RECREATION HOOVER-BALL : Good Medicine and Great Fun : The game can develop muscle tone and strength for the whole body, players say.

Heave a four-pound medicine ball over a volleyball net and see whether the question, “why am I doing this?” comes to mind.

As you hunker down in horror to absorb your opponent’s return, you may also wonder who would be crazy enough to make a game out of slinging it around?

A medicine ball is best described as a big, soft, leather cannonball. It is well known in the sports world as a conventional--and entirely ballistic--instrument of destruction. Demented gangs of Hoover-ballers throw it back and forth in the mother of all net sports.

Hoover-ball is a bizarre combination of volleyball, tennis, and--heaven help us--shot-putting. It was invented in 1929 by White House physician Joel T. Boone, whose primary job was to find new and interesting ways to help President Herbert Hoover control his weight.

Hoover-ball pits two teams of two to four people each on a standard volleyball court.

The game is scored like tennis--with four points a game, a point awarded after each rally--instead of like volleyball, which has 15-point games and points to the serving team only. Hoover-baller Dan See of Lake Forest speculates that the reason the game is scored this way is “maybe they just wanted to help Hoover lose a little weight, man, not give the poor guy a heart attack!”

Hoover-ball is “great fun” for any relatively fit person who wants to develop muscle tone and strength for the whole body but does not want to pump iron, says Desiree Snelleman of Long Beach, who has worked out with a medicine ball since 1975, when she was a javelin thrower on Norway’s track and field team.

“Hoover-ball is especially good for people in paddle sports like kayaking, canoeing and rafting,” Snelleman says, “or any other sport that requires lots of trunk and abdominal strength.”

But, she says, people with shoulder or back problems should avoid the sport.

Hoover-ball jargon is not pretty--especially compared with the sleek and snappy lingo of volleyball. “Hoover-ballers don’t pussyfoot around with serves, sets, spikes, digs, bumps and blocks,” says Ric Jennings of Costa Mesa. “It’s more like heaves, chucks, slings, augers, face-crunchers and whomps.”

Technique is a simple matter of absorbing shock then recoiling like a spring: “You try to hunker down when you’re receiving,” Snelleman says, “so that you can use your chest, arms, legs, buttocks and face to help absorb the impact of the ball.”

Players--even those who collapse in a heap or stumble out of bounds after a catch--are generally permitted a few seconds to regain their feet and compose themselves before squatting, leaping and flailing their arms in an utterly graceless effort to heave it where the opponent ain’t.

There are just a few concessions for women Hoover-ballers. First, women are permitted to launch their serves from half-court, though most “Hooverettes” shake their heads in disgust at the very thought of actually doing so. Second, while men are required to get the ball back over the net on one heave, women are permitted one pass to a teammate.

“We don’t like to take advantage of the girl rules,” says personal trainer Leslie Davis of Corona del Mar, “but I’ve got to admit they do make the sport more manageable for women.”

Hoover-ball strategy is a double-edged sword. “You’re basically trying to wear the other guy out,” says Jeff Dilts, a fitness manager at Sports Club/Irvine, “but it never works, because wearing him out always wears you out too.”

Jennings says the lack of any effective team strategy beyond survival is a problem for the sport, but he points out one benefit: “At least the spectators get a kick out of watching both teams crawl around on the ground with their tongues out after a game.”

Snelleman and Jennings co-promoted the first-ever West Coast Hoover-ball Championships held on Balboa Peninsula last month.

They were not at all surprised when their tournament’s Division C--”crazy people”--filled immediately, while Divisions A--”normal people”--and B--”semi-normal people”--stayed empty.

First prize, sore muscles and one T-shirt went to a team that calls itself You Can’t Touch This!, captained by a hyperactive Huntington Beach rugby player, Larry Chenier. Second and third prizes, sore muscles and one pair of swimming trunks went to Snelleman’s Happy Hoover Heavers and See’s Call the Doctor! teams.

Jennings includes Hoover-ball coverage in his Orange County Volleyball Newsletter and plans to organize monthly Hoover-ball tournaments--mainly so he’ll have something to write about. Call (714) 631-7658 for details.