Stability Ball Routine-Lower Body

Meredith Nelson: Hi and welcome back to how to exercise with the Stability Ball. My name is Meredith Nelson and I am a personal trainer and owner of Prime Time Fitness on Sullivans Island South Carolina. We have been showing you some exercises using the Stability Ball and we have covered the abdominals and the upper body. Now I am going to show you just a few exercises to target the lower body specifically targeting the quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes. We are going to begin with an exercise for your quadriceps, above squat. Begin with the ball against the wall and place the small of your back right on the ball. Unlike a traditional squat, this allows you to perform the exercise without feeling any strain in your lower back. We are going to begin this exercise with the ball against the wall and yourself, your body leaning up against the ball with the small of your back positioned right on the ball. You want your feet forward, so that when you lower down, your knees don't shoot out over you toes, you want your knees, mostly right over the ankles. Lower your self down, nice and slow and notice where my knees end up at the bottom of the squat directly over the ankles, then press with your heels as you lift back up. If you are able to lower down deep enough so that your hips are leveled with your knees, you should have a 90 degree angle at the knee and a 90 degree at the hip before you press back up. If you are not quite able to get down that low, that's fine, you'll get there eventually. You can vary this exercise a little bit and target different areas of your legs by placing your feet a little bit farther apart, engaging more of inner thigh. Now let's move on to another exercise. Tthis is going to target your hamstrings and glutes. Let's place the ball on the floor and lie down on the floor on your back. Position your legs on the ball and your arms by your sides. Now this exercise is harder, more intense, more challenging if the ball is farther away from your body. The exercise is easier if you move the ball closer to you. I am going to put the ball about middle midway through right under my calves, arms go down on the floor then simply raise your hips off the floor and lower back down. Again this exercise targets your hamstrings, glutes and also gets your lower back just a little bit. You can make this exercise even harder, by balancing on one leg. Again, using a ball for this exercise is great, because of the balance required to perform the maneuver. So now you have learned a few exercises for your lower body. We have shown you how to incorporate the ball into your full body workout, for upper body, abs, lower body and back. We hope you have learned a few things about how to use the ball. One thing that we haven't addressed today is how many repetitions in sets you need to do and there is a reason we haven't told you. The reason we haven't told you of how many of every exercise you should do because it's going to be different based on your ability level. Some exercises can be made more difficult or more easy and you can adjust the number of repetitions depending on how many of each variation you are able to do. Remember though no effort, no result. If you are not doing enough exercises to feel the effort then you might want to even increase the intensity and the difficulty of the maneuver or simply perform more repetitions. It's a good idea to perform two or three sets of you exercise. You may remember throughout our workout today that we have shown you several variations with some minor adjustments. These small adjustments can increase or decrease the efficiency and effectiveness of your workout. So keep in mind that they are very important. You may find it helpful to enlist the assistance of a personal trainer or even an online trainer found on the Internet. Either way remember that the Stability Ball is a great tool to use in your workout. When used properly, it can be safe and effective and help you get the most of every workout. Thanks for working out with me today. I am Meredith Nelson with Prime Time Fitness. See you in the gym.