I got these off the TV informercial and liked the idea of working out completely on or with a stability ball. It looked interesting to have to work core muscles while doing biceps curls or quad extensions. Having just done this one (FBW) and its companion (the 45 minute long) Accelerated Core Training (ACT), I wanted to get some thoughts down.

First off I like Gunnar Peterson, the developer and instructor of these workouts. He’s like a more mature version of Tony Horton of P90X, motivating, but not annoyingly so. His demeanor is calm, but enthusiastic. You can tell he believes in this program.

Gunnar’s wearing a rather baggy shirt and loose, long pants…nothing form fitting…I like this difference in attire. He’s accompanied by four lovely, young ladies wearing long pants and green tank tops. One girl, Michelle, on our left (his right) is the modifier and Gunnar calls her modifiers to your attention frequently, which is good. He tells you these ladies are really working hard which is also appreciated.
The setting is a bright, airy room with muted colors and what appear to be large windows looking over what I think is supposed to be a coastal city in CA…it looks nice anyway. The music is pleasant, low key.

The workouts are deceptively easy. Gunnar uses the ball in every exercise, whether you’re sitting or laying on it, holding it overhead or to the front with hands or feet. He also does a lot of moves with only one side at a time, forcing you to struggle to maintain balance on that ball. For example, side delt lifts are one arm at a time. About the only exercise that wasn’t a real challenge was the biceps curlsJ He does pec lifts one arm at a time and you fight to keep your balance the whole way through…if you were lifting both arms at the same time, it might be easier.

In the 25 minute FBW you do pushups while balanced with your belly on the ball, in the longer ACT you do them with your hands on the ball. This is tricky because the ball wants to roll away from you as you’re pushing on it. But Gunnar does them with hands on the ball and on his toes…I was impressed and humbled. There’s a core move where you lie on your back, knees bent and feet flat on the floor, arms over head, holding the ball. You curl up, upper and lower body passing the ball from hands to your feet, lower down and then everything back up and the ball passed back to hands. I felt this in my mid-section and inner thighs.

Another core routine has you sitting up, but actually curved back a little, with your abs “hollowed out”. You hold the ball in your hands, knees bent a little. Then you start rotating from side to side, tapping the floor with the ball with each turn. Someone mentioned using a medicine ball and I bet it was for this exercise…I can see how that would make it more challenging. Gunnar also has you doing lunges forward, to the side and then twisting around to the back while holding the ball in front of you. Not a lot of weight, but you do have your arms stretched out holding the ball and that makes the lunges tougher.

You never do a lot of reps and I used my 5# dumbbells. I have no idea what Gunnar and the ladies were using, but I think they were more than 5#. Still there are so many muscles working besides the targeted muscles, I guess it’s a mercy he doesn’t do a lot of repsJ

I would classify these as instructionals, because you’re really learning a lot as you go along and Gunnar takes time to teach before each exercise. As I gain confidence working on the ball, I think it could become more advanced or at least intermediate

Lydia Jasper