Ok I had promised to tell you all about my Stability Ball exploits for some time now (think back to my Wonder Woman blog) and I'm in a blogging kind of mood, so figured I'd put up a few tonight. Anywho if you're one of my readers read on.
I was introduced to the stability ball early on in my weight loss/getting fit quest. Now let me start by saying I'm not generally a gadget kinda gal when it comes to fitness. I've watched friends spend a zillion dollars on "all natural" weight loss pills. Pills that in essence were just laxatives that you took in bulk. Watched them get the thighmaster, the bean, all these contraptions that promise to trim the fat. Those things usually draw people in but not me. I'd rather spend my money on other things. Thankfully my apartment is too small to have a collection of dust collectors.
Something was different about the ball. It seemed innocent enough and according to my friend, gave you a whole new level of workout doing crunches on it. Also didn't claim to take the place of good ol fashioned cardio, it was something to add to it.
Hopefully you've learned the true secret to weight loss by now, but just in case you're still in the dark.....I've done lots of research about this and have learned what all the buff people have known all along. Weight loss is simply a calories out should be greater than calories in magic. You should burn off more than you eat. Now that might be revelation (a rhema word, for all you sanctified, holy ghost filled sisters and brothers) for some of you. Some of you are now holding your heart in shock, aghast at the thousands of dollars you've spent on boomerangs between your thighs supposedly melting fat, beans you balance on burning layers of stomach, etc.
Another gem for you?..............you cannot spot reduce. (Take a moment to praise dance for all of the revelations the Lord has blessed you with this evening) The only way to lose fat anywhere is to burn it off through cardio. Crunch all you want, but if all you're doing is doing a zillion crunches everyday, you're building nice muscle (and getting a nice back strain) under layers of fat. Once you get with the "in the know" buff folks, you'll realize that sweating it out with aerobics, kickboxing, walking/running, etc are the all around cardio ways to lose fat. Trick is your body seemingly loses the fat in the place you want it to leave most, last. For me its the gut.
Unfortunately so far I've lost my booty (of which I was cheated of in the first place) legs (another scarce part to begin with) first. Its taken months and now I'm noticing that I'm losing in other more pressing places, like my gut and my face
Getting back to the ball, I figured I'd give it a try to switch up my routine. Crunches on the floor are a bit boring. I felt that moving from 25 to 50 crunches (start clapping now, the Lord is obviously making a way out of no way) gave me a boost in fitness prowess that told me that surely I should up the game by doing crunches perched on a ball.
Herein lies the problem. The makers of the stability ball lied in one major way. It wasn't a lie I noticed right off the bat as I excitedly borrowed one from a friend, and blew it up with the air pump. I researched for an hour online for stability ball exercises to work various parts of my body. I did my 30 minute cardio, all the while glancing lovingly over at the stability ball every few minutes, excited at the thought of closing it all out with the crunches on it, and calling it a ultra mega fun fitness day. The lie was there in my face, but my excitement at its sleekness, a tall round sleek black firmness was calling my name. I dashed excitedly over to it, grabbing my weights and reasearch papers and sat down on my ball of stability.
Are you noticing where I'm going with this yet? No not yet? (Not the sharpest tack in the bunch are we?) lol, anyway let me move on. I was eager to try all the varying ab work you could do the the ball, basic crunches lying on my back, planks with the ball under my arms, etc. I was anxious to dive ahead and try some of the more advanced moves, but decided to take the proper route and start with the basics.
First move. Sit on the ball with feet planted on the floor. Slide down until the stability ball is under your back and begin to lift your torso away from the ball.
Sounds simple doesn't it? I had faith and trust in that ball, confident that I would impress myself with my prowess. Funny how trusting one can be in plastic. Never did I think that perhaps there was a lie there, after all the name alone should have clued me to something I wasn't aware of.
The STABILITY BALL. It is a ball, round etc. meeting all of the geometric requirements that cause it to be called a ball. Think about all of the balls you've known. They all are round, some are big and some are small, but there's one thing that is common to all. They roll! Now think of my ball. Think of me sitting on the ball in that First move position. Now think of the laws of the ball, and the laws of gravity.
Now if you can't guess what happened here, I suggest you do yourself a favor and re-enroll in Kindergarten because I can't make it any more plain.
Needless to say the lie of course is that there is nothing stable about perching onself in ANY position on a ball. Balls roll, they slip, they move, especially when they have X amount of pounds of a human trying to sit and move on them. I tried many moves, for it took me quite some time into my workout to fully comprehend that I had been lied about its STABILITY. I tried crunches, fell off. Planks, fell off. I even tried reverse crunches .....Some idiot move where you balance yourself on the ball and have the audacity to lift your legs off the floor, (your last bit of attachment to staying off the floor lies in having your feet firmly planted on the floor) and fell off.
That one was a slow moving neck about to be broken sliding to my death on the floor almost hitting my head on my weights wondering about my life's purpose and what could have been type of scenario backwards off this supposed ball of stability.
I don't blame the ball itself. After all a ball knows its true purpose. To be tossed between two loving friends on the playground, falling through a net hoop on the court, flying over a volleyball net, etc. I suppose the makers of this wrongly named ball of stability, are laughing all the way to the bank. Probably because there are others like me, who have spent their money on an object that someone decided should be brought into the fitness world. Things are made for a purpose and they had no right to take a innocent ball, turn into into a fitness gadget and have it endure the severe tongue lashing I gave it while sqeezing my butt muscles on it in a grip of death. After all I can only blame myself. Thinking that my own two feet don't give me stability sometimes, why would I think that a round slippery ball would allow me to do the same is simply silly.
I've learned something about that experience. All I ever want to do again with a ball, stability or otherwise named is play catch!!
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