The Fitness Ball Deck

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50 Exercises for Toning, Balance, and Building Core Strength
By Olivia H. Miller with Pugga Routhier, Fitness Consultant
Illustrations by Nicole Kaufman
Published by Chronicle Books, Fall 2005

You see them at the gym. You see them in the store. Maybe you even own one of those large exercise balls and don't know what to do with it. THE FITNESS BALL DECK will show you how this versatile and effective tool can tone and strengthen your abdominal, pelvic and back muscles (known as the core stabilizers) to help increase strength and improve balance. Physical therapists have long used these exercise balls with clients suffering from chronic knee, back and hip injuries and the balls have now rolled into the mainstream as an effective way to get stronger, healthier and more physically fit.

Countless exercises - done from seated, standing, leaning, side, prone (on the stomach) and supine (on the back) positions - may be incorporated into a fitness ball routine. Many of the exercises have, in fact, been adapted from traditional workouts: abdominal crunches, push-ups, squats, tricep and bicep curls. The difference and challenge lie in the fact that the ball is unstable; in order to keep the ball under you, core stabilizer muscles must be engaged and you have to sit up straight. Simply sitting on the ball will result in improved posture, stronger muscles and better balance.

The Fitness Ball Deck includes 5 warm-ups and 45 exercise cards, plus an anatomy card for reference. The exercises work the major muscle groups: lower body, upper back, shoulders, chest, arms, lower back and abdominals. The front of each card features an illustration of how to do the exercise and the reverse side has simple bulleted instructions and a list of the physical benefits. Pick and choose the cards you want in order to target different areas during your workouts. Go ahead... get on the ball!