Swiss Ball Exercises For Lower Back Pain

Swiss Ball Exercises For Lower Back Pain
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Sam_Visnic]Sam Visnic

You see them every time you go to the gym, either sitting in the corner, or under someone rolling around on them. It seems to be a strong trend these days to exercise on swiss balls, but, can the swiss ball help you with your lower back pain?

The swiss ball is an excellent tool in the war to end back pain. Why? There are many outcomes that may be accomplished while using it, and through its use, provides one of the most important ingredients to postural correction. Here are just a few ways using a swiss ball can help you with your back pain:

1. Increase your body awareness: While its easy to just "zone out" while performing exercises on machines or other stable pieces of equipment in the gym, you can't do this on a swiss ball, and if you do, you'll spend more time on the floor than on the ball! Learning body awareness is a key ingredient to eliminating back pain. Connecting with your body and paying attention to how slight changes in body position, how your muscles feel and function, and what areas may be tight or weak, can provide a wealth of information on how to get out of pain, and keep it that way!

2. Improve your stability and balance: Using a swiss ball enables your body to turn on many small "stabilizer muscles" that may have been dysfunctional or weak as a result of having back pain. This is due mostly to the fact that it requires more attention while exercising on an unstable environment in order to stay balanced. The more unstable the environment, the more your spinal stabilizers need to activate.

3. Work your body as a whole: Postural imbalances that result in lower back pain come in groups, not in isolation, therefore, it may be best to train your body as a whole, rather than isolating muscle groups too much. The swiss ball is an ideal tool for full body, bodyweight exercises. It requires little to no other equipment, and provides a full range of motion for back pain stretches and exercises.

4. Have fun while you exercise: This is a very important factor to include. Lets fae it, doing the same exercises and stretches all the time can be boring. Using the swiss ball can spice up your back pain relief program, and give you the flexibility to create variations and mix it up a bit. Make it fun to do, and you'll find yourself doing your program more often!

Now as you have read, the swiss ball is a very versatile tool, and should be used by anyone who wants to get optimal results in their back pain relief efforts.

Sam Visnic is a Neuromuscular Therapist, Nutrition Coach, and certified NLP Practitioner who specializes in providing safe and effective corrective exercise solutions for back pain sufferers. Sam is the developer of the "End Your Back Pain Now!" system. For his free special reports, articles, and newsletter, visit http://www.EndMyBackPain.com

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Can Swiss Ball Exercises Burn Off Love Handles

Can Swiss Ball Exercises Burn Off Love Handles
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Scott_Thrall]Scott Thrall

The Swiss Ball is also known as the balance ball, exercise ball, gym ball or fitness ball. Swiss balls have been around in the rehabilitation and physical therapy settings for a long time. They are however relatively new to the fitness world. Use of the Swiss ball in your exercise routine, when used correctly, is safe, highly effective and fun.

Swiss balls are inexpensive, portable, versatile and powerful. They are extremely helpful to you for losing love handles and developing a firm well-defined midsection. In 2000, a study by Vera-Garcia and colleagues showed the Swiss ball improved the effectiveness of the crunch in burning off love handles by four times, saying: "Performing the curl over the gym ball with the feet on the floor doubled activity in the rectus abdominus muscle, and activity in the external oblique muscle increased approximately fourfold."

Another love handle exercise with the Swiss ball is a reverse crunch. To perform this you lay face down across the ball, your arms and hands in a push up position on the floor and the ball under your knees. Keep your back straight. Suck in your stomach, push your knees into the ball and draw them up toward your chest. Hold this tucked position for three or four breaths then extend to the starting position. Remember to move slowly and deliberately. Keep your back straight. Start out with 5 repetitions, increase to 10 to 15 as you get stronger.

There are dozens of abdominal and love handle exercises that can be done with the Swiss ball. They are extremely effective. But most important they are fun, which we know will help us keep up with this part of our quest to burn those love handles and improve our total fitness.

For a free report on how to fight stubborn fat effectively visit http://www.how-to-lose-love-handles.com

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