Pilates Ball Exercises: 5 Great Reasons to Get Unstable!

Pilates ball exercises are a quintessential part of a pilates regime. You will love it as I do. After a while, you might even consider joining the circus, you'll become so adept with the exercises! Sometimes they're also referred to as Pilates, Balance, Fitness, Swiss or Stability Balls, but in fact, it’s more about instability. To begin with when you start your pilates ball exercises, you'll wobble a bit, and that's good, because you're using all those deep wonderful stabilising muscles which are automatically engaged when the need is challenged. We have 2 categories of muscles, one mobilizing muscles (eg biceps, hamstrings) and the other stabilizing (eg back and transverses). 5 Great Reasons To Get Unstable! 1. First of all, the benefits. These include core strength (including better abs), improved balance, better posture, improved flexibility and a lot of fun while you’re at it. Isn’t exercise supposed to be fun? 2. Everyone loves great abs and a flat tum. Why use the ball for this? I’ll tell you. It’s all in the hips. If you do sit-ups (or crunches) on the floor your hips remain in the same position and only allow you to flex your torso forward. However, if you do sit-ups on the ball, your torso will also extend backwards and so increase the full range of the movement. Because you’re not as stable on a moving object you’re forcing deeper stabilizing muscles to work as well. And, this means that you will burn more calories because more of you is working. Bingo! 3. Balls are also a wonderful way to improve balance, the loss of which often results in devastating consequences, and as time goes on, this is VERY important to consider. Even if you are in your 20’s or 30’s, you should think about this. Because it offers no stability your body works at trying to balance itself on it. The perfect spinal posture with its natural curves is also the best for balance - your body will automatically try to align itself into the proper posture when you develop core strength. 4. All my favourite stretches are on the ball. So another reason to use one is to improve flexibility. You’ll find stretches for pectorals, quads, hamstrings, hips, psoas, and abdominal obliques. The ability to move freely without pain is a wonderful benefit of pilates. Tight muscles prevent this flexibility and cause joint pain. 5. Too much sitting at work in front of a computer results in poor posture. Using the Pilates ball at your desk is a wise choice. For starters, it’s difficult to slouch and secondly you’ll be constantly changing your position and moving to answer the phone, grab that file and reach into the drawer. Your whole body has to move to do this – not just from the waist up, and this prevents tension and tight muscles. Sitting on your butt on the office chair in the same position all day is unhealthy and damaging to your body (eg inhibits blood circulation). You might also wish to do a few sit-ups from time to time! I’m sure the boss won’t mind – you might get the whole office joining in... 6. And an extra.......the last one......you’ll just LOVE it!