One of the first things I purchased for my home gym setup was the Gaiam Balanceball. The things you can do with a Balanceball or Swissball as we used to call it, are unlimited. I was going to buy one of the commercial grade Balanceball’s until I saw Gaiam’s dandy little kit and thought it was more fun than just getting the ball by itself.
Gaiam put out the Total Body Balanceball package so you would have everything you needed to get a fitness type workout at home as soon as you bought it. So what’s inside?
- A high quality anti-burst medium sized Balanceball
- A Balanceball pump
- The Total Body DVD with 3 targeted workouts
- A second complete workout on a bonus DVD
- A resistance workout band
The Gaiam Balanceball Itself
Balanceballs themselves have many benefits such as improving core strength, they’re impact free and there is a large amount of variety you can add to your training with them. Bottom line is, I find them fun for my clients with the secondary benefit of being highly effective as well.
Is there anything special about the Gaiam Balanceball? Nope. Nothing at all. It is just like every other Balanceball out there. The thickness of the material is better than the super cheap ones you can get and it has the non-slip surface with ridges. You can tell the cheaper balls by the ultra shiny finish.
So if the Balanceball does what it’s suppose to, then lets see what else is in the kit.
The Balanceball Pump
I thought the pump would be cheap. I don’t know why. I trust the Gaiam name but I thought it would be a convenient place for them to cut production costs. I was wrong. They even taped an extra stopper tip (hole plug) to the Balanceball itself just in case you lost the one with the pump. As a little cool perk, you can even use the pump on your bike tires because it is compatible with most nozzle sizes. Cool huh?
It will take you about 4 minutes to pump the Balanceball up and it will give you a crazy forearm pump. It’s kind of funny trying to type this right now.
The first Balanceball workout DVD
This DVD has three Balanceball workouts on it. How are they? Surprisingly good.
Maybe I’m overconfident at times when it comes to knowledge of exercises and fitness in general. I know there is always more to learn but I think that I’ve pretty much seen most of what there is to see. That’s when I usually get my ego handed to me on a plate with a side of pilates for dessert. That was once again the case with the Balanceball workouts on the DVD.
For a laugh I asked my conditioning coach for our ‘next step’ coaching site, FasterLeanerStronger (Derek was over for a coffee) to watch it with me. After a few minutes he said I should try an exercise they were doing on the Total Body DVD with the resistance band. So I did. First thing out of my mouth was ‘aww crap’. Derek laughed and asked me what was wrong and I had to admit that the exercise was no piece of cake.
The first DVD in the Gaiam Total Body Balanceball kit covers upper and lower body as well as abdominals in three separate workouts with warmups included. I have to admit that with some attention to diet and nutrition, you’d be well on your way to a lean physique if you followed the routines in the DVD. Remember that I said lean physique, you’re not going to get massive muscles with this type of workout.
The Total Body Balance Ball Kit Resistance Workout Band
Again, being more of an olympic/power lifting and bodyweight exercise sort of fitness enthusiast myself I smirked at the thought of even using a flimsy resistance workout band. I mean seriously, there are no numbers on it! I usually like to write down ‘deadlifts 315×8′ not ‘grey resistance band with two wraps around hands’. Once again I was surprised. I’d never seen some of the variations of exercises they were doing such as the lat pulldown and one leg elevated shoulder press. Neat stuff and I’ll be putting them in my personal trainer toolbox for later.
Overall review of the Gaiam Total Body Balanceball Package
I’m very pleased. I’m happy I ordered it and it was well worth the price considering the new variety I can now add to my clients stretching and resistance workout routines. I may even pick up a couple more for client gifts and incentives to personal training packages.
You can pick up your own Gaiam Total Body Balanceball Kit here
If you have a Balanceball already, please share your own review of it below in the comments.
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