Fitness Fads Come And Go, But The Swiss Ball Is Here To Stay

Fitness Fads Come And Go, But
The Swiss Ball Is Here To Stay
By David Grisaffi
www.FlattenYourAbs.net

What’s hot in the world of abdominal and core training today seems to change as fast as the latest clothing styles. New gurus, new infomercials, new machines – today’s fitness marketplace is all about “what’s new.” I often write reviews about the latest, greatest ab and core training gadgets, usually debunking most of them, but this time I'm actually going to do the opposite.

As new products push their way into the fitness scene, some truly legitimate, cost effective devices get pushed out, forgotten, or even worse – dismissed as “fitness fads.” Such is the case with the swiss ball (also known as a “exercise ball”, “gym ball” or “stability ball”)

Why Some Fitness Experts Condemn The Swiss Ball

Swiss balls have been around a long time in physical therapy and rehab settings and when they crossed over into the mainstream fitness world, they were probably hyped a bit too much. It’s not that they didn’t deserve the attention, its that many fitness “experts” placed the swiss ball up on a pedestal as the end-all be-all of abdominal, core and fitness training, rather than representing the ball for what it really is - a single training tool among many– just like barbells, dumbbells, cables or any other fitness equipment.

As a result, entire training systems were built around the swiss ball (neglecting other forms of training), and people misused and overused the ball. Some trainers used the ball for “exercises” that were nothing more than circus acts. I’ve seen it all – everything from standing on top of the ball and squatting to bench pressing on the ball with 400 pounds..

As a result of the over-hyping and misuse of the swiss ball, some coaches and trainers have recently spoken up and publicly renounced the ball as a " gimmick." This has caused a flood of emails to pour into my office as consumers and fitness enthusiasts have become more confused than ever.

It’s no wonder: Trainer A says, “The ball is the best thing since sliced bread” and trainer B says “the ball is and always was a gimmick.” I believe the ball is a very valuable training tool and that the truth is somewhere in the middle, so I’d like to help put things back into proper perspective.

Swiss balls are powerful, portable, inexpensive and versatile training tools

I use swiss balls nearly every day in my own workouts and in workouts for my clients. The versatility of the swiss ball is simply unmatched as proven by the fact that I can use a swiss ball to help a 65 year old sedentary woman overcome muscle weakness and improve balance or use the same ball to help a professional boxer build stamina and add power to his punches. I can also show you how to use the swiss ball to develop "six pack abs" as well as train literally every muscle in your entire body.

New Research Reveals That The Swiss Ball Can Make
Abdominal Exercise Up To 104% More Effective

To give you a research-proven example of just how effective a swiss ball can be, let’s focus on one of the most basic and well-known of all abdominal exercises: The Crunch

As most people know, the crunch is a modified (partial) sit up that involves raising the head, neck and shoulder blades up off the floor. Many personal trainers believe that the crunch is highly overrated and overused. I won’t argue, as I agree there’s a lot of truth to that. However, the crunch can be greatly improved with one simple change: Do your crunches on a swiss ball.

Electromyography (EMG) studies have demonstrated that the swiss ball crunch (unstable surface) effectively recruits more muscle fibers than the floor crunch (stable surface). This leads to greater strength, stability and muscle development in your core region.

In 2000, a study by Vera-Garcia and colleagues showed a significant increase in muscle activity in the core area while performing a crunch on the swiss ball, as compared to a floor crunch. The swiss ball improved the level of muscular activity as well as the co-recruitment of spinal stabilizers. The researchers said:

“Performing the curl over the gym ball with the feet on the floor doubled activity in the rectus abdominis muscle, and activity in the external oblique muscle increased approximately fourfold.”

Although research results have been mixed in the past, the studies showing no increase in abdominal muscle activity using a swiss ball may have been due to the exercise technique used on the ball, including velocity and body placement on the ball. Earlier this year, Dr. Eric Sternlicht and colleagues at UCLA designed a study to test this hypothesis and they measured for differences in muscle activity while using different positions on the ball.

The EMG analysis confirmed their hypothesis and demonstrated that body position on the swiss ball could decrease or increase the amount of muscular activation. When the ball was positioned with the upper back high on the ball (just below scapulae), the muscular activity was less than a floor crunch. But by strategically positioning the ball so it was firmly placed at the lower lumbar region, there was a 66%, 93% and 104% increase in upper abdominal, lower abdominal and external oblique activity, respectively.

More Proof That Form Is Everything And Little Things Make A Big Difference

For years I have preached about proper form on all abdominal and core exercises and I have taught my clients “little tweaks” and “tricks” in technique that look minor, but which can lead to huge improvements in results. This new research is proof. It also reveals how the ball is a versatile tool for exercise progression: The high on back position is easier, while the ball lower on the back is more difficult, accommodating for different strength and fitness levels. Further progression can be added by using resistance (dumbbell or weight plate held on chest or at arms length from chest).

Swiss balls are only one of many training tools, but in my opinion, when used properly, they are one of the best of the bunch. I created an entire core training system that uses the ball for many of the exercises, I put all my clients on swiss balls and I highly recommend that you use the ball as well. Just remember, the swiss ball is only a tool – it’s not the “end all be all” of core training and it can’t work miracles. It will also not burn fat off your stomach – you need a caloric deficit to achieve body fat reduction.

Use the ball as one part of a balanced training program that includes other tools such as free weights, cables and your own body weight. Forget the potentially dangerous ”circus act” swiss ball stunts, use good exercise form, purchase only quality, high-strength exercise balls, use them in a clear area, clean them often, check them for leaks and I promise you will have a fantastic versatile training aid that will last you for years and never go out of style. Fitness fads will always come and go, but the swiss ball is still a winner.

Coach David Grisaffi,
Tacoma Washington
www.FlattenYourAbs.net/index.html

What is a diet?

First thing I want to do in this article is clear up what I mean by the term “diet”. When I say diet I mean what you eat on a regular basis. “I sometimes make exceptions but my normal diet is...” Many people think of diet as what they are eating for a short time period followed by going back to their normal foods as in “I am going on a diet TILL after my cousins wedding”.

You need to eat less calories to lose weight then to keep it the same. Also if you add muscle then you will boost your metabolism and can eat more calories. So if you are overweight and you get down to where you want then you can get away with eating more then you did when you lost weight. But all in all your should be striving to make permanent healthy changes to your diet, diet just like in anything else you should be trying to get better.

Trying some crazy diet plan for a short period of time in order to lose weight isn't a good idea for a couple of reasons. If it is a diet plan that is bad for you like something that neglects important nutrients then you probably shouldn't be on it at all even for a temporary period. Even if there is nothing unhealthy about the plan, many people gain their weight back as soon as they go back to their normal eating. As I have stated you may have a little room to splurge once you are no longer actually trying to lose weight. But if you eat the same as you did when you gained the weight in the first place then what do you think is going to happen this time?

I believe in the power of forming a habit. I also believe that it is easier to stick to easy things then hard things and that when it comes to diet small changes are easier. Put all this together and I think that making permanent improvements to your diet is easiest done by picking one or two things and sticking to them for a month (I believe they say it takes 21 days to form a habit). Eventually you will just make it a habit, from there you can pick something else to do and the previous issue will just be a habit that no longer takes effort to keep. You can just keep doing this your whole life.

When you get discouraged you will have several previous milestones to look back on and say “I accomplished this, I know I can do it!”. I used to love candy, soda was ok but I didn't like it nearly as much. Had I tried to cut candy out it would have been very hard and I likely would have quit. Instead I quit drinking soda, it wasn't nearly as hard for me though there were some times when I was tempted. Once this was a habit it wasn't hard to keep anymore. It was automatic to order something else and the few times when I was tempted I didn't want to end my streak of X long without any.

From there I cut out other sugarier beverages, like sports drinks and orange juice which I preferred and was harder for me to cut down on. I still have them sometimes but not as much. Then I started on the big one for me, candy. This was harder but when I went to the store I tried to get things with what I considered “useful” carbs instead of empty ones like candy. Way I figured it was that I was lifting weights and trying to gain muscle. Sometimes my body needed simple carbs (like the sugar in candy) but most of the time it didn't. Other junk foods contained proteins and complex carbs my body would need later. These alternatives (like pizza) weren't exactly health foods but they at least had some good things in them besides the bad.

Eventually I was just in the habit of avoiding things I considered pure sugar with no other calories. It wasn't so hard anymore. My cravings were reduced and when I did want some, once again I didn't want to ruin my habit of avoiding them. I did eat them sometimes but not as much.

After this it wasn't so much about what I had to eat as I was doing good here, but just a matter of picking off the few bad things remaining in my diet and I did this one by one. I don't think you should ever reach a point where you say you shouldn't better yourself anymore. But I have never looked at it as I can never eat such and such a thing again. This would just make me depressed. I am in good shape with low body fat and occasionally if I want to splurge then this doesn't mean a full blown dive back into a terrible diet. Just knowing I can occasionally have something and haven't shunned it for life makes it easier to pass on it.

Kettlebell or dumbbell swings to lose weight

 

I don't do a lot of cardio or anything else to burn fat. I have mentioned before that I am not a big fan of what some people call “endless cardio”. 

Incidentally I am not a fan of endless cardio. I prefer activities such as intense weight lifting, bodyweight exercises and sprints to long slow jogs and other forms of endless cardio. Not only are they not as beneficial but they are also just plain more time consuming. 
How Many Crunches Should I do a Day alternative exercises

I look at marathoners and other people who do distance type events and they are usually very skinny and emancipated looking. A lot of times they are skinny but have no abs or a little tiny six pack where each “pack” is about as thin as a pencil.

Honestly I have a fast metabolism, am pretty active most of the time, working jobs where I walk around a lot and sometimes pretty physical and just “doing” stuff on my free time as opposed to sitting around watching tv.

The weight lifting I do (primarily dead lifts) burns off most of the calories I need. Losing fat is mostly about diet anyway. I feel the key of dieting is sugar control. So I don't usually preach a lot about doing anything else to burn fat.

But I realize that most people don't have my fast of a metabolism and haven't become accustomed to eating as carefully as me (kind of becomes habit after a while and when you do cheat occasionally you feel bad). So a little more work to burn that fat may be necessary, possibly only because dead lifting and similar weight lifting is something that you should probably only be doing a couple days a week for under an hour a day. Meaning it may be necessary to do some stuff that you can do more frequently to burn more fat.

One of my favorite activities for this is swings. Even though I don't do any exercises strictly for burning fat as I mentioned I don't need too. I have had to perform cardio/conditioning type training for boxing and this is a great exercise both for burning fat and for getting in shape for a fight. It is something that can be done everyday depending on your workout routine (I recommend having a “weekend” where you rest for a couple days).

Boxers do a lot of training in rounds since we fight that way. Often this is 3 minutes of work with 1 minute of rest done several times. I started out doing this, I liked doing one armed swings with a 35 pound dumbbell, alternating between arms every 10 reps. Pretty soon I found that I did about a 100 in this time span and just found it easier to do sets of 100 instead of timing it. I also acquired and switched to a kettlebell somewhere during this time.

The exact weight you use shouldn't be big deal as long as it isn't overly over or under what you should be using. Proper form is key as among other things this can give you a sore back if done incorrectly. If you are only getting less then 10 or 12 reps then this is great for strength training but you aren't going to be doing any conditioning (if using one arm then maybe you might try two armed ones to handle that weight or use less) if you are knocking out sets of 100+ without breathing hard then you need more weight (or if doing them two armed maybe you want to use one). But I would say if you can continually do reps (switching arms if done arm armed and working both evenly) and get 30 to 100 max in then this is probably a workable weight for you.

You can do these in 2 (beginner) or 3 minute sets (or count, though I like a number that takes around that much time to complete) then take a minute off and repeat for 3 to 5 sets. This can be a great way to burn fat.

Compound lifts to develop full body

There was a time when I thought lifting weights wasn't worth it because I would need so much work in order to build up all of the muscles in the body enough to look good. I figured if I could just do sit ups 3 times a week then I could get a good six pack and this would be good. There was a time when I thought lifting weights wasn't worth it because I would need so much work in order to build up all of the muscles in the body enough to look good. I figured if I could just do si tups 3 times a week then I could get a good six pack and this would be good enough because as the best looking muscle you can get I figured it didn't matter if you didn't have a big chest or nice arms. If you have a six pack then that trumps all other muscles right?

Well if you have looked at my website How Many Crunches Should I do a Day then you know that doing sit ups is a lot like crunches. Not a great way to burn off stomach fat or develop those ab muscles. But that is almost besides the point. Even if you do get a great six pack you will find that developing your body is addictive.

You think "if I could just get that six pack" but then you realize it kind of looks pathetic with that flat chest then you notice those tiny shoulders, great upper body but chicken legs etc. If you are going to improve one body region you will find that you might as well help them all.

Isolation lifts are lifts that isolate one body part. Like curls for your arms, flys for your chest, crunches for your abs etc. If you do these then you must do a different lift for every body part. You could be in the gym forever.
Compound lifts are lifts that work multiple muscle groups. These give you more bang for your buck and develop a better looking body where each muscle groups is in better proportion to all the other groups. Squats, dead lifts and bench press are good examples of compound lifts. I feel that dead lifts alone can do so much for you. I like to add an upper body lift as well but if you were short on time then this lift alone would be enough to develop a great physique. enough because as the best looking muscle you can get I figured it didn't matter if you didn't have a big chest or nice arms. If you have a six pack then that trumps all other muscles right?

 Well if you have looked at my website How Many Crunches Should I do a Day then you know that doing sit ups is a lot like crunches. Not a great way to burn off stomach fat or develop those ab muscles. But that is almost besides the point. Even if you do get a great six pack you will find that developing your body is addictive. You think "if I could just get that six pack" but then you realize it kind of looks pathetic with that flat chest then you notice those tiny shoulders etc. If you are going to improve one body region you will find that you might as well help tem all. Isolation lifts are lifts that isolate one body part. Like curls for your arms, flys for your chest, crunches for your abs etc. If you do these then you must do a different lift for every body part. You could be in the gym forever.

Compound lifts are lifts that work multiple muscle groups. These give you more bang for your buck and develop a better looking body where each muscle groups is in better proportion to all the other groups. Squats, deadlifts and benchpress are good examples of compound lifts. I feel that deadlifts alone can do so much for you. I like to add an upperbody lift as well but if you were short on time then this lift alone would be enough to develop a great phyique.

Six Pack Abs Overrated

I have really wanted a sixpack for a long time, now that I have one it would really disappointment to lose it. That said I do think that sixpacks, a lot like biceps are overrated. Here is why;

Back in the day people didn't train specifically for getting a sixpack, they did a lot of compound full body lifts utilizing very heavy weights. In order to pickup or press a heavy weight a strong core is a necessity. You support a semi truck on top of most mailbox posts because the post would snap and the same is true for your abs. You may have the legs to pickup something heavy and the upperbody to press it but if the mid section is weak then you won't be able to support the weight.

Strong abs were more of a byproduct of these lifts then the focus. Even if you have a tremendous set of abs they weren't stick out of a belly full of fat. So it is important to have very little bodyfat. Therefore a person with low bodyfat that was lifting huge weights would acquire a great sixpack in the process. If someone had such a sixpack then it was a good indicator that they were very strong, handling large amounts of weight and very lean to boot.

Now with so many people obsessed with abs we have people that do ab specific exercises and diet for a low bodyfat percentage and they have abs but don't have the great total body strength that the old timers had. Where abs used to be a indicator of total body strength (along with low bodyfat) now it merely means exactly what it is, good abs but not necessarily anything else.

This may seem to contradict what I have said in the past as I have pointed out the benefits of doing heavy total body lifts such as deadlifts and squats (similar to these aforementioned old timers) and now I am saying that a lot of people today have abs from doing ab specific exercises like I have said aren't as effective. But I am not contradicting myself, you can get abs without doing these heavy lifts. I just feel these are the most effective because they burn a lot of fat (most important key) while helping to increase the ab muscles and help them popout. Not saying this is the only way. But if you lift like this then even if you never get great abs you will know that you have some serious full body strength, just the kind you need for real life tasks like lifting furniture etc.

As for my saying that abs are overrated like biceps? I will explain about my feeling on biceps in a later article.

As I have mentioned before I feel that biceps are overrated, in that same article I talk about how old strongmen did a lot of heavy full body lifts. They weren't trying to make one small muscle group get large but were rather going for “real world” strength (well maybe just strength for more full body lifts but “real world” strength is what they got. The nature of a pulling lift like a deadlift requires the biceps to be able to handle a lot of weight. Thus if you are lifting heavy weights in such a manner you will eventual strengthen you biceps. Additionally if you have high levels of human growth hormones then you will naturally acquire more muscular arms.

So much like I have said that abs were the result of people with low bodyfat and tons of heavy lifting and not the point of these workouts. A big bicep would mean that a person was pulling extremely heavy lifts that worked the bicep (if you are deadlifting enough to build the biceps you are probably hitting some other muscles first) and or have high levels of human growth hormones. Therefore someone with these bulging muscles would be very strong.

When you concentrate on biceps with exercises like curls you can increase your arms but this has less real world payoff as curling is not a motion we have to perform very often and doesn't hit as many muscles. It also doesn't have the same human growth hormone boosting effect. So if you have two identical twins who have equal biceps, but one gained them from performing curls and other bicep specific exercises just for this purpose while the other one gained these as a byproduct of heavy deadlifting then the 2^nd one will likely be much stronger in nearly all aspects.

This is why I feel that when people get hung up on bicep size they are overrating them as if they are gained specifically for the purpose of having big biceps then it doesn't indicate a lot about the persons actually strength.

Six Pack Abs Twitter

From my How Many Crunches Twitter 

"Don't see people benchpressing bar quick 50x. Why on ab machine cranking out 50 quick 1/2 reps with no weight? Abs are muscles too"

I see so many people slamming out a ton of reps with low weights on the ab machine at the gym. Usually not even full reps, just a bunch of partial reps. They know this isn't the way to do biceps or chest. So why do they think abs are different?

Posted article on Scribd

Just posted the Exercise for Six Pack Abs article on Scribd.com. This is just a way to increase awareness of the site. Should get some reads from users on Scribd as well as through some search engines.

Welcome to my blog

Welcome to my blog. I have created the website How Many Crunches Should I do a Day and this blog is a way for me to post updates to the website as well as add some new content such as new articles that aren't big enough to merit their own section on the website but may still provide some helpful information.