Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I got a stability ball for Christmas. I’ve been reluctant to jump on the stability ball bandwagon for one reason…

About a year and a half ago, Mike and I got a monthly membership at the fitness center at the University of Utah. We thought we’d try it out and see how it worked. We went there several times together. We exercised on the cardio machines and then casually lifted weights.

One day, we were in the weight room together when our attention focused on a woman in the room. She was exercising with a stability ball. She didn’t stick to the normal crunches that you usually see. She even moved beyond the uber-pushups that I sometimes see at the gym using the ball. She must have known at least twenty different exercises to do with that stability ball and she did them all under our fascinated gaze.

We didn’t say anything to each other. We didn’t point at her and laugh to ourselves. Afterward, however, we discussed it. I remember saying that I had been scared of the lady who was doing strange things to the exercise ball. We laughed in private on the drive home. I wonder if this moment in time was the karmic precedent for the Bosu Incident.

Mostly, what I remember from that event was that I didn’t want to be the lady who did strange things to exercise balls. Even now, admitting that I got a stability ball for Christmas and actually being excited about it is embarrassing to me. I don’t know what I’m going to do when friends and family come to visit. I guess I’ll just hide the ball in the bedroom with the barking dog and all the rest of the things that embarrass me.

Yet, I am so excited about it. Yourself! Fitness has a bunch of exercises that involve the stability ball, so when I tell it I have one, it mixes the workouts with different exercises. Maya has only had me use the ball once so far, but it was a sincerely challenging move (I had to decrease the difficulty, actually). I’m looking forward to each day now in hopes that I get to play with my new “toy.”

I don’t know what to think about this. I don’t want to be the lady who does strange things to exercise balls, but I am supremely happy to use my exercise ball using my exercise program. I’m conflicted. I guess it’s okay to do strange things to stability balls as long as you do them in private and wash your hands afterward…