Best Ball Exercises for Women
The best ball exercises for women are those that are easy on our joints and work to flatten our tummy and tone our muscles.
As women, we all want that flat tummy and long lean toned arms and legs.
Pilates exercises on the mat are a great way to exercise, but why not add a bit more challenge to your core and muscles.
Why not try some fun ball exercises at home based on Pilates principles that will do just that!
Sample Ball Exercises for Women:
The Oblique Side Lift over the ball is a great exercise to strengthen the sides of the back, or oblique muscles at the waist.
This exercise is helpful to support the back for twisting movements.
- Begin lying on your side on the ball as shown with your hips and shoulders stacked and legs long.
- Place your hands behind your head and keep your elbows wide.
- Inhale as you extend up off the ball lifting your ribs up.
- Exhale as you slowly lower back down.
- Repeat for 6-8 repetitions on each side.
The Hip Lift on the workout ball with a hamstring curl is very challenging.
It not only works the abs in front, but also gets into the hamstrings in the back of your legs for a nice toned bottom and thighs.
- Begin lying on your back with heels on top of the ball.
- Lift your hips by pressing into the ball.
- Exhale as you bend your legs pulling or dragging the ball towards your bottom.
- Stay lifted and repeat as many as you can do up to 12 repetitions.
- Lower and then repeat a second set.
The Exercise Ball Pushup is one of my favorite ways to strengthen my core muscles and tone my arms and upper back. It's a full upper body workout in itself!
- Begin on your stomach and walk yourself out to your thighs with your hands under the shoulders as shown, in a plank position.
- Bend your arms lowering your chest down between your hands, your legs will tip up like a teeter totter in the back.
- Exhale as you press back up.
- Walk out further to make these harder or in closer to the pelvis for more ease.
- As you bend your arms allow the elbows to reach back instead of out for more tricep and upper back work.
- Repeat this exercise with ball for as many as you can do 2 sets.
This Workout Ball Back Extension Exercise is a great way to work on balancing both sides of the spine and strengthening the deep spinal extensors.
- Begin lying belly on ball, find your balance with feet down and hands under your shoulders.
- Inhale as you extend one leg up and parallel to the ground, once balanced extend the opposite arm away.
- Exhale come back to the center and repeat on the other side.
- Repeat for 6-8 repetitions each side.
- Think length from the core not height!
Find more ball exercises for women of all ages at my exercise ball tips pages.
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