An exercise ball should be used to do high-repetition exercises with little or no weight. Body weight exercises and those that use exercise cables and dumbbells are the best ones to do with exercise balls. Core exercises are also more effective on a ball. Two exercises you can do to work your core and full-body are ball squats and ball push-ups. Start with these to familiarize yourself with the exercise ball.
How to Exercise on an Exercise Ball
Step 1
Sit on the ball and bounce while waving your arms like you are doing jumping jacks. Start slowly and begin to bounce faster as you warm up for 5 minutes.
Step 2
Stand up and place the ball against a wall to do ball squats. Turn around and position the ball behind your pelvis, not your lower back. Put your hands on your hips and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart about 2 feet in front of you. Bend your knees and press your hips into the ball as you squat toward the floor. The ball will roll down the wall with you. Stop if you feel pain in your knees. Do not lower your hips below your knees.
Step 3
Stand back up and squeeze your buttocks while you push through your heels. The ball is still against your pelvis. Do 10 to 20 reps until your legs feel tired and you cannot do another ball squat.
Step 4
Place the ball on the floor and lie on top of it. Walk your hands forward until the ball is under your thighs, if you are a beginner, or under your feet, if you have been strength training for awhile. Position your hands slightly greater than shoulder-width apart. Squeeze your abdominals.
Step 5
Bend your elbows and lower your face to a fist's width from the floor, or at least halfway to the floor if you do not yet have the strength to lower yourself all the way to the ground and push back up. The ball is still under your thighs or feet.
Step 6
Straighten your arms and push yourself back up to the starting position. Keep your back flat the entire time you are doing ball push-ups. Do at least 10 reps. Rest 60 seconds and do another set of both the ball squats and the ball push-ups.
Step 7
Bounce on the ball slowly, without waving your arms, for 5 minutes to cool down and safely lower your heart rate.
Tips and Warnings
- Ball squats and ball push-ups work the majority of the muscles in your upper and lower body as well as your abs and glutes. You can also sit on the ball and do common dumbbell exercises, such as bicep curls, French presses, lateral raises, reverse flyes and upright rows. You can also lie on the exercise ball like you would an exercise bench and do chest presses, chest flyes and rows with dumbbells or exercise bands.
- Do not try to lift the same amount of weight when lying or sitting on a ball as you would standing up or sitting on a bench. The ball will try to roll away, creating more work for your core muscles to keep you in place. More stress will also be placed on your stabilizer muscles to maintain your position on the ball that would not be necessary on a stable bench. Therefore, you should lower your weights by 20 to 30 percent and build up from there.
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