A fitness ball (also known as a gym ball or Swiss ball) is a fantastic way to increase benefits of your exercises similar to resistance bands. In addition, they are utterly fantastic for improving your core and other stabilizer muscles.
Fitness ball exercises
You can perform many exercises with a fitness ball including:
- crunches – arguably better for your back when you do crunches on the ball due to the safer position of the spine throughout the movement.
- back extensions – a fantastic exercise to work the back muscles and improve your posture, it can also provide a good workout for the glutes and hamstrings.
- push ups – do with either hands or feet on the ball. Makes the push up movement more unstable to enhance your core and other stabilizer muscles.
- stir the pot – involves putting hands on the ball in a plank position then moving the ball around like you are stirring a pot. A great exercise to improve your core stability.
You can use these fitness balls to replace a chair, at your desk or in front of the TV. They are excellent to use for a technique called active sitting. Which aims to improve your posture and reduce the detriments of sitting by making your muscles work even when seated. However it is best to work your way up to sitting on it for long periods of time. Additionally even when you are well trained with sitting on a fitness ball it is best to rotate through positions ie. on the ball, on a chair, standing, lying down. This gives your body a break and allows it to adapt to many positions.
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