Hello there, readers!
I am not terribly fond of the cold. In fact, I elaborated on it in both of these posts not too long ago. I’m actually a really bad New Englander; I don’t like skiing, sledding, and I prefer margaritas over hot chocolate. What I do love? Holidays. The decorations are going up.
So, while I relish the onset of merrymaking, gift-exchanging, hot toddy-sipping, cocoa- drinking, eggnog-having, Santa statue-obsessing, amazon-shopping, Martha-Stewart-blog-trolling, Pinterest-experimenting *gasp*, I have also discovered a new way to torture myself. The Mini Pilates Ball. Guys, this ball makes everything about 8,000x more challenging. I casually brought this ball to a Barre/Pilates fusion class with my sister and used it doing chest lifts-not a particularly advanced exercise-but when I looked over she looked like she was about to cry.
Oh, look how innocently purple it is. Just sitting there, deflated, wondering what it did wrong. EVERYTHING, Ball, you have done everything wrong!!!
This thing really kicks any mat workout into the next gear. If you put the ball under any part of your body that is in a supporting position during an exercise it instantly changes everything.
These are a few ways I have found to use it:
- Squeeze between knees to engage inner thighs during supine work.
- Under tailbone during supine leg work.
- Under supporting side ribcage during side-lying leg work.
- Under upper back ribs during supine ab work.
- Under sternum for prone back/lower/upper body work.
- Again between knees for standing arm work.
I have also found it way more challenging the more deflated the ball is. So give it a try guys, and let me know how it goes 🙂
And now let’s return briefly to the North Pole and obsess for a moment over the Fa-la-la-la llama…
I will not be judged for getting excited over gift tags.
Tata
❤ Cammy
Deelarenti Pilates 