There is a large variety of exercise ball workout routines, ranging between the back, chest, shoulders and abs muscle groups. When using an exercise ball, the degree of difficulty of the exercise is magnified as your body and muscles work harder on the unstable surface. This in return gives you a higher quality workout in terms of recruiting muscle and losing those extra pounds. As some say, more bang for your buck!

Compound exercises are the most effective, so I have listed a few compound exercises per muscle group for variety purposes. Most of these exercises can be done with 2-4 sets of 8-12 repetitions.

Compound chest/shoulder workout for an exercise ball

Dumbbell press on a swiss ball – similar to a bench press, you do this exercise with dumbbells on a gym ball. As always with all these exercises, controlled and good technique is the key.

Shoulder/Seated military press – while sitting on a swiss ball, push your arms straight up and slowly return the weight towards your shoulders.

Compound Triceps exercise

Dumbbell triceps extension on an exercise ball – shoulders flat on the ball. Similar to a dumbbell press, hold the dumbbells above your head and extend your elbows backwards, then come back to the original position.

Abs

Forward ball roll – In a kneeling position, wrist on the ball, hands together. You start by rolling forward, extending yourself as much as possible, keeping the arms straight, then return back to the kneeling position.

Plank on a swiss ball – just like a normal plank exercise, but in this you rest your forearms on a swiss ball. Make sure your shoulders, back and legs are as straight as possible while holding those abs in. If you can hold this position for 1-2 minutes, you’re on your way to getting firm abs.

While people are constantly searching for the perfect workout routine to stay in shape or lose those extra pounds, they neglect what actually makes the muscles grow. So when people see no results after doing the same strength training routines over and over, they ask themselves “Why am I not progressing?”.

Routines – the enemy in strength training

The reason why is that their body has already adapted to the stress of the exercise. It’s like a rat running on a ferris wheel going nowhere fast! That’s what happens to the body once it’s not stressed to a new stimuli.

The training plateau effect

The same old workout routine leads to a plateau. The plateau is when you see no more improvements in your workout results. It’s an important signal for a change in your current workout. This will lead you in having to modify your training program with new exercise/movements that will help kick start again your next level of progress. The only way to constantly improve is when you rotate exercise routines for the each muscle group and also changing your routine every 4-6 weeks. Your body won’t be able to get used to executing the same movement which leads to faster gains.

For example let’s take a leg workout. If you have squats and you have hit a plateau in weight, then you change that exercise for the deadlift until you stop improving. Then you move onto lunges and so on. This way you keep the body guessing, thus making it easier to build muscle and lose fat more effectively.

Muscle growth doesn’t start at the gym. It’s done during the recuperation phase with the right amount of rest and nutrition. You must get the right amounts of proteins, vitamins and minerals from foods and avoid the so called empty calories foods which lack those important essentials that help muscle growth while your body is recovering.

You must incorporate the big exercises into your program such as squatting, bending, pulling, pushing, lunging & twisting. A simple plan is to create a circuit program with 4-5 exercises, doing 2-4 sets at 10 reps, with rest of 60-90 seconds after each circuit. Always start with the exercise that’s the most challenging and break it down to the least challenging. By following this formula, fatigue and loss of form won’t be a factor once you’re finishing the circuit with the less challenging exercises.

Points to remember:

• Always change your routine for the best results. Once you max out in lifting a weight or find a routine too easy then change it!
• Pick big compound exercises! Compound exercises are movements that use more than one joint. As some say, compound exercises are the biggest muscle builders.
• Choose free weights such as dumbbells, barbells, also cable machines and bodyweight exercises. Modern machine equipment isolate your muscles too much then doing big compound exercises. Most effective exercises for muscle growth and increasing your metabolism are compound exercises.

Well, for starters, lets look at the muscular skeletal aspect. Your muscles, when not properly engaged in vigorous exercise, start to atrophy and become weaker without regular activity. All of that affects your body’s capacity to work efficiently. This in turn translates to the bones as well as they’re not getting enough physical activity to keep them strong and this eventually weakens them, leading to osteoporosis in older people. That’s why resistance training is important, not only in your younger years, but also as you age and aim to sustain strength in your bones. It’s never too late to start exercise and the benefits for you are immense, allowing you to have a better quality of life.

Without exercise your cardiovascular system is diminished, especially your heart and lungs. You can greatly improve them with a proper set of exercises. Remember that your heart is a muscle, so the stronger it is the more blood it can circulate through the body, thus keeping you healthy just the way the human body was designed to do. Also via exercise you eliminate toxins from your body by sweating. So, the more we move, the more toxins are flushed out of our bodies. The less we exercise or move, the more toxins are stored in the body. Take exercise as an investment for better health and saving your medical bills down the road.

Exercise is one of the key tools along with good sensible eating habits in sustaining or losing weight. Without it, we have seen whole populations become overweight through the years, accompanied with easy access to processed, junk foods and bad eating habits. This is leading to higher medical bills and earlier deaths. Some of these death may have been prevented with simple regular exercise and proper food education.

Those are a few reasons why exercise should be a part of your life just like breathing, eating and drinking, all of which is fundamental for a healthy life. It becomes quite obvious what happens to the body if you don’t exercise. Last, but not least, I quote a gentlemen who is a legend in the fitness/nutrition industry. Jack Lalanne, who at 94 years old still workouts 2 hours a day!

“Yes, exercise is the catalyst. That’s what makes everything happen: your digestion, your elimination, your sex life, your skin, hair, everything about you depends on circulation. And how do you increase circulation?” – Jack Lalanne.