Swiss ball as a chair

anniehoo

Not sure if this is the right forum. Has anyone used a swiss ball as a chair at their desk to improve balance and abdominal strength? I have reoccurent twinges in my lower back and was wondering if sitting on one of these for some or all of my working day would improve my lower back strength. Any thoughts?

cowzerp

Yes it will, it works the core and corrects your posture..
give it a go..

anniehoo

Excellent! Am sitting on it at the moment...surprisingly comfortable and its actually making me sit up straight!;)

rubadub

I take it you are working at home?:eek:

I would never hear the end of it if the lads saw me sitting on a ball in work!

anniehoo

rubadub wrote: »

I take it you are working at home?:eek:

Errr...no Ah where i work you'll get slagged no matter what ye do so itll give them somethin to talk about for today haha:P

flywheel

first, would have lower back checked out to make sure wasn't anything to be concerned about...

then if all is ok use it for a while, but not full time, also would suggest building up the duration sitting on it over time rather than just a straight swap and chucking the chair away... also learn the correct postural position on to finding your neutral spine

Racing Flat

Just gives me motion-sickness!

Racing Flat

anniehoo wrote: »

its actually making me sit up straight!;)

Once you can sit up 'straight' (ie good posture) on your own, without the use of the ball, ditch the ball.

cowzerp

Why would she ditch the ball?
posture can go very easily and the ball is not doing any harm and giving her a comfortable seat and a small core workout too..

anniehoo

DubWireless wrote: »

first, would have lower back checked out to make sure wasn't anything to be concerned about...

Doc just said it was a muscle spasm at the time, but it has continued to twinge. Its not painful as such just more of a stiffness..

Racing Flat

cowzerp wrote: »

Why would she ditch the ball?
posture can go very easily and the ball is not doing any harm and giving her a comfortable seat and a small core workout too..

If she sits in a good posture position she'll be getting a good 'core workout' as well. She can use the ball to help her to learn to sit properly. Once she is strong enough to sustain that herself, she will no longer need the ball.

It's like if you wear a neck collar for neck pain. Once the pain goes, you don't keep wearing the collar. If she uses the ball to improve her posture, once her posture imrpoves, she'll no longer need it. She could move on to more advanced exercises. Need to continually increase the stimulus put on the body to get training effects. Like adding more weights to your lifts as you get stronger.

cowzerp

Racing Flat wrote: »

It's like if you wear a neck collar for neck pain. Once the pain goes, you don't keep wearing the collar. If she uses the ball to improve her posture, once her posture imrpoves, she'll no longer need it.

There opposite actually, the neck brace acts as a support and the fitball takes away your support meaning you maintain posture by working your core, same question, why should she stop when the pain goes?

ps, the chair does the work not your core in a normal chair.

Racing Flat

cowzerp wrote: »

same question, why should she stop when the pain goes?

ps, the chair does the work not your core in a normal chair.

Well looking at it from a pain point of view, if she is getting pain because she cannot sit properly, she wants to learn how to sit properly - ie use her postural muscles correctly when sitting. She could do this by simply sitting correctly (might need to be shown this if she does not know her correct posture), for short bursts and gradually doing it more and more so that she builds the endurance of her postural sitting muscles until eventually she can sit properly all the time. But if she is currently very weak or has very poor endurance in those muscles, or they are simply not being recruited, using the Swiss ball might help her to learn the correct posture. But ideally she wants to be able to sit independently correctly to improve her sitting 'function' for want of a better word. You don't want her to be in a situation where she can sit perfectly on a Swiss ball all day long, but then as soon as she has to sit somewhere without the ball she loses her posture, so her pain returns (transfer of training and all that - just because you can sit well on a swiss ball doesn't necessaruily mean you can sit well on a chair). she can't take her ball everywhere - restaurant, plane etc., so you don't want her to be dependent on it. Therefore, use it as needed, but ultimately learn to sit properly, independently.

Racing Flat

cowzerp wrote: »

ps, the chair does the work not your core in a normal chair.

Depends how you sit on it! You can sit slumped on a Swiss ball, and therefore use some muscles but not necessarily your 'core' muscles. You can sit back in a chair, using more or less no muscles, but you can also sit upright on a chair, without the support of the chair, so that you are using your muscles to sit up....

Also, if you are sitting on a ball and the ball is completely still (which it generally will be after a few seconds once you steady yourself), then it's not really that different to a chair - until you go and move anyway. Obvioulsy, once you go to move the ball might start to roll and you might have to produce some muscle activity to keep it still, but these would not necessarily have to be your 'core' muscles - it is quite easy to cheat albeit subconsciously. The Swiss ball has its uses, but at the same time it's not the be all and end all, it can be a bit gimmicy and is probably a bit of a fad...

cowzerp

Funny stuff, so her using a fitball regularly will teach her bad habits for when she sits on a real chair! so thats why she should ditch it.
you stick with that..

i take it dumbells are pointless once you get toned as you cant bring them everywhere with you and when you go to pick up a box or something you'll pick it up wrong as your so used to dumbells!

Racing Flat

If someone wants to be able to sit properly without pain, I'd teach them how to sit properly without pain - not how to sit properly without pain with a gymball. That's all.

cowzerp

anniehoo wrote: »

Not sure if this is the right forum. Has anyone used a swiss ball as a chair at their desk to improve balance and abdominal strength? I have reoccurent twinges in my lower back and was wondering if sitting on one of these for some or all of my working day would improve my lower back strength. Any thoughts?

Where does she mention sitting without pain?
she asks about improving balance and strenght, both are helped by the use of a fitball and there is simply no reason why she should stop unless she chooses to do so-end of.

Racing Flat

cowzerp wrote: »

Where does she mention sitting without pain?

She mentions twinges in her lower back, perhaps I presumed too much in presuming that she wanted to improve balance and strength in order to improve her back twinges.

anniehoo wrote: »

Not sure if this is the right forum. Has anyone used a swiss ball as a chair at their desk to improve balance and abdominal strength? I have reoccurent twinges in my lower back and was wondering if sitting on one of these for some or all of my working day would improve my lower back strength. Any thoughts?

cowzerp wrote: »

she asks about improving balance and strenght, both are helped by the use of a fitball and there is simply no reason why she should stop unless she chooses to do so-end of.

Good point. From now on I''m going to carry a wobble board around with me for the rest of my life and stand on this whenever I have a need to stand still. To improve my balance and strength. :P

anniehoo

Alright lads dont be gettin niggly with each other!;) Thanks for the advice. I dont have any pain when sitting down. Im sitting down too much thats probably half my problem. The point of the swiss ball is to improve the "weak muscles" in my lower back to prevent anymore muscle spasms in the future thats all. As long as it wont do more harm than good ill give it a go and see if things improve.

Racing Flat

anniehoo wrote: »

Alright lads dont be gettin niggly with each other!;) Thanks for the advice. I dont have any pain when sitting down. Im sitting down too much thats probably half my problem. The point of the swiss ball is to improve the "weak muscles" in my lower back to prevent anymore muscle spasms in the future thats all. As long as it wont do more harm than good ill give it a go and see if things improve.

Learning to sit with a good posture is probably what you need. You don't necessarily need a ball for this, you can sit with good posture on most chairs, but if you like the ball, and it helps you, stick with it. I just think it would be no harm if you could sit well without the ball also as there will be many times when you will not have your ball with you. Best of luck with it.

cowzerp

ok your right then-:p

EileenG

Personally, I love sitting on my swiss ball. When I get stressed I can throw in a few crunches or curls and feel that I'm not totally wasting my time.