Swiss Ball Workout

I have a love / hate relationship with my Swiss medicine ball. It's a very effective workout. Very effective to tone muscles, increase balance and stability, and a lot of focus on your core. But.....I think it's boring. I feel amazing after I do it. Really amazing. But I have to pump myself up mentally to do it.

After my spine injury, I had a lot of physical therapy. A lot (several years worth). And my therapist had me do a lot on the Swiss ball. Which is probably why it's so boring for me. I started by just sitting on the ball. Literally. I lost a lot of strength and just sitting on the ball and balancing was a workout. I've come a long way.

The Swiss ball isn't just for physical therapy or for recovery. It's very versatile. And you use your body resistance for a lot of the movements. So it can be a very intense workout. I will probably use my Swiss ball for the rest of my life.

My therapist suggested this book to me, Swiss Ball: For Strength, Tone and Posture by Maureen Fleet. I've been doing this book for probably a little over 2 years. It takes me about 1 hour and 15 minutes to go through. For the 1st year, I did the workout weekly while I was still getting my strength back. Now, I do it about once a month just to give my back a nice, deep stretch. I really feel great the whole week after I do it. Sorry, it's way too long of a series for me to go through the whole workout. This is a preview.

Here's what I use:

• The book (find it here); Swiss Ball: For Strength, Tone and Posture by Maureen Fleet
• Thera-band exercise ball (find it here)
• Thera-band resistance bands (find it here)
• Balance disc (find it here)
• Ankle weights (mine are 1 lb., but I'm ready to beef it up a bit and get larger ones) (find it here)
• Dumbbells (mine are 2 lb., but I need to upgrade those a bit, too) (find it here)
• For the exercises that use a small medicine ball, I use a fitness/scultping circle (the black round thing in the picture) because I had it (it came with a pilates video I used to have). Like the picture on the cover with the small ball in between her ankles, I use my circle.

The book is divided into 8 sections. A warm-up, 6 different focus areas (abs, arms, legs, balance, etc.), and a senior citizen section. When I first got this book, I realized that everything I was doing in physical therapy was in the senior section. That was a big motivator to step up my game!

I made notes throughout the book for my workout. What's too hard, too easy, how many reps to do, etc.

I wear ankle weights on my ankles for every section except the arm section. For the arm section, I wear the weights on my wrists and use the dumbbells (when I get bigger dumbbells, I won't wear the weights on my wrists because I won't need them).

I tie the resistance band to the foot of my coffee table for those exercises.

Yes, I clearly have a toddler with grandparents that love & spoil him! Hence all the Fisher Price in the background ;-)

Here's a preview of the types of exercises in the book. There are a lot of them.

Ryan was watching The Godfather. And side note, my arms are straight. Weird family trait. My  mom's arms don't straighten all the way either. Nobody ever believes me (especially my childhood dance teachers), but it's true.

P.S. If you are wondering why my skin glows, it's because I drink Cod Liver Oil daily. Really! I did not put any lotion on at all today and these pictures were taken at about 3:00 in the afternoon. Take your Cod Liver Oil! Find it here.

It's The Moose's arm day.