There are many types of balls, and you could say without hesitation: how many games and sports, so many balls! It is extremely interesting how balls developed for well-known and liked games, incl. basketball, billiards, football or rugby. Balls are equipment known not only from sports games, but also popular equipment in the gym. You don't have to look far: wall ball, slam ball or power ball type balls are one of those devices. Find out more about the balls - we counted 22 of them, and do you know them all?
Contents:
- History of balls
- Kinds of balls
A ballis usually a medium-sized spherical object used for sports purposes. They differ in shape, size, weight, material from which they are made and the history of their creation. You can kick them, knock them off with your hands, hold them, knock them off with your head or hit them with other equipment. Here we are limited only by our imagination and this is certainly why we are dealing with so many sports involving the use of the ball.
History of balls
The history of balls goes back to ancient times. The balls were used by the Greeks, Egyptians and Romans. Ancient balls are said to have been spherical and made of rubber, but they were also made from the insides of animals, e.g. from a pig's bladder or sewn from animal skins. The balls we know today appeared at the beginning of the 20th century and are constantly being improved. Learn the characteristics and history of the balls for the popular and popular sports games.
Kinds of balls
- Baseball
This ball consists of a cork core and is covered with leather or a leatherette-like material. It has visible and protruding seams. Interestingly, a baseball is wrapped several times with a layer of thin string. Traditional baseballs are tightly wrapped in horse or cowhide stitched straps.
A characteristic element of the ball is the red seam connecting the leather coatings. After throwing the ball, the stitch behaves like the rotor of an airplane - the ball twists slightly on the way to the catcher.
- Field hockey ball
The circumference of a standard hockey ball is approximately 230 mm. The weight of the ball ranges from 156 to 163 grams. It is made of tightly pressed cork mass and tightly wrapped with a string. These ballsusually they are trimmed with white leather or leather-like material. Some field hockey balls have indentations to reduce possible skidding on wet surfaces.
- Golf ball
A golf ball is a small ball with a diameter of no less than 42.67 mm and no heavier than 45.94 grams. The first golf balls were made of wood, and the ones we play today are made of rubber with a leather coating.
These balls have a hard rubber core and are wrapped with rubber thread. Golf balls differ in terms of softness, which affects their flight speed, impact strength and even accuracy.
For example, harder balls give the most distance and reduce the effects of missed shots - therefore they are intended for beginner golfers.
- Lacrosse ball
The first lacrosse balls were made of woven leather straps (often deerskin) stuffed with bristles. They were used by the indigenous people of North America - Indians.
This tradition continued until the second half of the 19th century, but changes have come from 1867 that continue to this day.
George W. Beers changed the rules of the game and replaced the ball with a leather rubber ball! Currently, the balls are mainly produced by three companies: Warrior Lacrosse, Brine and Corp.
Lacrosse balls are usually white in color. Their circumference is approximately 19.7 to 20.3 cm, and the diameter is approximately 6.4 cm. The ball weighs approximately 140-150 grams.
- Table tennis ball
This ball weighs exactly 2.7 grams and its diameter is 40 millimeters. It is made of celluloid, which makes it bounce perfectly ( although there are also table tennis balls made of plastic).
The ping-pong ball is either white or orange in color. Sometimes they are used separately for learning to read rotation.
- Ball to pov pob
This is a light ball that is designed for catching and throwing with one hand. Its design gives the illusion as if the ball was made of paper. In fact, the pov bow is made of cotton.
Currently, tennis balls are used more and more for such fun, so the traditional pov bov is a thing of the past.
- Tennis ball
Characteristic yellow ball covered with felt and made of rather hard rubber. The regulations also allow a white tennis ball to play, but this choice is rare - the ball is then hard to see.
The tennis ball is characterized by high throwing speed and excellent bounce. The weight of a tennis ball is56.0-59.4 g and a diameter between 6.541-6.858 cm - this is the standard type and is the most used.
- Polo ball
A polo ball - a game played on the grass while riding a horse, made of wood or other hard material. According to the regulations, it should be eight centimeters in diameter.
- Water polo
A water polo is a rubber smooth ball filled with compressed air. Designed for games in the water. It has a diameter that measures 21.6 to 22.6 millimeters.
- Aqua aerobics or water gymnastics. Sample exercises
- 20-minute set of exercises in the pool
- Aqua fitness - benefits, effects and sample exercises
- Speed-ball
This is a ball made of hard and stiff rubber. It has a very characteristic elliptical structure. It is attached to a tripod and it is rotated around it with a line about 1.5 meters long.
- Volleyball
A volleyball is a smooth and relatively light ball to play. It is made of leather or leather-like material. Its weight ranges from 260 to 280 grams. The circumference of the ball is 65-67 centimeters.
The ball is filled with compressed air with the following values: 0.30 - 0.325 kG / cm2 (4.26 - 4.61 psi or 294.3 - 318.82 mbar or hPa), which makes it a perfect for mirroring.
- Handball
The handball consists of a rubber inner tube covered with stitched pieces of leather (it can also be synthetic material, but must not have a slippery and shiny texture).
The circumference of the ball used by men is 58-60 cm. The women play a ball with a slightly smaller circumference, 54-56 cm. Handball weighs around 500 grams, so it's relatively heavy for its size.
- Football
A soccer ball is a spherical ball made of leather or other similar material. Usually a soccer ball is made of thirty-two black and white hexagonal patches. Its circumference should be a maximum of seventy centimeters and a minimum of sixty-eight.
The weight of the ball must not exceed 450 grams, but also it must not be lighter than 410 grams. Before the start of professional sports competitions, the ball is inflated so that the pressure inside it ranges from 0.6 to 1.1 atm.
Read also: 16 interesting facts about football - you surely did not know that!
- Basketball
Basketball itspherical and rough ball filled with compressed air. The NBA league uses a ball with a diameter of 23.86 cm. Indoor balls are made of leather, and those played in open spaces - composite leather.
The basketball should be both springy and have good grip. Such balls should not rub or get dirty. Rubber basketballs designed for amateurs or children and are much cheaper than their leather predecessors.
Interestingly, FIBA (International Basketball Federation) matches use balls that meet all the requirements of this federation.
Moreover, the referee chooses the best ball to play before the match. How? He drops them from a height of 1.80 meters and looks at which ball will bounce from the ground 1.20-1.40 meters high.
- Cricket ball
The inside of the ball is made of cork, which is wrapped with a string. The top layer of leather tightly covers the cricket ball, and its seams prevent it from tearing. The skin layer consists of four parts, which are connected by a protruding seam - it is arranged in six parallel lines.
A cricket ball weighs 155.9 to 163.0 grams and measures 224 to 229 millimeters in circumference. Interestingly, the color of the ball varies depending on the occasion!
Red balls are used in test or league matches, and white balls in one-day or so-called "Twenty20". This is because the last two types of matches are usually played in the evening hours or under artificial lighting, and the white ball is more visible under these conditions.
- Rugby ball
The rugby ball is one of the iconic American balls. It has an ovoid, symmetrical shape and is trimmed with four pieces of leather or a synthetic rubber inner tube. According to World Rugby rules, a rugby ball must measure 280 to 300 millimeters along its long axis, and the circumference of its cross section must measure 740-770 millimeters along its long axis. However, the cross section of the ball is usually 580-620 millimeters.
The weight of the ball should be between 410-460 grams. Interestingly, the pressure of the ball is measured just before the match, which should be between 0.67 and 0.7 kgf / cm2. The same regulations are required by the Polish Rugby Union.
- Medicine ball
A medicine ball is usually made of synthetic leather. It is used for rehabilitation purposes and in sports training. Its size and weight depends on its intended use - there are many variants of medicine balls on the market.
The most common balls are 1 kg, 2 kg, 3 kg, 5 kg and 10 kg.The ball should be selected according to fitness and strength abilities.
The originator of the medicine ball was William Muldoon - a respected American professional wrestler and wrestler.
- Slam ball and wall ball
This is nothing but medicine balls. They are used in crossfit. Slam ball is used for general development exercises. Holding it in our hands, we can perform a wide variety of physical exercises.
On the other hand, the wall ball, as the name suggests, is used for throwing against the wall, but it can also be thrown against the floor or thrown upwards, thus exercising the explosive strength of the muscles.
A slam ball is usually small in size, resembling a football or volleyball. However, you can also find large and massive slam balls, then their weight can be up to 70 kg! The slam ball is filled with synthetic sand.
On the other hand, wall balls are softer balls with evenly distributed weight. They must provide a good grip so that they can be thrown safely.
- Powerball
It is a specially designed ball for exercising the muscles of the upper limb. Powerball was invented by NASA specialists for… astronauts! So that they stay physically fit in space. Training with a weight turned out to be impossible due to the state of weightlessness in the cosmos, so NASA specialists invented a small ball that works on the principle of centrifugal force.
Powerball consists of four parts: a gyroscope that accelerates the ball and makes it spin, a counter that counts revolutions, a rubber rim that is mounted on the ball so that the powerball does not fall out of the hand during very intense turns, and a ring that it is behind the rail around the axis of which the rotator spins.
Powerball is the size of a tennis ball and weighs no more than 0.5 kg. Interestingly, at fifteen thousand revolutions you can get up to 20 kg of force on the wrist!
- Bila
A ball in the shape of a ball used to play billiards. The balls were made of various materials: clay, celluloid, crystallite, steel, bakelite or even wood.
The main material for the production of balls from 1627 to the 20th century was … ivory. Fortunately, this concept has been changed and a substitute has been found. It took place in 1868, thanks to John Wesley Hyatt, but the celluloid balls he invented unfortunately sometimes exploded during production and were flammable.
Currently, billiard balls are made of plastics such as phenolic resin - a material resistant to chipping and cracking.
The balls come in a variety of colors and sizes- depending on the type of game. For example, in English billiards the balls have dimensions: 52.5 mm, the set consists of 22 balls, in which the white is the playing ball.
This set contains fifteen red balls and six balls of different colors, sometimes marked with numbers for the scoring.
- Bula
Bula is French for a ball, and it is used to play petanque, the traditional French skill game. The history of the bulla goes back to ancient Greece. At that time, the replacement for the traditional bull was coins that were given a rolling motion.
Later, they were replaced by stones and pebbles. However, the story does not end there, because today's ball is made of metal. The metal ball is the invention of a Frenchman, Jean Blac. His equipment entered the market in 1928 and thus began a new era in bullfighting.
Acceptable sizes of boules for petanque and Provencal game are: boules with a diameter of 70.5-80 mm and a weight from 650 to 800 grams. However, the hardness of the balls must be at least 35 HRC (i.e. 110 kg / mm2).
- American football
It is an oval-shaped ball made of leather. Perfect for both digging and grabbing. Thanks to the leather coating and protruding thick seams, the ball has a very good grip.
Contrary to popular belief that American football is the same as rugby, the two sports are fundamentally different from each other. The difference is not only in the rules of the game, but also in balls, which only appear to be the same.
An American football, unlike a rugby ball, has pointed ends and a different trajectory.
Read also:
- Exercises with the ball, i.e. fit ball
- Gymnastic ball - which one to choose? Sizes & Benefits of Exercise Balls
- BOSU - what is it? Sample exercises with half a balancing ball
Małgorzata Kośla She is a qualified fitness instructor and certified personal trainer. Since childhood, her greatest passion was sport - she played football and basketball. Then a new love came - dance, especially dancehall. He likes to sweat at the gym and relaxes in yoga and meditation sessions. He is constantly expanding his knowledge about training and a he althy lifestyle. What besides sports? He runs a store with natural cosmetics and he althy food, writes his own blog (stylzyciadowolny.pl) and deals with copywriting.
Read more articles by this author