10 Minute Solution: Fitnessball Workouts with Spreen (2006)

[Guest guest]

Good morning, Workout Warriors!Lower Body Workout: The first part of this is doing squats and lunges with the ball. Quite honestly, I found the first half of this section to be more effective done sans ball. Parts of it moved too fast to do proper form and really feel it. It felt more like a cardio section. The second part, on the floor, was GREAT! You do bridge poses with your legs on the ball and variants thereof. My hamstrings were on fire! This was much more of an effective use of the ball for the lower body in my opinion.Upper Body Workout: takes you through a circuit 3 times, targeting all of the major upper body muscle groups, most of which are done seated on the ball. I would have liked to have seen the ball used more creatively here. The one exercise she did (only once, rats) was chest flyes on the ball. I felt my core engage more in this position more than I did when simply using

the ball as as "chair" for the other exercises, though it certainly worked the core more than had they been done on a workout bench.Core Workout: The first and last parts of this were excellent! Simply doing center crunches and obliques on the ball adds another dimension to doing them on the floor. At the end of the workout you hold a plank resting your elbows the ball, and I could feel my entire core firing up. Fun!Cardio Workout: Thumbs down - this resembled a bad hi/lo routine imo I remember in the B.L.T. (Butt, Legs and Tummy) workout I had a blast bouncing up and down while sitting on the ball, and it got my heart rate up way more than this did! Now one great exercise she did do was where you hold the ball as it's on the floor and do jumping jack legs int he back. I wish there would have been more plyometricky type exercises like this one. Oh well, I was doing this dvd more for strength than cardio

anyway.Stretch Workout: Nice. Nothing outstanding here, but nice! It would be a good add-in to another workout that didn't have a stretch section. All in all, I give this a 5, average, on a scale from 1 - 10. Spreen is a wonderful instructor in every way, but the program was missing something for me. For example, I like Kathy 's upper and lower body workouts with the ball from Project You much better. Will I be sore tomorrow? Yes. My abs are sore already, so it did acheive its goal to some extent. I'll be interested in hearing what the rest of you think of this one!