Angry Balls III - I haven't made fun of swiss ball exercises in awhile...

So as I arrived at the gym I got to witness Shannon (the kick-ass amazing woman who I blogged about training with awhile back who has been kicking ASS!!) experiencing Mike's humiliation that is making clients do stuff on Swiss Balls. I have to be honest it made me feel better about how often I fall off the ball...At least I'm not the only one.


Then when Heather arrived for our sessions she "wanted to do ab's" Thank Heather... Thanks. I'm SOO glad you're my partner. I LOOOOOVE doing core work. Ok seriously core work is super good for me but I SUCK at it, which is why I need it.


Mike decided to start us on some push-up/plank exercises and I whined, like a baby, repeatedly, so after one series of those (3 sets each of 2 exercises - I'm not a total wuss) we shifted to something I'm much more comfortable with: balls, swiss balls.


We did some old favorites likes the "Dead Bugs" and "Use you feet to bring balls to your butt" aka Hamstring curls.


Then we did some newer ones:


"Banging Bugs"

This is where you start out in a plank with you feet on the ball and then pull them in to your chest. If you are Heather you get to do a push-up in-between also. If you are me you just try not to fall of the ball. The nice thing is you get to be in the fetal position as part of each rep. so when you cry no one can tell.

"Sistine Chapel Creation of Adam ... aka avoiding Reamus... aka Don't Ever Let Go Heather". - Roll out on the ball and then crab walk side to side and try not to fall off the ball. Keep you pelvis up... avoid getting banged (wait isn't that the antithesis of banging training!?!) It's a good thing we didn't do these looking at each other like in the pictures cause we laughed so hard taking the pictures we'd have never finished.

Don't Ever Let Go

You let go...

"Use ONE foot to bring balls to your butt" aka one legged Hamstring curls. Just when I could finally pretend to do them with 2 feet on the ball Mike makes us do them with one. Note in the picture how I'm demonstrating the start position while Heather demonstrates the end position.


I do want to put up a photo comparison cause Heather looks bomb in this weeks hamstring curl pic vs. the last hamstring curl pic. I'd bang that (though she's always bangable)

new pic

Old pic

I have to say that seeing Shannon fall off a swiss ball a few times during her session made me feel a whole lot better about how ridiculous I look every time we do core work on the swiss balls. Part of me loves them, part of me hates them and a third part is pretty sure they are just an excuse for Mike to make us look ridiculous. At the end of the day my core always gets a good workout even if part of that is directly due to laughing so much at my awesomeness.