Trainer K showed me a new friend today. Oh how I use to hate those lunges. Now they are the love of my life compared to the  *gulp* stability ball! I hate it! My abs are on fire and I really want someone to put them out for me. Please? When she said, “Ab workout.” OK. Then she said, “We will get a whole body workout from this.” Again, OK. She showed me the ball, I was ready to go. How stupid the newbie is.

I didn’t think anything of it. Never used a stability ball before. Remember, no clue about working out. I should have that made into a tattoo on my forehead. Back to the story. To me the ball was plastic filled with air; a bundle of bouncing joy to help me get into shape. Well, maybe next month it might be a happy bundle, but today, oh no, it was torture.

It was a total body workout. You literally have to use your entire core and concentration to keep yourself on the ball. I rolled a few times, not off, but around. The power needed in your legs - thighs and butt - to keep you in one location and then using your core to keep you on the ball; that alone helped me sweat enough to keep me good for exercise until next week. Unfortunately, Trainer K didn’t let me off that easy. She threw in the ab workout too!

Now, today wasn’t about reps. It was all timed. So, normally abs are say 3 sets of 25. Not today. Today, I did 3 sets, but each one minute long with a rest in between. So, instead of 75 total, it was up to around 150 or something like that. Upper abs, lower abs, obliques, oh my! And not just one form of crunch for upper abs, oh no, there were like four versions for each: upper, lower, and obliques. Oh yes, oh my.

Then of course we had to throw in some thighs and butt into just staying on the ball while trying to crunch. Boy, I can tell this is a technique I am going to have to master, and soon. Trainer K plans to make the stability ball my friend. When that happens, it means I am going to be using it almost EVERY session. Happiness is just poring out of me, can’t ya tell?

Now, I get to look forward to waking up tomorrow in pain and kickboxing on Saturday. Wish me luck!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Training Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.