Stability Ball Exercise Progressions for Building Muscle and Core Strength
Stability Ball Exercise Progressions for Building Muscle and Core Strength
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Home Page > Sports and Fitness > Muscle Building > Stability Ball Exercise Progressions for Building Muscle and Core Strength
Stability Ball Exercise Progressions for Building Muscle and Core Strength
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Posted: Jan 03, 2009 |Comments: 0
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Stability Ball Exercise Progressions for Building Muscle and Core Strength
By: Nick Tumminello
About the Author
The director of Performance University, Nick Tumminello is a highly sought after coach and educator in the field of human performance enhancement. He is the developer of the Core Bar™ and has authored numerous best selling DVD’s which can be purchased at www.PerformanceU.net .
Nick also serves as the Strength & Conditioning Coach for Team Ground Control MMA. Nick lives in Baltimore MD where he regularly trains his athletes.
(ArticlesBase SC #706895)
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – Stability Ball Exercise Progressions for Building Muscle and Core Strength
After my article Stick Your Neck Out was published; I surprisingly caught some flack from the “hardcore” types just because I showed a stability ball being used in a few of the exercise applications.
Since I’m not emotionally attached to any one piece of equipment or style of training, I was not upset in the least about this. However, it did make me realize how misunderstood the Swiss ball is within the “hardcore strength” community.
So, in light of this realization, I’m stepping up to set the record straight once and for all about Swiss balls and how they should and shouldn’t be utilized in and effective strength program.
Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game
My friend and colleague Coach Rob Simonelli brought up an interesting point when he and I were discussing this article and why serious weight lifters dislike Swiss balls. Rob said “What serious lifters don’t understand is that it’s not so much that they dislike Swiss balls, it’s that they dislike what Swiss Balls represent”.
He was absolutely right. Hardcore weightlifters have made Swiss balls guilty by association just because there are a bunch of “functional trainers” out there doing some seriously ridiculous stuff on them.
This doesn’t mean that Swiss balls can’t be use for stuff that actually has value.
To all you Swiss ball haters out there, I want you to ask yourself one question; “Am I blaming the tool or the practitioner?”
I think you will realize that myself and Rob and are correct in saying that, the Swiss ball, like everything else in the gym is just a tool. One that can be used or abused depending on whose hands it’s in. Just because there are people out there abusing a certain tool doesn’t mean we should throw it out of the tool box all together. If that were the case, we wouldn’t use any equipment at all judging by what I’ve seen done with barbells and dumbbells these days.
Now let’s get one thing clear, the title of this article is not called “Swiss Ball Exercises that You Need to Do Everyday or Else Your Will Go to Pot”. The exercises shown in this article are in no way a necessity, they are just other options to challenge your body in a positive manner and compliment your “core” lifts.
In other words, they are just tools in the tool box.
You just have to know when to use the tools you’ve got.
When Instability and Strength is Actually Good
Recently, I got to attend one of my friend Eric Cressey’s classes on training the overhead athlete. During his workshop, Eric made a great point that I feel is relevant to this article. He said that although it has been found that unstable surface training for the lower body has been found to be ineffective and in some cases even counterproductive for healthy individuals, instability training for the upper body may actually be beneficial. Eric went on to explain that it all has to do with the fact that the lower body predominantly functions in a close chained (both feet in contact with the ground) manner that does not normally involve the ground moving underneath it. However, the upper body functions in more of an open chained (no ground or solid surface contact) manner with things more likely to move and change position.
This makes a lot of sense if you think of a football lineman blocking a pass rusher. The lineman’s feet are dealing with a flat and stable ground while his upper body is all over place dealing with another body moving in every which way trying to get around him.
Now that I have hopefully changed your mind about the Swiss ball, I’m going to provide you a list of exercises using the Swiss ball that we have found to be beneficial to our clients, athletes and physique competitors.
a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”http://www.performanceu.net/article05.html”>Click here to view pictures and videos of all the exercises described below.
The Exercises
Y,T,W, L Shoulder Circuit w/Swiss Ball
