swiss ball instead of incline bench?

watergirl626

Hi all, I am adding to my "home" (work actually) gym. There is a cable machine, and some cardio machines. I plan to add a swiss ball and dumbbells. One of the workout plans I have been looking at uses an incline bench for many of the exercises. Can I use the swiss ball instead of an incline bench? It may sound like a stupid question, but I've never used a swiss ball before, so I really don't know. TIA!

watergirl626

bump?

tracylee679

I would think it would be fine to use a swiss ball. The Supreme 90 series uses a swiss ball as a bench and it seems to work pretty well. Plus you get the added ab workout from trying to stay balanced! Hope that helps!

Tracy

kelseyhere

I'm curious if this works vice-versa also. The plan I'm doing uses a swiss ball, which I don't have at my gym at work. So maybe the incline bench would be a better option than on the floor?

watergirl626

I would think it would be fine to use a swiss ball. The Supreme 90 series uses a swiss ball as a bench and it seems to work pretty well. Plus you get the added ab workout from trying to stay balanced! Hope that helps!

Tracy

Thanks!

MaggieMay131

I think the incline bench would just add more resistance & distance to the exercise. A swiss ball would provide instability instead of resistance, so it would be slightly different, but I wouldn't think it would make a huge difference.

goldfinger88

Certainly. Just about anything that calls for a bench can be done on a fitness ball.

Sidesteal

I think it depends

The stability ball CAN be useful as it's harder to cheat the lift, but if you're spending energy and focus, trying to stabilize yourself when you could be using that to exert more force on your incline press, I think this could be detrimental.

You may find that it's more productive to do incline press on a bench and work your core with core-specific work.

Not trying to sway you one way or another, just bringing up the above point as something to consider.

Samanthasteinagle26

It's too cold outside to even go to the gym. So, I started supreme90 n it seems pretty good even tho I almost broke my head falling off the swiss ball.

RunHardBeStrong

Yes, I do it all the time! My trainer has me use it because it actually engages more muscles keeping yourself steady and you can still do most incline moves with it, you just angle yourself on your tailbone and stabalize yourself with your core. It's actually a GREAT core workout as well! Good luck!

TrainingWithTonya

It depends on what you are trying to do. With the ball, you have to go lighter with your weights because of the added balance aspect of the activity. So, with the stability ball, then you get more endurance resistance training and core strength. If you use an actual bench, then you can go heavier with the weights but you don't have as much of the balance aspect. So, with the bench, you can build strength and hypertrophy, but not core strength.

And yes, you can modify any program that you are doing to use what you have. As I'm designing programs to put on my Facebook fan page for the new year, I'm using a mix of bench and stability ball work, but I am specifically doing that so that people with a ball and no bench or vice versa know that they can do the exercises using either so that they can modify themselves. Just go with what you have until you can add the other piece of equipment to your collection. And yes, it does become a collection over time for those of us who get hooked on exercise. LOL