Want To Make Any Exercise Harder? Try It On An Exercise Ball!

If you were a normal human, that headline probably would have made you run for cover! But since you are one of those crazy exercise addicts they call cyclists, you’re excited about making your hard exercise routine even harder!

It’s quite simple to make almost any exercise A LOT harder. All you have to do is incorporate an exercise ball! Also known as a “Swiss ball,” “stability ball,” or “inflatable ball,” adding one to your workouts takes each exercise to a new level. Instead of an exercise targeting one muscle group, it will target your entire body! That’s because you need to perform the exercise while staying balanced, which is harder than it looks!

Here are some examples:

The Abdominal Crunch

While doing a few hundred crunches on the ground will strengthen your six-pack, doing 20 crunches on an exercise ball will strengthen your entire core (abs, obliques, etc.) That’s because you have to keep yourself from rolling off of the ball!

Push-ups

Push-ups are one of the most common exercises, and doing them will build your upper-body to a common level. But if you want to be uncommonly strong, use an exercise ball!

There are two ways to add it in.

First, do push-ups with your feet on the ball and your hands on the ground. Having your feet elevated (decline push-ups) incorporates some stabilizer muscles, but having them elevated on a moving object really brings in the muscles of your entire body!

Second, if you’re looking to make things even harder, try push-ups where your hands are on top of the ball and your feet are on the ground. These are extremely hard, especially for us cyclists with weak upper-bodies. See, your arms are supporting your body and stabilizing the ball at the same time. Expect to fall over the first time you try it!

Superman

Here’s a great exercise for your lower back. But why not try it while balancing on top of a stability ball?

This is really hard, because it’s more about balancing your body over the ball. So you need back strength to hold yourself up, plus great balance to keep yourself up there!

Sitting Down

Sitting down is pretty simple. It’s hardly exercise.

But try sitting on top of an exercise ball and you might change your mind! This is a great way to sit around and watch TV, since it’s a non-stop workout.

Standing Up

Got the hang of kneeling on an exercise ball? Then it’s time to step it up, and that next notch is quite a stretch from the first one - standing on the ball! If you think it’s easy to stand on an exercise ball, you’re either too naive or already an Olympic level athlete!

(Be careful. Falling off one of these things hurts!!)

Well, now is the time to go and try it out! (Just be sure to start at the beginning of the list!)