Exercise balls have become all the rage lately. These days just about any modern gym has exercise balls available for its clients. The main advantage of these types of exercise aid are that they provide the user with a massive number of different exercises with just one peice of lightweight equipment. Not only do exercise balls strengthen and tone all the muscles in your body, but by using an axercise ball you need to also employ balance which takes mental concentration, so you are exercising your body and your mind. Recently there have been revisions of the exercise ball which allow for more focused work outs.

Exercise balls provide a wealth of different exercises for their users. They can be used to strenghten abs, back, leg and many hard to reach muscles. Exercise that involves balance promotes greater strength in a uniform manner across the body. This prevents over working only selected muscles and not exercising others. Exercise balls come in all shapes and sizes and are a great addition to the world of gym equipment because the are relatively small and lightweight. They can be used to do many of the exercises that traditionally used large, expensive gym equipment. They also serve a double purpose in that they can also be used to as a stretching aid, because of their softness and flexibility they are great to stretch back muscles. For this reason they are great to use for rehabilitation muscle strengthening.

The nature of exercise balls means that all exercise performed with them is low impact. They provide low stress exercise which is light on joints and bones, great for patients recovering from injuries. Because of their softness they are excellent for rolling and rotational exercises. Using dumbells on a ball is really quite beneficial, as it forces you to keep your body balanced while lifting.

There are quite a few different exercise balls available on the market these days. Be carefull of buying cheap exercise balls. Imagine lying prone on a ball with a dumbell in either hand and the ball suddenly bursts beneath you. Not a pleasant thought and not worth taking the risk with a cheap ball.

One new type of exercise ball is the bosu ball. Bosu stands for 'both sides utilized' and is a logical extension of the original exercise ball. These types of balls are slightly different in that they have one flat side, so they are more of an exercise dome. The main advantage of this is stability. Where traditional exercise balls can be unstable and require a larger free space to use, bosu balls can be used in smaller areas as they cannot roll around. This means a whole range of new exercises can be performed with them. For example you can stand on the ball which will aid in developing balance and stability or you can turn the bosu ball over and do balanced pushups with it. The main disadvantage of the bosu ball over the traditional exercise ball is that it cannot be used for 'rolling' exercises. By placing the bosu ball flat side up you can effectively still use the spin and twist motions so the disadvantage is really only a minor drawback.

With the high level of stress in todays worlkplaces it is important to make enough time to exercise every day to keep healthy. Just thirty minutes of exercise every day can reduce your chances of disease and medical problems dramatically. A bosu ball is great because it can be used for intensive exercise and also for mild relaxation type exercise and stretching. Stretching helps tone muscles and balance the body. Exercise promotes healthy blood flow and heart rate among other well know benefits.