Balancing Act – Stability Ball Workout

Hi everyone,

Today I thought I would spice things up a bit and try something new.  Using a stability ball and two 6kg Dumbbells, I devised a workout that is great for sculpting, strengthening and stabilising multiple muscle groups at the same time.  I love when I find exercises that will help me achieve many goals in one workout.  Like Kettlebells, this type of training does not break the bank, and will provide your body with a much more effective workout than static weight lifting or those weights machines in the gym.

While heavy lifting weights has its place, I feel that today’s workout showed me I have many other smaller muscles that need some attention.  While performing exercises on the stability ball you will burn more calories that performing the same exercises on a bench. This is simply because you are having to balance and your stabilising muscles (including your core) are working overtime.  The more muscles that are involved, the more energy you use.

I will be including some exercises on the stability ball in my other workouts, with Kettlebells and bodyweight exercises, to show that you don’t really need to go to a gym at all!  Buy a few pieces of equipment and have your own wee gym for a fraction of the membership price, or even the joining fee!

The Workout

So, back to the workout.  It was a workout in the sense that I was sweating and had severe muscle burn, but it was more of an experimentation session to highlight what can be done with this equipment.  Some exercises were completely new to me, so excuse my technique. I can only improve.  These are only some of the many exercises that can be performed on the ball, but it gives you an idea.  And like I always say, when training is involved, variety is the key. Mix it up and allow your body to engage many muscles, for a total workout 🙂

The following is an outline of my workout. Feel free to add more to it, I was just happy to be able to do some of it. I did 1 set and between 6 and 10 reps of each exercise, depending on how difficult it was :

1. Stability Ball Dumbbell Lateral Raise
2. Stability Ball Dumbell Chest Press
3. Stability Ball Dumbbell Fly’s
4. Stability Ball Dumbbell Shoulder Press
5. Stability Ball Dumbell Pull-overs
6. Stability Ball Crunch with Dumbbell
7. Stability Ball Push Up (feet on the ball)
8. Stability Ball Push Up (hands on the ball)
9. Stability Ball Dumbbell Bicep Curl
10. Stability Ball Dumbell Tricep Extension
11. Stability Ball Dumbbell Back Extension into Dumbbell Row
12. Stability Ball Dumbell Rotating Front Raise
13. Stability Ball Dumbbell Bulgarian Squat

I hope you will take a few of these and include them in your workouts, they are harder than they look and you’ll use muscles you didn’t know you had !

Until next time.

Marianne