Stability Ball Exercises

Your core is made up of the muscles that surround your spine and hold you upright. Stability balls do not stabilise you, they do the opposite, they challenge your balance. Most people use these for their ab exercises or their core workouts. They are a simple and effective tool, they are also called a swiss ball.

Chances are if you are a regular at weight training, the only stability ball exercises you have tried are crunches and sit ups.If you are familiar with my theories you will know I am a believer in using every tool possible when training in order to get best results. Have you every tried working your chest on a swiss ball? Is it easy? Definately not. Does it get results? Absolutely. I am not talking about doing dumbell bench presses on the ball. These are ok and I would only recommend these as a finishing set to some body weight exercises. Heavy weights on a ball are dangerous, so you are limited to light or moderate weight. It does not provide the kind of challenge that will make your chest want to bust out of your shirt.

The type of stability ball exercises I am talking about will target your chest muscles, both the major and minor pecs. How often do your chest muscles work to stabilise you? The answer is not much at all! So what would happen if we put these muscles under a stress they are not used to? They will work hard, extremely hard. This is done by using our very own body weight.Performing an exercise that is a shock to your body because it is new and different forces your muscles to adapt in a way they have not known before. So grab your ball and try these exercises.

Make sure you progress slowly and safely. We will be using push up variations on the ball. Once again as you will need to keep your body straight you will be working your abs even though your focus is on your chest. I will list these in order of difficulty so you can work your way down the list. Don't rush through the exercises, you may be on the first exercise for a couple of weeks before progressing. Don't move on to the next exercise until you can complete 10 reps. Are you ready for your stability ball exercises? If you answered YES, I knew you would be. If you said NO, you probably don't have a ball yet. Make sure you get the right size for your height.

Exercise 1
Lean the ball against a wall so it does not roll away. Place your hands between the middle and the top of the ball, so you are pushing it into the wall. You hands should be as wide apart as possible without slipping off the side. This is still quite a narrow grip. Start with your knees on the ground, drop your hips, so your body is in a straight line from knees to shoulders.Now commence your push ups. You will find yourself shaking as you lower and come back up. Don't worry you will improve. This is the easiest of the stability ball exercises for chest.To make the exercise harder lift your knees off the ground, so that only your toes are touching the ground, from ankle to shoulders is a straight line (traditional push up position).

Exercise 2
As above, except this time put your hands close together. Make a triangle with your thumbs and index fingers flat on the ball.

Exercise 3
As in Exercise 1 again, but place both your feet on a bench. Use both hand positions.

Exercise 4
As in Exercise 1, but this time place only one foot on the ground, lift the other off the ground, this will make it even harder to stay stable.

Exercise 5
Continue as in exercise 1, but place both feet on a high bench, higher than the ball - be careful, this is not easy.

That should keep you going for a few weeks, remember this whole time the ball has been leaning into a wall. If you find this easy (unlikely) move on to the next stage. Once you can complete 10 reps easily against the wall. Time to move the ball away from the wall, repeat the exercises without the ball leaning on anything, you will have to stabilise it yourself!

Go back to exercise 1 and work your way through again, the only difference now is the ball is not leaning against anything, your chest, triceps, shoulders and core will have to work overtime to keep that ball still.

Remember this is not something to rush through- it should keep you busy for quite a few months. You can do these stability ball exercises as a complete workout, or add 1 or 2 exercises to your current routine.Enjoy the results.