Reebok Stayball and Stayball Core Workout & other finds too

[Guest guest]

Is anyone familiar with this or especially the ball? I bought both from a local online garage sale listing (it kind of came with the other things I was getting) and I was surprised to find the ball has sand in it, apparently that is what makes it a "stay" ball, it is supposed to not roll away. I didn't really want the ball because I have 2 others but does having the sand in it make it easier to use? Does it make it "too easy" to use, that is, do you still get the effects of working your core even though, I'm assuming here, it doesn't seem like you'd have to work as hard to balance with it? I have to add air to mine before I try it. The workout looks awful but has good chaptering. It is a series of 12 exercises and has 2 modes, instructional or not. You can have it with a voice-over and an instructor just doing what she says with normal cueing for body placement, etc. or with instructional, there is an instructor aiding an exerciser with all her body placement and the voice over giving extremely detailed movement cues (almost too detailed for me because they come really fast). The voice, which is okay sounding, also counts reps for you, here's an example for squats... "Let's do a set, I'll count you through 15 reps... 1-2-3-4, 2-2-3-4, 3-2-3-4..." all the way through to 15!!!!!! I was previewing it and turned it off after about 2 reps because the counting was making me crazy and I normally LIKE an instructor to help count reps but not like this!!!! (It literally counted every movement your body made as it went through the squat motion!) I watched the introduction too and nowhere does it say anything about why the ball is special but the case says it is a patented design so if anyone has any opinions about it, I'd be interested in reading them. Also, I noticed on amazon.com, as I was looking for reviews on this, they show a red 65 cm ball, a yellow 55 cm ball and a blue 65 cm ball but the one I have is obviously purple, not even close to blue and the blue shown on amazon is not even close to the purple I have (and the DVD cover, both what I have and what amazon shows is the purple). Should I assume this is the 65 cm ball? Maybe I'll have to blow it up more and measure it. If it is that big, I won't be using it (too big) even though the sand idea is interesting. Maybe I'll try it once anyway. Both the ball & the workout cost me $1 so not a big deal if neither is useful to me.

From this same seller I also got 10 Minute Solution Hot Body Bootcamp (Amy Bento) and Element: AM and PM Yoga (Elena Brower). I previewed 2 of the Hot Body workouts and the first one looks really tough but good, the other one (something with drills in the name) looked okay, but didn't seem to be, from watching it anyway, put together very smoothly. I hope to find out soon though, I've had this one my wish list for a long time because I love bootcamp workouts and I know Amy Bento works you hard too so I figured this might be a good thing for me. I got it for just $2 so if I don't like it, that's okay too! I didn't know anything about the yoga DVD until I looked it up on Amazon and then decided for $2 it might be worth trying also. So, for $5 total (plus the seller brought everything to me!) I think I got some good deals, no matter whether the ball is useful to me or not.

(planning to do Voight tonight if we get done with dinner early enough, will try these out soon too though)