The Mighty Exercise Ball

Me and wifey went to Sunway Pyramid yesterday to look for some exercise stuff for the house. She asked me what we should get without having to rob a bank and I told her that the Exercise Ball or Swiss ball is a must. My wife does almost all her exercise at home, since her work schedules and calls makes it difficult to workout at a gym. Hence since she does most of her exercise at home, we decided that it was a valuable investment…not to mention, I will also get to use it over the weekend, should I need to supplement my workout with that extra kick. Besides the ball we also bought an exercise bike from Fitness Concept, which is due to be delivered this coming Wednesday.

Anyway, at first, she was skeptical with the ball thinking it can only be used for doing crunches, but once I got it home and pumped it up, I showed her an array of exercises to do, and she was surprised with the number of things you can do on a simple bouncy ball. From pushups, to sit ups, to squats, to leg raises – the number of things you can do with the exercise ball is limited only by your own imagination. She tried it herself and she said its tough work. So if you could normally do 30 crunches on flat ground, you might only be able to do 20 crunches on the exercise ball. Why? Because balancing on the ball is tough and tiring.

Even though a particular exercise looks like it only focusing one body part, in actuality, your enitre body is at work hard continuously trying to maintain the position you are in. So all your other muscles are constantly flexing and relaxing to maintain and balance your body at the position you are in. I just played with the ball for a while doing some crunches and leg raises and I could feel my arms and legs working out hard at the same time. What does this mean? The more muscles that are working at one time, the more fat you are going to burn… not to mention tone and strenghten everything as well. It’s like a whole body workout, with additional focus on the body part of your choice.

I have attached some pics of just some of the exercises you can do right in the comfort of your own home using an Exercise Ball. Unlike other exercise equipments that costs thousands of Ringgit, the exercise ball only costs around RM 60 to RM 80, so I think anyone can afford it.

If you workout at home a lot, and if you had to choose 1 piece of home fitness equipments that allows you to workout your entire body without emptying your life’s savings, this would be my recommendation. It’s fun, challenging and most importantly – it can workout the whole body.

Let me know if any of you have tried it and of course any other cool exercises you can think of and of course look forward to hearing your comments.