It's an exercise to help athletic performance. Ever hear of balance. It would have no use to you meatheads with the zits on your shoulders but it would help an ATHLETE who plays an ATHLETIC sport.
It doesnt halp Athletic Performance one bit.
Swiss Ball Use and Abuse: Q&A with Charles Poliquin
Q: You've written some articles in the past about the use of Swiss balls. Today it seems like stability balls and their ilk are being abused and overused. Have your feelings changed about Swiss balls?
A: The problem with Swiss balls is that people started doing things with them that their bodies weren't designed to do! For example, squatting on the Swiss ball is completely moronic. It's a party trick.
One of the problems is that you have to squat bowlegged. There's actually one guy in the industry who was showing off by doing it at a seminar. He jumped off and blew his ACL! What happens is that you put the ligament in a bad stretch from squatting bowlegged.
Now, if you use the Swiss ball to modify the strength curve like I've done with some arm training movements, I think that's fine.
With Poliquin's lean-away eccentric curls, you sit with your back and triceps resting against the side of a Swiss ball. Perform the concentric (lifting) range of a seated dumbbell curl. Once you curl the dumbbells to the top, raise your hips so that your thighs are parallel to the floor. Your upper body should then be literally on top of the ball. Lower the dumbbells down and away from you. Lower the hips and repeat until you hit your target number of reps.
Also, Swiss balls are good for certain core exercises. The problem is when people say that Swiss balls cure cancer and get the IRS off your back. There are people out there making outrageous claims.
Recent research has shown that Swiss ball training for your core works only for six weeks (which is what I've been saying since '94). You'll get more abdominal activation from the squat and deadlift than any Swiss ball exercise, no matter how difficult. So if you're an untrained person, you can do the Swiss ball, but after six weeks you'll top out on the gains you'll get.
About 70% of Swiss ball exercises are worthless. It's just one of those things where people are taking an idea too far. There's some value to it, but it's not a cure-all.
Most personal trainers and strength coaches just don't know how to get people strong. I remember talking to this one trainer who uses all these stability gizmos. I asked him why he used all that shit and he said, "I'm not good, so I have to do these weird things so people will come to see me."
I remember seeing him make this post-menopausal woman do one-hand split jerks with a fat dumbbell. Now, Adam Nelson is one of the best shot-putters in the world and I don't make him do that! The risks are way too high.
The problem with using Duradisks and similar devices is that you have to use loads that are so insignificant that none of the prime movers really get activated. So if a woman can overhead press a 25-pound dumbbell, she'll only be able to use an eight pounder while performing this circus act on a stability device. She just won't be overloading her muscles.
I call it "entertainment training," not strength training. And any time I see that horseshit, I want to kick the personal trainer in the head with a pair of steal-toe construction boots.
And the BOSU ball? The BOSU ball is a Swiss ball for morons! Again, when you stand on it you're always bowlegged. Why do you want to get into a position that's not good for your knees and ankles? What about doing it on one foot? So what, then you have to reduce the load!
One of the dumbest things I see is the lying dumbbell press on a Swiss Ball using only one arm. The most a 180 pound guy will be able to use is about 45 pounds. Why? Because if you use more, you're going to flip over. Now, the same guy can use much more than 45 pounds to do regular flat dumbbell presses. So what's the point?
"Oh, it activates the core." Yeah, and to what degree? All you're doing is firing some stabilizers just to control yourself so you don't flip over, but you're not overloading the pressing muscles. So again, this is just entertainment training. It's circus training and it doesn't do anything!
Now, these devices do work well... in marketing terms. It's like
