Exercise Routines with a Fitness Ball

Add a Small Exercise Ball for a Big Ab Workout

So you think you have strong abs? If you are an advanced exerciser, try using a small exercise ball for abdominal work. A move called the oblique knee drop works the oblique muscles that run along the sides of your torso. It also works the rectus abdominis, the sheet of muscle that extends from just under your chest to just below your belly button. If you are striving for the elusive “6-pack abs,” this move may help.

• Start by lying on your back with your knees pulled in to form a 90-degree angle.
• Place a small exercise ball between your knees.
• Stretch your arms out to a T-shape, with your palms either up or down. The goal is to keep your shoulders flat on the floor.
• Drop your legs to the right, twisting your torso and lowering as close to the floor as you can. If your shoulders start to come up before your legs touch the floor, stop there and keep your shoulders down.
• Focus on squeezing your abs and obliques as you lift your knees back to the center.
• Repeat by lowering your legs to the left. Alternate sides, and repeat as desired.

Total Body Ball Exercise: Plank with Leg Lift

One of the benefits of exercise routines with a fitness ball is that they work multiple muscle groups at the same time. And almost any ball exercise can be modified to accommodate different fitness levels.

When you do a traditional plank exercise on a Swiss ball, you are engaging your abs and back, as well as your arms and legs, to keep you stable.

For beginners, start with an exercise ball under the thighs. More advanced exercisers can place the ball under the shins or the toes to make this move harder.

• Start with your hands flat on the floor about shoulder-width apart and an exercise ball under the thighs, shins or toes.
• Contract your abs, and raise the right foot a few inches off the ball. Hold for a count of 2.
• Lower the right leg and repeat with the left leg.
• Alternate legs and repeat 8-10 times.
• Concentrate on using your abs to help keep your body in a straight line from head to foot.

Avoid These Workout Mistakes

If you are beginning a new exercise routine with a fitness ball, it’s important to avoid certain mistakes that can predispose you to injury and sideline your fitness plans.

Be mindful and avoid these mistakes to get the most out of your Swiss ball exercise routine:

• Don’t push through pain. Exercise balls are generally considered safe, low-impact workout tools, but you can get hurt using an exercise ball, whether by doing too many sets or reps too soon, or by using a firmer ball than you can balance on without falling off.
• Use proper form. When you are doing new exercise ball workouts, learn the proper form from a book, DVD, group instructor, or personal trainer. Doing an exercise incorrectly can lead to injury, and it won’t help your fitness.
• Be mindful of any medical issues. A Swiss exercise ball can be a useful fitness tool if you have back problems, but some ball exercises may irritate your back. Check with your doctor and a fitness professional before trying a new exercise ball workout

Balance Your Workout Routine with an Exercise Ball

Variety is one of the key principles of a successful exercise plan. Doing the exact same workout every day can lead to muscle imbalance and overuse.

You can still enjoy your favorite sport most days of the week, whether it’s running, biking, yoga, or aerobics. But a little cross training goes a long way in building strength and maintaining fitness without overtaxing certain muscle groups.

An exercise ball workout once or twice a week can help your overall fitness in several ways, depending on what style of exercise ball routine appeals to you.

Some options:

• Balance training. You can make balance and core strength the focus of your exercise ball workouts with moves such as the plank or bridge.
• Strength training. An exercise ball can add variety to your upper or lower body strength training workouts. Sit on the ball and use a medicine ball or light weights for strength training, or do push-ups with your feet on an exercise ball instead of the floor.

Round Out Your Circuit Training with an Exercise Ball

If you want new ideas for how to use an exercise ball, try including exercise balls in a circuit routine. A circuit workout is an exercise routine that includes about 10 different exercises performed in succession with little or no rest in between sets and exercises.

The average circuit workout includes 8-12 exercises that target the entire body. Exercise balls can be used as part of a circuit training routine for core strength exercises, such as the plank pike, or strength training exercises in which you sit on the large exercise ball and perform repetitions with a medicine ball or small weights.

For variety, change the exercises in your circuit workout every few weeks. But keep these basic principles in mind:

• Do each exercise in the circuit for about 1 minute, however many reps that is for you when you move at a steady pace.
• Rest for no more than 30 seconds between each exercise in the circuit.

Bosu Balls Boost Sprained Ankles

Ankle sprains are among the most common sports injuries. If you have sprained your ankle, proper rehabilitation is important to strengthen the area and avoid future sprains. Once you can bear weight on your ankle, and inflammation, pain, and swelling have subsided, you can try strength training exercises using a balance disc or a Bosu ball.

Try a basic balance move first: balance on a Bosu ball on your recovering foot. Try to hold for 10-30 seconds. If that seems too easy, try it with your eyes closed.

Ready for the next level? Try single-leg squats on a Bosu ball.

• Stand on one leg with your other leg slightly bent at the knee.
• Tuck your tailbone and roll your shoulders back, keeping your weight centered over the ball of the foot of your standing leg.
• Slowly lower into a squat.
• Keep your torso as straight as possible, and look straight ahead. Focus on something that’s not moving.
• If you are new to this type of ball exercise, start with shallow squats.
• Try for 10 repetitions, and then switch to the other leg.

Exercise Ball Routines for Lower Body Rehab

Exercises using an exercise therapy ball, also known as a large fitness ball, can be an appropriate part of a recovery plan from certain types of hip or leg injuries, with your doctor’s approval.

An exercise ball routine can help strengthen your hips and thighs, as well as your core muscles. When you add a medicine ball to an exercise on a Swiss ball, you’ll work more muscle groups at the same time.

Try this basic move, the ball squeeze, as part of a rehab or strength training plan. You should feel your abdominal muscles, hips, and quads hard at work.

• Place a large exercise ball between your back and the wall.
• Place a small fitness ball just above your knees.
• Slowly slide down the wall until your knees form a 90-degree angle with the floor. Keep your weight in your heels, and don’t let your knees go past your toes.
• Squeeze the ball between your legs and hold for 15 seconds.
• Release, and repeat 3-4 times.

Get Your Yoga Workout on the Ball

Try using exercise balls for yoga. Doing yoga poses with a fitness ball provides support for some poses as you build up your endurance, and adds a balance challenge to other poses if you want to push yourself.

An exercise ball routine can include the quintessential yoga poses Upward-Facing Dog and Downward-Facing Dog.

Upward-Facing Dog:

• Squat down and place your hands on a fitness ball with your arms extended.
• Drop to your knees and lean toward the ball; roll forward so the ball is under your hips.
• Press your hands into the ball and push up into an upward-facing dog pose.

• From the upward-facing dog pose, roll forward and place your hands on the floor, pushing your hips up toward the ceiling.
• Your chest and upper thighs should be supported by the ball.
• Press your heels toward the floor, keeping your arms and legs straight.
• Alternate between the upward-facing and downward-facing dog poses 5-8 times.

Wind Up Your Warrior Routine on a Fitness Ball

Add variety to your fitness routine by combining exercise ball workouts with yoga. Use an exercise ball for a series of warrior poses for extra support as you work on your technique. You may need a smaller exercise ball than you might for other workouts, so be sure to find the size that you can sit on comfortably.

• Start by sitting on the ball and turning sideways to take a lunge position—your right foot should be turned out 90 degrees and your left foot about 60 degrees. Both feet should be flat on the floor.
• For Warrior I, turn and square your hips forward, rotate your left foot forward and tuck your toes under as you sweep both arms overhead.
• For Warrior II, open your hips out to the side, place your left foot back on the floor, and extend your arms straight out from your shoulders. Turn your head and gaze out over your right arm.
• Take 4 deep breaths in each pose, then return to the starting position and switch sides.

Forearm Balance with Finesse on a Fitness Ball

Try the forearm balance position on an exercise ball as part of your next exercise ball routine. This exercise is inspired by yoga, and it promotes balance and endurance.

• Start by leaning your right hip and right forearm on the ball (right arm is bent). Extend your legs straight out to the side. Your feet should be resting on the floor, with the left foot on top.
• Slowly reach your left arm straight up to the ceiling, and then lift your left leg as high as you can while maintaining your balance.
• Keep the left arm and left leg straight. Hold the position for 4 deep breaths, and then return to the starting position.
• Repeat on the other side.

Take Your Exercise Routine on the Road with Resistance Bands

Getting in a strength training exercise routine while traveling can be a challenge. But exercise resistance bands, sometimes called resistance tubing, are easy to stash in a suitcase.

For a total body exercise, try this move that combines squats and biceps curls using an exercise resistance band such as the FitBALL® Club Tubing with handles at each end. You’ll be working your biceps, shoulder, quads and hips.

• Start with your feet a few inches wider than shoulder-width apart. Turn your toes out and place a resistance band under your feet.
• Holding one handle of the resistance band in each hand, lower into a squat, keeping your knees in line with your toes as much as possible as you curl both arms up into a biceps curl.
• Press into your heels to stand up as you lower your arms.
• Repeat for about 1 minute. To make this move harder, use a stronger resistance band or tubing.
  
  

Resistance Bands for an Anytime Toning Routine

Whether you are traveling, at home, or at the gym, exercise resistance bands make it easy to add strength training exercises to your fitness routine. A bent-over row using a resistance band or tubing works your chest, arms, and shoulders. You can do this move in a hotel room, in a gym, or outside.

• Start with your feet shoulder-width apart. Wrap the band or tubing under your feet. If you are using a band without handles, fold it in half and wrap it under your feet so you are holding a loop in each hand.
• Keeping your back flat, bend forward from the hips and let your hands fall to your shins.
• Keeping your arms close to your body, bend your elbows and pull your hands toward your ribs.
• Lower your arms and stand up. Repeat as desired.

Build a Better Fitness Ball Routine

As you decide how to use exercise balls as part of your fitness routine, remember the basic exercise principles of frequency, intensity, and type.

• Frequency: If you are new to exercise ball workouts, start by doing a few exercises on a ball once a week for a few weeks, then do your exercise ball routine twice a week.
• Intensity: Start with basic ball exercises, such as push-ups and crunches, then move on to more advanced moves such as leg extensions, and exercises that combine exercise balls with medicine balls or resistance bands.
• Type: Try to include a ball exercise for each major muscle group in your exercise ball routine: abs, upper body, and lower body.

Bust Out of Your Exercise Rut with a Fitness Ball Routine

When you do the same strength training exercises for a long time, your body gets used to them. You’ve become stronger, but in order to keep those muscles strong and balanced, mix in some different exercises.

When you exercise on a Swiss ball, you engage your core muscles as well as the muscles of your arms and legs. Exercise ball workouts engage several muscle groups at once. By contrast, weight training on a weight machine isolates and works specific muscles. Both types of workouts are useful to build strength, so why not do both? Just remember that you don’t want to work the same muscle groups two days in a row.

Some ways to add exercise ball workouts to your fitness routine include:

• Upper body exercises on the ball one Tuesday, and on the weight machines on Thursday.
• Total body exercises on a fitness ball one week, and weight machine strength training the next week.
• A combination of ball exercise and weight exercise two to three times a week, with a rest day in between.

Get Hip to a Fitness Ball Leg Lunge

If you are a serious athlete (or even not so serious) you’ll never run out of ideas for how to use an exercise ball. Tight hips are often a problem for runners, especially marathoners. Try this supported lunge using an exercise ball to open the hips and stretch the hip flexors:

• Start in a yoga Downward-Facing Dog pose, which means form an upside-down v-shape with an exercise ball positioned under your thighs and chest. Your hands should be flat on the floor and your feet as close to flat on the floor as possible.
• Extend your right leg up in the air, and then swing it down to a 90-degree angle beside the ball as you kneel on your left knee.
• Lean into the ball with your hips as you extend your knee and tuck your toes under. Let the ball support your hips as you reach your arms straight up overhead, if possible.
• Take 4 deep breaths and then release and return to the starting position.
• Repeat with the other leg, and alternate for the desired repetitions. Try 3-4 on each side to start.

Band Plus Ball Equals a Great Workout

Sit on an exercise ball for upper body strength training exercises and you’ll get a core strength workout as a bonus. When you sit on the ball, you engage your core muscles to keep your balance. If you are new to exercise ball workouts, start out with a ball that’s not fully inflated.

Once you’re sitting on the ball, try this shoulder exercise to work your deltoid muscles. Use an exercise band or resistance tubing. If you’re using a single loop band, fold it in half so you have a single band, not a loop.

• Start by sitting on the exercise ball with your feet flat on the floor.
• Hold the band or tubing in the middle, with your hands about 6 inches apart.
• Inhale and open your arms out to a T-shape, stretching the band or tubing. If this is too difficult, use a band with less resistance.
• Repeat as desired.

Exercise Balls Promote Fit Pregnancy

Wondering what type of exercise ball routine is appropriate for pregnancy? Abdominal exercises are among the recommendations for how to use an exercise ball. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends that pregnant women avoid exercises that involve lying on their backs after the first trimester of pregnancy.

ACOG recommends moderate exercise for most women during pregnancy, barring any complications. But it’s important for pregnant women to keep in mind that their centers of gravity will change, which can contribute to lower back pain.

An exercise ball routine that includes abdominal exercises, such as crunches on an exercise ball, can help pregnant women maintain some abdominal strength and provide some stability for the lower back. In addition, doing a simple strength training exercise, such as biceps curls, while sitting on an exercise ball is a good option for pregnant women to maintain strength when they find weight machines uncomfortable or awkward.