Stability Ball Workout for Dummies

'fat-to-firm fitness ball workout for dummies' is the title according to the front cover of the dvd, however, the label on the dvd itself says 'stability ball workout for dummies'.

this workout goes through 15 different exercises that you can do with your stability ball for your lower body, upper body

and abs. exercises include lunges, side leg lifts, pelvic lifts, crunches, push-ups, seated overhead press/bicep curl/tricep extension/chest fly among others.

the seated exercises use 2 sets of dumbells.

good workout for a beginning exerciser and those new to using a stability ball.

liz gives pointers but i had to watch the screen to see exactly what she was doing and how fast she was doing it. more cueing would have been nice so real newbies should preview the workout before doing it.

however

there is a nice break between exercises so that you can see what is coming up and get into position for it.

each chapter is short as not much time is spent on each exercise. liz does only 2 sets of 8 reps for each exercise.

parts of the music that i noticed were good. the instructor was pleasant.

workout includes a warm-up and cooldown. 45 mins long. some nice light exercise.

On cardio work, I am an intermediate exerciser who is playing with advanced choreography. With strength work, I am an intermediate exerciser, who doesn’t really want to move up to advanced work. I have really enjoyed getting into workouts on the ball as an alternative to traditional strength training and Pilates.

When I first started trying to find good ball workouts for me, I hit on this DVD. It was a good workout for me for awhile as I got used to working on the ball and because it had a good combination of moves for me. I have arthritis and the worst joints in my body are the hands and wrists, so many good ball workouts don’t work for me because of all the moves that require the exerciser to support themselves on their hands and wrists for a long time.

The standard Dummies icons pop up throughout the workout, but I manage to ignore them most of the time. If you have a low threshold for boinging icons popping up to give basic info, you will NOT like this workout.

Liz Gilles give good form pointers and explanations on how to do the moves. For a long time, I enjoyed hearing how to do the moves. However, after a time, I got tired of all the explanation. She explains well though and is encouraging while doing so.

I felt like the lower body moves worked me out well. The upper body moves were pretty useless to me. The abs moves were good and fine, but I do many, many crunches on the ball on my own, so they didn’t seem like enough for me. If she just would add 200 more abs moves and/or crunches, it would be the ab workout on the ball! (smile)

Overall, I recommend this workout to beginners and maybe low intermediates on the ball. Anyone who is into innovation or really hard ball workouts will not enjoy this workout.

This is a nice beginner workout using the stability ball. It has very good instruction and gives good pointers on using a ball. It demonstrates how to use the ball for a variety of exercises and if you do the entire workout you will work most body parts, but only for a short period of time.

The workout is about 44 minutes total if you start at the warm-up and go through the cool-down stretch. The format:

~ Warm-up: 4 min

~ Lower Body: 16 minutes (Seated Leg Extension, Front Lunge, Side Lunge, Side Leg Lift, Hip Swing, Pelvic Lift)

~ Upper Body: 10 minutes (Overhead Press, Bicep Curls, Tricep Extensions, Chest Fly)

~ Abs/Back: 8 minutes (C-Curve Scoop, Ball Crunch, Oblique Saw, Back Extensions)

~ Push -Ups: 2 sets

~ Cool Down Stretch: 5 minutes

This workout uses very traditional exercises and is not as innovative or difficult as other Ball workouts I have tried. I enjoyed using it a few times, but I do not see myself keeping this for very long, because it is not very interesting or challenging. I do like the ab work, but it is also very traditional, and I could really just adapt any ab workout to use the ball. I generally like no weight leg workouts, but the leg work (with the exception of the pelvic lift) did not feel like it worked me at all. The upper body work was fine, but very short. I can appreciate short upper body workouts (like on the Quick Fix Ball workout or some of the recent Firms), but this did not feel very effective to me. You get a few sets of 8 for each body part.

As is standard for the Dummies workouts, it seems that a little too much time is spent explaining the moves. This is great the first time through, and nice to have as a reference, but it makes using this as a regular workout a little less appealing. I would prefer if you had the option on the DVD to skip the instruction.

I would recommend this workout to beginners, someone new to ball workouts, or to someone who could appreciate a very straightforward ball workout without much innovation. It is definitely a quality workout, but it would not be my first choice for an advanced exerciser.