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Workout Ball

A workout ball is a large plastic ball that is filled with air. It is different from medicine balls, which are filled with sand or water to make them heavy. Medicine balls are created to increase the resistance of exercises by positioning a weight in the hands. They are used in physical therapy to rebuild muscle strength, as well as in weight training.

A workout ball on the other hand is meant to engage more muscles in an exercise than can be used otherwise. An example would be doing curls with dumb bells. Ordinarily the only muscles involved in a curl are your arm muscles. However if you recline on an air filled ball while doing curls you have to engage your stomach and back muscles to maintain your body position while your center of gravity shifts.

That’s the purpose behind a workout ball, to tone your core muscles. It’s the same end goal as some other forms of exercise, such as Pilates. The ball just takes an approach grounded in physics to achieve the goal, rather than a philosophical approach, as Pilates and yoga do. It is also a less training-intensive way of involving other muscle groups.

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