Abdominal Exercise Ball

Abdominal Exercise Ball: The ball is a quintessential part of pilates equipment. It’s also called an Exercise Ball, a Fit Ball and a Stability Ball.

Balancing on top of it (either sitting on your feet, kneeling or standing) is only one part of an exercise regime that can be done using this incredible simple piece of equipment. Doing these exercises, because you become “unstable”, you’ll find you need to recruit many core muscles that are required for balance.

There are 3 sizes when you come to acquiring a ball – 55cm, 65cm, and 75cm. General speaking, for the following exercises, we use the medium, 65cm size. Leave the small size alone and use the larger size if you are very tall.

What are the benefits of using an exercise ball?

Abdominal Exercise ball  improves Flexibility

This has to be one of the best stretches for your hips – including psoas muscle, ITB, hamstrings, quads and lower back.

  • Lie over the ball on your right side.
  • Try to get the right elbow on to the floor and drop you head.
  • Bend the top leg and place the left hand on the floor if you feel a little unsteady, otherwise put it overhead.
  • You'll probably find it challenging to balance at first, but of course that is one of the benefits of this exercise.  As long as you have the the closest elbow on the floor and your free hand on the floor helping you balance, you'll be fine.  

For further stretching exercises, you'll find our full MENU at: Illustrated Stretching Exercises

Abdominal Exercise Ball to improve Core Strength:

This is a wonderful exercise.  It helps to put you feet up against a wall, keeping though, your toes on the floor. Inhale as you lift your upper body from the ball, exhale as you lower back down.  For good balance, make sure you feet are quite wide apart. 

For more exercises, go to: Core Strength Exercises

To improve Posture:

There are plenty of ball exercises for posture, in fact all of them will do just that...For more information about improving your posture, go to: Posture Exercises

To help with Balance:

This is Jenni – one of our star students balancing on the ball with a huge grin on her face. Go to our Balance Exercises pages for more info on improving balance. I include this one for a bit of fun but it is quite advanced.  You'll find further exercises here at:  Balance Exercises 

Fitness Ball Exercises

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