What is it for?
Like any press up exercise this one is primarily for the chest muscles (pectorails major – Beeble) focusing on the lower portion of the muscle. It also works the triceps and your core muscles (the stomach, back and hip joints – Beeble). So why use the ball? We use the ball to add uncertainty and balance to the exercise. This makes the press up exercise far harder and involves more muscles. It works your chest and triceps more by being that more difficult. It works your core far harder than a standard press up due to the 360 degree movement from the ball. Finally it works your shoulders which are recruited as stabilisers against the ball’s desire to move away from you.
…and only for the experienced
I was training myself in the gym the other day and the usual banter was circulating around the gym. There was also the usual bad advice from untrained people trying to help others achieve their goals. Anyway, one such piece of advice was kindly given to a young man suffering back pain. The useful but also highly dangerous advice was to perform back raises to fix the pain. This shocked me as the helpful person, who we will refer to as John, is not qualified to give advice and carried out no tests or questioning to try and find out what the pain was being caused by.
After window shopping at my local health food store I happened to notice the popularity of the plain tasting pumpkin seed (aka pepitas - Beeble). Of course I just had to delve deeper and find out if these small seeds actually provide us with any nutritional benefit or if it is just one of those fads like so many others in the diet world.
Shoulders and Stomach
