Stability Ball Abdominal Crunches

Series Summary

Many people want to lose weight, and despite claims for quick fat burning pills and powders, the best way to lose weight is still through proper diet and exercise. Exercise does more than just maintain physical fitness though. Working out can also help build healthy bone density, muscle strength, and joint mobility. It can also reduce your general health risks, boost the immune system, and help with depression and insomnia. Whether your reason for exercising is to lose weight, or improve muscle mass, working out is always a good idea to help promote the health of your body and mind.

In this free video series, learn how to maximize your ab workout with a stability ball. A stability ball really helps you tone and strengthen your core muscles. Our personal trainer, Sue Conrad, shows you everything you need to know to have a safe and productive workout. Learn how to do crunches on the stability ball. Also, learn how to work your arms and lower back. Sue has all kinds of ab exercise variations. So, what are you waiting for? Find the inner-kid, and start playing with balls again. You will be surprised at how well the stability ball will tone your abs.

Video Transcript

"Okay, in this clip we are going to be doing crunches on the stability ball. Now you have several options as far as the stability ball goes so there are many different name brands out there. Okay, you want to roll forward. Okay, keep your back fully supported, knees bent at a ninety degrees, hands behind the head. Now, the most important thing with this one is to watch your back so do not bring your body up any higher than what is comfortable. Just bring it up high enough to where the abs contract. Hands behind the head exhale up. You will see I am not coming up very far, but I can surely feel those abs start to burn. Okay, exhale up and inhale down. Exhale up, tighten up those abs, and then relax down. One of the mistakes that a lot of people do when they do this exercise is they do it way too quickly and they use their back muscles more than their abdominal muscles. Of course there are many different ways to do this exercise. If you have balance issues you can put your knees and your toes against the wall or just the toes to provide a little bit of extra balance. Squeeze up. Now, when you come back down in the relaxation phase you want to keep your back nice and straight. A lot of people roll back like this which is wrong, you are going to hurt your back and you are actually using more momentum than muscle when you are doing this abdominal exercise. So I am going to come back nice and flat, crunch forward, exhale, and then relax."