WEEK FIVE :: What Is A Good Workout With An Exercise Ball?

[the_fake_webmaster]

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TOPIC: What Is A Good Workout With An Exercise Ball?

For the week of: 10/31 - 11/07
(Monday @ Midnight Is The Final Cut).

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They have become pretty popular, and with good reason. An exercise ball can improve balance and can be difficult to stabilize.

What is a good routine to follow using only an exercise ball?

What kind of results can you expect?

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Don't discuss any other topic in this section. ONLY discuss the question above.

The best response will get $50 in credit to use in our online store and will have their workout posted on our main site for the world to see! We will only be picking two winners until this section starts becoming more popular. So, get to work and become famous!

Thanks,
Bodybuilding.com

[BigNorwegian]

Oh Lord, no comment on this topic :X

I still love you Will :P

[Dosquito]

Oh Lord, no comment on this topic :X

I still love you Will :P

I agree, I will not be commenting on this topic unless no one else has, then that's easy money, LOL

[flores66]

This is a good total body work out with an exercise ball:

Legs:Ball Squat 3x10
Leg curls on the ball 3x10

Back: Dumbell rows on the ball 3x10

Chest: Push-ups on the ball 3x10

Biceps: One arm preacher curls 3x10

Triceps: Dips on the ball 3x10

Shoulders: Shoulder press on the ball 3x10

Abdominals: Exercise-ball crunch 3x10

Low Back: hyperextensions on the ball 3x10

[flores66]

You should expect to gain balance,to fatigue the little stabilizer muscles you normally wouldn't be working if you were on a stable surface or a machine. You will have to use less weight than if you were doing the same exercise on a stable environment. All of the exercise ball exercises will work your core (abs and low back) which will in turn help relieve low back pain and help you with your posture. The exercise works well not only for those seeking muscle gains and fat loss but also for sports because in every sport you need to be balanced in order to be a great athlete. The exercise ball will also help keep you balanced so you are at less risk of injuring yourself by falling down in every day life.There have been numerous studies about how much more effective exercise ball crunches are than crunches on the floor. Most people feel as though it is not a piece of exercise equipment they would want to use in there routine because of how you have to lighten up the weight, but they are missing out on all the added benefits!

[Steve_W]

Will,

a few things are unclear. Are you saying bodyweight stuff with an exercise ball only, or is access to basic things like dumbbells included?

Thanks.

[DoTheRobot]

I hope it is as he stated, using just an exercise ball and bodyweight because I already started.He said ,"What is a good routine to follow using ONLY an exercise ball?".That is what I went with and it is quite difficult.

Good luck all.

[DSM18]

He said ,"What is a good routine to follow using ONLY an exercise ball?".

By "ONLY", i think he meant no other equipment ie: machines, using a flat bench or any other exercise appartas. But you can utilise anything else that goes with the swiss ball such as a medicine ball or dumbells.

[DSM18]

The swiss ball need not be forgotten: its a favourite of top strength coaches, and even professional athletes such as Joe Montana and Wayne Gretzky have used it exclusively to improve their own performance. In this article I will teach you a little bit about the swiss ball, provide a dynamic and versatile routine and outline what its uses are so you know exactly what to expect.

Why should I use the swiss ball? What results can I expect?

Effective core region development - the round shape of the ball forces body to adapt to unusual positions, which cause the recruitment of many stablising muscles. This means the swiss ball is ideal for those looking to build strength as it recruits more than just the target muscle. If your goal with training is strength, then combine a swiss ball workout 1-2 times a week with your normal strength training, and expect major improvements in those lifts that require use of your core, the big, compounds such as squats, bench presses deadlifts. When people are amazed at your strength gains and you tell them its because you've been doing a swiss ball workout, everyone will want to give it a try.

It also provides alightment of your core region (abs, lower back and hips). Your torso serves as a link between the large force producing msucles of the lower and upper body. This area of your physque permits hip retation to effectively drive shoulder rotation - an important link when generating power for many sports such as baseball. Therefore, the nature of the ball means it can taken advantage of in sports-specfic training. Baseball is a good example, where you will notice your hitting, throwing and striking will improve considerably.

OK, you may be asking, sure the swiss ball has its place in functional training, but what about bodybuilding? It certainly has its place, but I wouldn't rely on it as a sole way of gaining muscle. Everyone knows variety is an important aspect in building a good body, so swiss ball shouldn't be ignored, like high rep training or cardio shouldn't be ignored. If your goal is purely hypertrophy, I would recommend using the ball once a week to switch things up for a quick 40 minute routine and due the need to maintain your balance while doing these exercises, it will remind you the importance of the most important training guideline - proper form.

THE EXERCISES:

CRUNCHES: Are great because unlike crunches on the floor, they allow you bend your torso back for a complete range of motion - to do this, roll backwards until only your lower back is in contact with the ball, and let your torso slowly fall toward the floor until you feel a deep stretch all the way down to your lower abs. As you curl your tosrso back up into the contracted portion of the rep, roll forward again until the ball is once again just under your shoulder blades. Is should be a continuing of rolling forward on the concentric phase, then rolling back again on the negative.

INCLINE DUMBELL PRSSES – To lift yourself onto the ball with the weights, press the ball against a wall, sit down it, grab the 2 dumbells, then roll forward. Legs should be bent, feet firmly planted on the ground at shoulder width. Expect to lift only half as much weight, position your upper back on the ball with arms at your sides. You should feel a nice stretch here.

INCLINE FLYES: Here your body position on the ball the same as incline presses. Simply follow the same Motion as you would on a flat bench, with arms beginning together up in the air, then bring them deep out to each side, arms only slightly bent, then hugging the weight back in, rather than pressing.

DECLINE PUSH UPS: To get into proper beginning position, lie stomach-down on the ball, then roll forward until your hands are on the ground and your feet are propped up. Your hands should be just wider than shoulder-width apart, on either side of your nipple line, with feel propped up onto the ball. Go down, pause for a second at the bottom, then come up.

OVERHEAD PRESSES: This is excellent at isolating the deltoids, much better than on a bench even without back support, because on a ball, you have no choice but to remain balanced, whereas on a bench you can still lean back. Set your feet wide apart, if they are too close you will loose balance. Choose a weight about 40 percent of that you would use standing, begin with lower arms parallal to the floor, and press up slowly, then return down only to nose height.

ONE-ARM OVER HEAD PRESSES: This is an extreme balancing exercise, and is excellent for posture. To do it, Raise the opposite leg to the arm you are training until it is parallel to the ground. Keep it there during the set, with the same sided arm leaning on your hip. From here, simply light the weight up slowly, then return, but be cautious of the weihgt you are using - don't worry about if you are unable to lift much here, you aren't supposed to, its a balancing exercise.

REAR LATERALS: This is one of the easiest exercises to perform on a swiss ball. Lie face down so that your sternum and upper abs are on the ball. Your legs should be straight up behind you, and lean on your toes. This movement is the oppisite of fly, simply bring your arms out to the side, with your elbows in front, rather than to your side, and if your goal is to train the rhomboids as well as the delts, contract your shoulder blades together.

ONE ARM ROWS: This is great as the ball ensures you don't cheat on form. Lean your opposite knee on the ball, and rest that same side arm on the front of the ball. Hold the dumbell in the opposite hand, with back slightly higher than parallal to the ground. Feel a stretch at the lower position, and bring the weight up slowly, contacting your lats at the top. If your goal is to also target the lower lats, then bring your upper body up.

CALF RAISES: This exercise puts you in a similar position to barbell ski calf raises, your body is bent foward. Face the wall and put the ball in between it and your chest. Take a step back while still keeping your body pressed up against the ball. Now rise up on your tiptoes as you rise your body up the ball until your calves are fully contracted. Do all calve raises on a block (at a height you get a nice stretch).

SKI SQUATS: This is an extremely challenging exercise, so dont let your ego think that because its a squatting movement you need to hold a 90 lb dumbell in each arm. To begin place the ball at your mid-lower back against the wall, and lean against it. Make sure your back is straight, with a slight arch. Position your legs in front of your body, far enough so your knees arent in front of your toes. This will ensure there is no added pressure on the knees. Hold two light dumbells in each arm. Then as you go down each 25% of the movement, pause and hold and contract for a count of 10 seconds. You will feel an incredible burn, and go down all the way so your hamstrings come in contact with your calfes.

NOW FOR THE ROUTINE: Performed once a week in conjunction with any other routine. 1-2 sets, of 15 reps for each exercise. If you choose to do two sets per exercise, try supersetting them for an incredible pump.

Incline dumbell presses
Incline flies
Decline Push ups
Overhead Preses
Rear Laterals
One arm rows
Ski Squats
Calf raises
Crunches
One arms rows

The swiss ball needn't be ignored; it has its place in any training program, and even if your a body builder, you can take advantage of the many benifets the swiss ball has to offer.

Thank you

[perldog007]

They have become pretty popular, and with good reason. An exercise ball can improve balance and can be difficult to stabilize.

Agreed, which is why there is one in the perldog007 home fitness complex. Of course in the dog compound we use the stability ball or swiss ball with weights quite a bit. Around here we do abdominal work like crunches without weight and if we are going to be seated in front of the boob tube for a while, say "UFC Unleashed" and "Ultimate Fighter", we may use it for a chair. This will give our stabilizers some play instead of just broadening our backside while we are entertained.

But we are here to talk about something very different. You have been kidnapped by the CCCP. No genius not the remnants of the communist party, but the Concerned Chammomile Consuming People. In their quest to eliminate testosterone from our culture they have gone beyond promoting the meterosexual lifestyle. They have kidnapped you and stranded you in a room with a big pink swiss ball.

These anti-male forces are so insidious you may not even realize you have been kidnapped. You may think you are on a business trip at a motel with really lame exercise equipment, or just visiting in-laws. Perception is not what it seems. You are cut off from iron and surrounded by unfriendlies. The only means of preserving your buff build is that big pink swiss ball in the corner. The rat bastards didn't even have the human decency to obtain a cool looking one, say black with the everlast logo. Now what do you do?

Well, If I were you, I would have read and practiced the routine below for just such an emergency. Prepare to go plumb bezerk, nothing, not even a lack of equipment will stop you from getting your workout. Now, make like you are using Johnson and Johnson Baby Shampoo and lose the tears. Read on.

Only an excercise ball, are we joking? What do we do about progressive resistance, periodization, drop sets, pyramiding, and all those other cool words we like to throw around? Courage, my troubled friend. Those of us who have been around for a while have seen some badass cats that never really touched a weight.

Anybody who has experienced recruit training in our military, especially a leatherneck, knows that you can get stronger without lifting weights. My son's own mother did not recognize him at graduation due to larger arm muscles and smaller waistline. Repeat my last, the young man lost fat and gained muscle without weight training. His arms only gained 1/2 inch in the twelve weeks, but with the rest of him getting 25 lbs smaller (185 to 160), the effect was dramatic.

There are some decent articles on this site, and books and videos everywhere. Even Wall-Mart has DVDs' showing swiss ball routines. By now you should be open to the premise that we can stay pretty fit without weights if we try. Maybe even gain some strength. Remember, more functional strength means we will be able to move more iron and that means bigger gains when we escape back to the gym.

One of my favorite writers on this site is Mike Mahler. He has developed an excellent bodyweight exercise he calls the Mahler Body Blaster. Mike also wrote an excellent article on a whole routine of just bodyweight exercises.

Now Mike works with weights as well, but obviously bodyweight exercises have not hurt him and they wont hurt you either. Adding a swiss ball to the mix will give you the benefits of bodyweight exercise and improve your stabilizers.

We want to make your capitivity with the CCCP as productive as possible. You want to train every day. This means we will not be going for muscular failure. By training every day, we are training ourselves to be stronger by getting the muscles to give us better contractions. This is not a size gaining protocol. This is a strength gaining workout. Our goal is to be stronger when we get back to our beloved iron pile.

With the why covered, let's get on the how. I already knew about several exercises with the ball. I found one for hamstrings and another for the shoulders in a great article by Jeff Turner about working out without a weight room here.

What is a good routine to follow using only an exercise ball?

Like many things in life, there is an easy part, and a hard part. The easy part is perscribing exercises with a swiss ball which will work the entire body. The hard part is perscribing a rep range. This will vary for every individual.

What we want here is to train the muscles to contract. We want to make better use of what we have. We should feel stronger after the workout than when we began. This means we will not train to failure. You should be able to do this workout every day, even twice a day. Do the exercises in the order of the bodyparts you want to concentrate on most. Do each exercise for as many reps as you can with good form.

If you are experienceing shaking and failure to contract, you are overdoing it. Read some of Pavel's books for a detailed explanation of the concept of training for success, not failure. "The Naked Warrior" is a good one to start with.

I like to do this routine indoors, or weather permitting, on the lawn always barefoot.

• Swiss ball pushups.
• Swiss ball lunges, with toe raise/calf raise at end of rep *
• Swiss ball crunches.
• Hamstring curls on the ball.
• Hold last Hamstring curl at top of rep and do press head back as if doing neckbridge(s). use hands if needed.
• Swiss ball supermans', just like on the floor, but you balance on the ball.**
• Swiss ball leglifts - leglifts from floor holding ball between ankles.
• Turkish get ups, holding exercise ball up instead of weight. ***
• Swiss ball rotation rotation and flexions.

* hold ball overhead while lunging, do not try to lunge with rear foot on top of ball, I think that is just weird.
** you have to put feet on ground while lifting torso and put hands down while lifting legs and hips.
*** indoors you may not have enough overhead to keep your arm extended , just try to keep the ball up, this is a p*sser of a balance drill.

Worry about good form first, try to increase reps every few days if form is good.

Now take a break and watch some television, using your swiss ball for a chair. Or go troll the teen area in the bodybuilding.com forums and take a mental beatdown while building your stabilizer muscles sitting on the ball.

Do this routine every day at least once. More is better as long as you keeps the reps in a range that make you feel stronger at the end of the workout than before you began. If you are going to take a day off, you can push a little harder the day before. If you are taking two or more days off, go for it on the last workout before your break.

You have many ways to increase resistance. Longer reps, more reps, using one arm instead of two, going one legged on hamstring curls, going lower on lunges, use your imagination, work safe. As always consult with your physician before embarking on any exercise program.

What kind of results can you expect?

If you are a beginner, you may see some size increase from a regimen like this. Most likely you will experience enhanced ability to contract your muscles and be able to lift more.

With routines of this type, assuming a good diet, it is not uncommon to see bodyweight correction. That is, folks with too much weight lose some and those with not enought gain. Your rep range will increase. Your stabilizer muscles will gain like mad.

Overall, you will grow muscles you didn't even know you had. This is what I am after. This routine and some kettlebell exercises will be my routine for November, along with some megadosing of flavones. I will let you know how it goes.

Thank you for reading, and if you don't have one yet, get your swiss ball here. Train well, live large.

Postscript - I am posting this while seated on my SPRI swiss ball that I got from the bodybuilding.com store. If you have to sit in front of the computer, sit on a ball and give your core stabilizers some work.

[mivi320]

What is a good workout with an exercise ball?

Intro

The exercise ball is one of the most effective tools for developing core strength and increasing stability. Exercise balls, also known as "swiss balls," are very versatile! Training with the exercise ball truly challenges your body in ways not possible with traditional gym equipment. Working out with the exercise ball is a revolutionary way to improve your fitness and health! Exercise balls are widely used by fitness fanatics and professional athletes, and now you too can improve your strength, coordination, and core strength with this effective exercise ball workout using only an exercise ball!

The Exercises

Back Extensions

Lying facedown with the exercise ball under your hips with keeping your hands behind your head, slowly roll down the ball, while keeping your toes planted on the floor. Slowly raise your chest off of the ball, keeping your shoulders head, neck, and back in alignment.

Muscles worked: Lower back, hamstrings, abdomen, obliques.

Supine Oblique Crunch

Maintaining a crunch position with your arms crossed over your chest, begin to crunch. Proceed to rotate the right side of your upper body toward the left knee. Slowly return to your starting position, and continue to repeat this exercise alternating sides.

Muscles worked: Abdomen, obliques.

Hip Extension

Lying supine with your legs elevated, and hands planted firmly on the floor next to your sides, slowly extend the hips. Be sure to extend the hips fully, hold the position at the top of the movement for 1-2 seconds then simply return to the starting position.

Muscles worked: Glutes, hamstrings, hips.

Push-up

Begin by lying with your chest on the exercise ball. From that point, place your hands at the sides of your chest. Plant your toes on the floor, keeping your legs completely straight. Push your body up until your arms are almost straight. Do not lock your elbows. Hold and balance for a count of 2-3 seconds. Return to the starting position and repeat.

Muscles worked: Chest, shoulders, triceps, core.

Incline Push-up

Begin by placing your hands on the exercise ball, keeping the abdominals tight and your back completely straight. Simply bend at the elbows and lower yourself a few inches from the exercise ball. Press up, keeping the abdominals tight and back straight, and repeat.

Muscles worked: Chest, shoulders, triceps, core.

Prone Opposite Arm/Leg Raise

Begin by lying in a prone position on the exercise ball, keeping your right foot extended behind you. Have your right foot firmly planted on the floor. Have your left arm elevated out in front of your body, while keeping your right hand planted firmly on the floor. It is vital to keep your torso rounded over the ball for balance and support. Proceed to elevate the left arm and right leg slowly simultaneously, emphasizing a complete range of motion. Hold each contraction for a total of 1-2 seconds, and then slowly return to the starting position. Continue to repeat this exercise by alternating sides.

Muscles worked: Shoulders, glutes, hamstrings, spinal Extensors.

Squats

Begin by placing the exercise ball between a wall and your upper back. Proceed by placing your feet shoulder width apart and far enough forward to perform a squat keeping your thighs parallel to the floor. Remember to push up through the heels, not your toes!

Muscles worked: quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves, core.

Lunges

Begin by keeping an upright position, and placing one foot on the exercise ball. Simply bend the other knee and continue to lower your body until your thigh is parallel to the floor. Push up (through the heels) and return to the starting position, and repeat the movement with the other leg.

Muscles worked: Quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves, core.

What is a good routine to follow using only an exercise ball?

Most of you reading this are thinking, can I even have a good workout using only the exercise ball? Yes, you can! The following routine is one I use from time to time, and let me tell you, I'm absolutely drenched in sweat after completing this workout!

The routine is one which emphasizes on circuit training. Circuit training is a method in which you progress from one particular exercise to the next with little to no rest in between sets. Rest periods will be kept to 20 seconds in between sets with this program. The circuit is as follows:

Exercise Ball Push-up
Incline Push-up
Prone Opposite Arm/Leg Raise
Squats
Lunges
Supine Oblique crunch
Hip Extension
Back Extension

The rep range for each exercise is to be kept within the 8-15 rep range. Each exercise is to performed once with 20 seconds in between sets. So basically you are to perform the first exercise, rest 20 seconds, then proceed to the next. This will greatly improve your conditioning, increase aerobic and anaerobic capacity, elevate metabolism, increase strength levels, and improve your core and stabilzing muscles!

Resistance can easily be added to this program by either increasing the number of reps each workout or the number of times you run through the circuit.

What kind of results can you expect?]

I started seeing results with this program just after two weeks of using it. I had developed new muscles I never thought I had. My core and stabilizing muscles greatly improved as well, which conclusively helped me bring up my core lifts such as the barbell squat, deadlift, and bench press! With this program, my conditioning and flexibility also increased considerably. You too, can expect amazing results using this program! With time you will experience better muscle contractions, conditioning, improved core stability, and changes in body composition!

Good luck with all of your fitness goals!
Mike