Works for me Wednesday- Fitball

When I was pregnant with my fifth baby, I took out the measuring tape in my ninth month to see how big around I was! My waist line one week before my daughter’s birth was over 50 inches! I was huge. It didn’t help then that she was born by emergency C-section.

Months later after attending Jazzercise classes regularly I was seeing a lot of progress in my weight loss, and some progress in regaining my waistline, but it sure seemed to take a lot of crunches for me to get slow results! Then I happened to read an article in my local newspaper about fitness balls. The article said that they had scientifically proven that abdominal exercises using a Fitness ball were more effective in engaging the abodminal muscles than crunches and other ab exercises done on the floor. That intrigued me!

So I bought a fitness ball and I did the exercises that came with the ball. Sure enough I felt my abdminal muscles engaged a lot more than just with regular crunches. They have to be because you are literally using those muscles to keep from falling off of the ball and hurting yourself!

I quickly outgrew that exercise tape though and sort of put my ball away until I found this tape: FitBall – The Lower Body Challenge
Also see their web site.

I love doing this tape. It is fun, mentally challenging, and it gives you really feel that you have worked the muscles in your abs, butt and lower body when you’ve finished.

Recently my 11-year-old wanted to start working towards “six-pack abs” and I suggested he try the tape. He grabbed the ball, and kept saying how “easy” it was, and he sort of laughed his way through it. The next morning though, the ole Gabester was singing a different tune as abs were letting him know that they went for the burn! He’s doing it again today though! I think my 14-year-old is intrigued enough to try it this week too.

My only caveat would be that I would not try this immediately after recovering from a C-section or other abdominal surgery, or if you are brand new to exercise. I stupidly thought I would do this two years ago after Rosie’s Cesarean birth and I couldn’t for even five minutes. Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s my age, or maybe it’s because that was my sixth full term baby and third C-section, but I just could not handle it right away and had to start more slowly with the Firm tapes first.

But if you’ve been exercising and want to try some more challenge and fun – this might be for your! Works for me!

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