Get On The Ball

This is a good intermediate weight workout, for Resist A Balls. This video is available through Spri. It starts out with a nice warmup, that really loosens up tight muscles in the upper body. It starts out with upbeat music, then goes into more of a caribbean style sound. They are outside, on a Northwest Florida beach. After the warmup, there's ab work, on top of the ball. Then down to the floor with some oblique and lower ab routines. I was expecting a little more, but it was still very good. There was a stretch inbetween segments, and half of the stretch was cut out. That was the only editing mistake I found. Then back exercises for both lower back laying on the ball. Then upper back, which includes weights. I really liked one while lying on your back on the ball, you do an over head pulldown. The next exercises are pec flies and presses. The next segment was pushups 2 sets, with your thighs on the ball. Next were front delt raises, then lateral delt raises. Also, before in part of the back work, was rear delt raises. The back work was a lot more comfortable leaning over the ball, than bending over a tall box or sitting on one leaning over.

Some good tricep work, by laying with your back and head supported by the ball. Biceps were ordinary. For the lower body, there were only 2 exercises. I was dissapointed in that. I liked the front quad extensions, and used ankle weights. For the hamstrings, you lie over the ball, and do what some refer to as donkey kicks. I wish they would have included the popular ball exercise, where you lie on the floor and dig your heels into the ball and bring the ball in, or some sort of bridge pose. Hard to explain. I was expecting more. After the stretch, and it was well done, Mike goes into proper alignment. At the end of his talk, he has Stephanie demonstrate the exercise I wanted them to include in the routine, as long as a couple others they didn't do. I wish they just would have put them in the workout, rather than point out others in the ending talk. I'd still recommend this workout to anyone who would like a good ball video with weights. It wasn't challenging enough for an advanced person, but in my opinion, much better than Xtreme Strength on the ball (which I had problems with pushing my foot hooked under my step clear across the room, as I was rolling off my ball!)

Instructor Comments:
Stephanie is the instructor during the aerobics, and has a great muscle definition. She is very clear on the exercise. Mike talks about proper your body core a little in the beginning, but goes into detail in the end. He has excellent form pointers.

Lorrie Gigler