Obliques, Meet the Stability Ball

Your Obliques Need Some Love Too! Use Your Stability Ball

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Muscles Worked

Abdominal Muscles

Shoulder Muscles

Chest Muscles

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The torso rotation is yet another stroke of brilliance on the behalf of whoever came up with it. As with most great exercises, it's simple, to the point, easy, cheap and, most importantly, very effective!

This one really engages your core stabilizing muscles and also the slow twitch fibers of your obliques. That's what I'm talking about! It's really one of the best ab workouts.

The Exercise

Any sort of movement that involves rotating the torso will work the obliques, no matter what it is. With weights, medicine balls, or even grabbing your whole grain cereal from the top shelf and placing it in your shopping cart (remember to eat smart!).

Sorry for the tangent.

First of all, you need to grab a stability ball and a medicine ball. If you're new to this exercise, start out without using the medicine ball. When you become comfortable with the movement, then definitely add it in!

Position the exercise ball under your upper back with your medicine ball in hand. Place your feet flat on the ground with your knees bent at a 90 degree angle. Perform a sort of "chest press" with the medicine ball and hold the ball above your chest with straight arms.

Now, keeping yourself stable on the exercise ball, rotate your body towards the right, keeping the ball from dropping too quickly. When you're arms are parallel to the ground, hold that position for 1-2 seconds. Do not move your feet at all!

Bring the ball back up to the starting position. Now, perform the same movement except to the left side. Hold the bottom position for 1-2 seconds and return the ball to the point above your chest. You don't have to stop above your chest if you don't want to. You can make a full 180-degree motion if you're more comfortable with the movement.

Remember to keep your back flat, your butt tight, and your feet flat on the ground.

You did it! Easy, right?

Step 1: Get your medicine ball and exercise ball. Position the exercise ball under your upper back and hold the medicine ball with both hands directly above your chest.
Step 2: Keeping everything still except your torso, rotate to the right (or left) until your arms are parallel with the floor. Hold for 1-2 seconds.
Step 3: Return to the starting position. You can continue past the starting position towards the opposite side if you're comfortable with the movement.

Fun, right? Come back and tell us about your workout!

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