It's All About Stability and Strength

CEBU, Philippines - When Slimmers World International took away the stability ball, I felt bad about it. I felt it was an insensitive thing to do to a lifetime member like me. That stability ball has always been incorporated in my fitness routine since I joined the club in 2001. To have taken it away so unceremoniously has found me offended.

SWI fitness trainers said that management took out the stability ball because it tended to make clients prone to injury. I felt betrayed by this reason. That a stability ball has been part of the gym’s amenities since I joined Slimmers World almost ten years ago, strongly insinuates that their reason is a polite way of telling a lie.

Researches show that stability balls were specifically invented to do the very thing it is supposed to be doing – build stability. Because I am scoliotic, much of the rehabilitation on my spine was aided with a stability ball. Other clients in the gym similarly scoliotic or have back and lower back problems were compelled to revise their fitness programs when the stability ball was taken out.

When not used, it’s wasted.

Constructed from elastic, soft plastic polymer with a diameter of approximately 35 to 85 centimeters (14 to 34 inches) and filled with air, stability balls or exercise balls are used for physical therapy, strength training and exercise. It is used for performing flexibility, endurance and strength-building exercises because the soft and puncture-resistant plastic provides a supportive yet gentle surface allowing the body to balance and put more muscles to work. The more the muscles are engaged in stability or balance, the stronger it becomes.

In strength training or resistance training, stability balls are particularly useful because it targets specific muscle groups. Strength training means using gravity or elastic and hydraulic forces to oppose or resist muscle contraction. Frequently, it is the core body muscles or muscles in the abdomen and back which are the focus of stability ball fitness program.

What happens is that when you progressively increase the force output of the muscle through weights, elastic tension and other resistance, your muscles and joints become more efficient. The principle of strength training is simple: Strength is reversible. It will decline if you do not continue to obtain a strength stimulus throughout your entire life. As Greek philosopher Hippocrates would put it simply, “that which is used develops, and that which is not used wastes away.”

When properly performed, strength training with the aid of stability balls improves overall health and well-being like increased bone, muscle, tendon and ligament strength and toughness, improved joint function, improved bone density and improved cardiac function.

Sitting on stability balls when doing arm raises helps to maintain proper posture and balance because abdominal and back muscles are constantly engaged and active. In fact I found my routine maximized when doing arm and hand raises while sitting on a stability ball because it engages the muscles on my arms, triceps and biceps, back and abdomen so well. It also educates and elongates my spine to become straight thus preventing my rehabilitated spine from recurrence of scoliosis.

Stability balls can also be used during labor to aid the descent of the fetal head into the pelvis. Sitting in an upright position will aid fetal position helping the woman during contractions and aid the natural physiological process of birth.

It all started with plastics.

It was in 1963 when Aquilino Cosani, an Italian plastics manufacturer, developed the stability ball when he perfected a process for molding large puncture-resistant plastic balls. While working in Switzerland, British physiotherapist Mary Quinton first used stability balls in treatment programs for newborns and infants. Later, Dr. Sussane Klein-Vogelbach, director at the Physical Therapy school in Basel, Switzerland integrated the use of ball exercises as physical therapy for neuro-development treatment. Taking off from the concept of “functional kinetics,” Klein-Vogelbach promoted the use of ball techniques to treat adults with orthopedic or medical problems. From then on, stability balls were used for physical therapy in clinical settings and later as a component for exercises in athletic training. It was further incorporated in alternative exercises like yoga and Pilates.

Hence the ultimate purpose of stability balls is to reduce potential for injury. It then escapes my imagination and reasoning why Slimmers World management would take away the stability ball because it purportedly poses injury to clients. If fitness is the overall goal and culture of the club, they ought to be client-sensitive. Amenities like stability balls should also be client-prerogative. Slimmers World should do better about keeping their stability programs stable.