As part of my effort to still work out without a gym membership and without being able to run, and also in an effort to keep things interesting, yesterday I rolled out the good ol’ stability ball.

If you don’t have a stability ball, and you’re interested in getting some good, quality workouts at home, I really suggest buying one. You can get one for $15 on Amazon, or add it to your holiday wish list. It’s a really good investment, in my opinion. Just make sure you get the right size. This article from LiveStrong.com has some good advice on what size will be right for you.

Since I love mine so much (and it’s been sitting in the corner, deflated, for months), I’m going to be showing it some much-needed TLC and sharing it with you all, of course!

Last night I completed Part One of my Stability Ball Workouts. I suggest turning off all (or most) of the lights in your house, putting on Britney Spears - Femme Fatale and pretending you are in some sort of super fun pilates or dance class. Or maybe that’s only fun for me.

Stability Ball Workouts - Part One

By doing all three of these exercises, you’ll be working a little bit of each major muscle group. Push-ups for upper body, crunches for your abdomen, and bridge for your legs. By incorporating a stability ball to the routine, you’re creating an unstable base of support, meaning you must use your core muscles to stabilize your body while you move through the motions of each exercise. Do 3 or 4 sets of each exercise before moving on to the next, OR make it a circuit by doing each exercise, one right after another, then rest, and repeat this for a total of 3 or 4 times.

Push-ups - It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of push-ups. It’s a great upper body exercise that requires no additional tools - just you, your body, and gravity. This is a great variation to a regular or modified push-up because in addition to working your chest, you’ll be using all those stabilizing muscles to keep the ball in place and to keep yourself from falling off.

• Starting position: Get into a plank or push-up position with the ball under your legs. I’ve found the easiest (and least embarrassing) way to do this is to rest one leg on the ball like you are kneeling, then reach for the floor with both hands, get into the plank position, and then bring the other leg up onto the ball. Keep the ball under your knees or the middle part of your legs, to start out.
• Do it: Keeping your upper body in a rigid, straight line (don’t let your butt drop or come up), lower down toward the floor, letting your elbows drop right out to the side, until your nose almost touches the floor. Don’t forget to keep the ball in one place without letting it roll around underneath you. Now push back up. Do 12-15 reps.
• Make it harder: Walk the ball out (away from your upper body) to your shins. Still too easy? Keep going and balance just the tips of your toes on the ball while you perform the exercise. And if you’re some sort of superwoman (or man) and this is still too easy, lift one foot off the ball.

Crunches - This one might be obvious. I’d definitely say it’s one of the more common uses of a stability ball that I’ve seen.

• Starting position: Sit with your butt on the ball, with your knees out in front of you, feet flat on the floor. Slowly walk your feet out, lean your upper body backwards, and let the ball roll underneath you until it is resting under the small of your back and you are in a horizontal position.
• Do it: Now start the crunch. Resting your arms in an X-shape across your chest, slowly lift your upper body, keeping your head and neck in line with your torso. Come up to about a 45-degree angle (or more if you can!) and then slowly lower back down to the starting position. This is one rep. Do 12-15 reps.
• Make it harder: hold something heavy (a weight or household item) with both hands, pointing it straight up toward the ceiling. Try to keep your arms pointing straight up while reaching the object upwards during the crunch (in other words, don’t let your arms come out in front of you. Keep them pointing toward the ceiling the whole time).

Bridge - This exercise is great for your bum and the backs of your legs, as well as throughout the rest of your core. Adding the stability ball to it makes your squeeze that much harder to keep your body (and the ball) still.

• Starting position: Lay flat on the floor, on your back, with your feet on top of the ball and your arms resting on the floor beside you, palms down.
• Do it: Driving your heels into the ball, lift your butt off the floor until your whole body is one straight line. To do this, you’ll need to squeeze in your buttcheeks and hamstrings. Don’t let your bum drop. Don’t forget to breathe. Hold for a decided amount of time (try 30 or 60 seconds) and don’t let the ball sway in or out, or side to side. When the time is up, relax and let your body go back down to the floor.
• Make it harder: Hold the bridge position for 15-30 seconds and then, keeping your body in line and your heels on the ball, roll the ball in toward your body, squeezing your glutes and hamstrings. Do not let your butt drop at all during this! Then roll it back out to the bridge position. Do this 5 times and then rest. The first couple of times might seem pretty easy, but I guarantee you, by the fifth one, you’ll feel like your hamstrings are about to pop out of your thighs.

I did all of these last night (side note: I forgot how much I enjoy working out at night) and then some stretching. Today my legs are very sore, and I love it.

The number on the scale? How fast you’re running? What you see in the mirror?

I tend to really focus on my belly. That’s my biggest “problem area.” It’s where I store most of my fat (which supposedly is not typical for females, but that theory makes me think scientists are crazy), which means it’s also where I have the most fat to lose. Which means it’s one of the last places where I’ll see noticeable progress. Which means it’s probably not the only area I should be using the gauge my progress!

Read More

(in no particular order)

• You’ll probably meet cute boys. This is how I met my boyfriend (*wink wink*).

Just kidding. On to the REAL reasons:

• You’ll feel really awesome. I’m serious about this one. Who doesn’t want to be able to beat their little brother arm wrestling? Or brag about being able to do 15 whole push-ups (and not the girl kind!)? When you lift weights, you’ll likely start feeling strong and confident, which will show in your personality AND (this is the best part) in your other workouts.
• You’ll start to see and feel results almost immediately. When you’re running or biking or doing a fitness class, sometimes it’s hard to see yourself making progress, especially if you’ve “plateaued.” When you lift weights, it’s a lot easier to see changes and improvements from one week to the next. You might start out not being able to do a single push-up (ahem… me) and within three or four weeks you may be reppin’ them out like crazy. You’ll FEEL improvements strength-wise, and also SEE improvements in your body, because…
• You will begin to lose fat more quickly. If you’re constantly doing cardio, you’ll eventually lose weight, especially if you’re eating properly. But all too often, it feels like, ughhh I’m running so much and hardly losing weight! (<— story of my last two months). When you lift weights, you are building lean muscle mass, and although this can *technically* equate to weight gain (because “muscle weighs more than fat”), it’s much easier to lose fat. Think about it this way… fat is inactive tissue. It basically just sits there and takes up space in your body. It requires very little energy to stay alive. But muscle, on the other hand, is active tissue, and it requires much more energy just to sustain itself. Meaning, even if you’re sitting there doing absolutely nothing, the more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories you are burning.
• You won’t get “skinny fat.” I remember reading in a magazine once about the concept of “skinny fat,” and as much as it sounds like an oxymoron, I totally know what they were referring to. A lot of times women get caught up in only losing weight and not building muscle, so they do lots and lots of cardio, and get “skinny,” but still have that “flabby” (for lack of a better term) appearance. And aside from being “skinny fat,” who actually wants to be “skinny” anyway? Wouldn’t you rather be lean, toned, slim? You can have a flat tummy, or a flat, sculpted tummy. You can have skinny arms, or fit, toned arms. Know what I mean? And if it has ever crossed your mind that you don’t want to lift weights because you don’t want to “bulk up,” erase that silliness from your head right now! End of story!
• It’s free. You don’t need a fancy (and expensive) gym membership to do weight training. Although it is nice to have an array of machines and dumbbells at your disposal, you can make do with what you already have — your body. Push-ups, squats, tricep dips, and leg lifts are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to great exercises you can do without fancy gym equipment.

When I first started getting into fitness (over two years ago… woah), I started out by just running. Right away, I lost some weight, because I had some to lose, and I had never run before (or done any exercise, really). Then I met my boyfriend, who introduced me to weight training (and started training me… yes, I am very lucky to have a personal trainer boyfriend!). This was a whole new way of working out, something I had never even imagined doing. The weight room is for dudes. Big, sweaty, weight-belt-wearing, unnecessary-supplement-taking, dudes. Right?

After a couple weeks I was hooked! All those magical changes I was waiting for running to give me, I started seeing (what seemed like) immediately. Fat started disappearing a lot more quickly, and woahhh, muscles started to show up! Since then, I can always tell (by looking in the mirror, stepping on the scale, or even just by how I feel) when I’m not lifting regularly. I can run all I want, but I don’t really feel “good” unless I’m lifting, too. I forgot about this over the summer, when I stopped working out pretty much altogether. Since I started running again, I’ve been impatiently waiting for my weight to drop, my percent body fat to decrease, and for my running to improve.

Being unemployed, the last thing I can afford is a gym membership. So I haven’t been doing any strength exercises, and I’ve been relying solely on running to get in shape. Last week, I began doing some basic body weight exercises at home, just twice a week, and I kid you not, I already see and feel a significant difference in my body.

These are just my five, somewhat shallow, reasons to get into weight training. It also provides all sorts of health benefits, like increased bone density, improved balance and posture, and injury prevention (click here to read an article from LIVESTRONG.com about the benefits of weight training for women).

So, happy lifting! I mean… Get big! Pump iron! Feel the burn! and all that stuff…

Do you supplement your cardio workouts with strength training? Who would be interested in some body weight exercises you can do at home, for free? Or maybe a challenge of some sort?