingly indestructible, with a pebbly grip. One user does recommend using biking gloves while using the ball, however. There are no ‘heavy spots’ and the weight distributes evenly across the ball.

Simply put, leather says quality, and Crown Sporting Goods is our choice for the best weighted leather medicine balls. They’re tough enough, though, for slams and other medicine ball exercises. These balls do not bounce, according to experienced users, and some say the balls aren’t perfectly round, but instead seem to be filled with something like small gravel.

The balls are also small in diameter, just what you want to maintain control, making them great for torso strengthening exercises. They’re also soft to the touch, with a great vintage look. One does caution, however, that the smaller circumference is not ideal for knee stabilization for bridge lifts in yoga, or the correct arm spacing for overhead arm lifts.

Fitness Gear best medicine balls are the best for beginners who want to try slams. They come in three weight sizes only. When you’re just getting started with slams, though, you want to start light, and at only 8 lbs at the lightest, Fitness Gear medicine balls are a perfect choice. They are rubber, with a texture surface. They are a little spendy, but they’re perfect for those trying out slams or other medicine balls exercises for the very first time.

The inflation of the ball is also adjustable, so you can make it as hard or as soft as you’d like to suit your grip strength on the textured non-slip surface—another contributing factor for Fitness Gear earning the best for beginners designation. One personal trainer commented it’s not only the perfect ball for slams but also great for burpees and push-ups. Many comment on the dimpled, finger-grab surface, and they’re sturdy enough for balance exercises as well as slams.

Our Process

For this guide on Best Slam Balls & Best Medicine Balls for Slamming, our team spent 5 hours researching the most popular options from over 40 brands and manufacturers big and small. We then read about forty user reviews (both positive and negative) to discover what shoppers thought about each Slam and Medicine Balls for Slamming. After comparing this data, we narrowed our list down to the top 8 on the market. You can count on this research to guide you to a mindful purchasing decision.

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