Swiss Ball Presses

[Pete235]

First of all...does everybody know what a Swiss Ball is? If not, next time your in your gym look at the ab station, you should see large laytex balls about 2-3ft. high...that's a swiss ball.

I have not done bench press for 6 years. I suffered a wrist injury and the resulting reconstructive surgeries left me with limited mobility in that wrist. I also have shoulder problems that are obvious even when I do flat bench dumbells. My main mass builder for chest is incline dumbells. Recently I picked up one of my old copies of Muscle Media 2000 and read an interesting article by Charles Poliquin. He demonstrated several traditional presses done on a swiss ball instead of benches. So now, after inclines, I grab a swiss ball some 90lb dumbells (trust me...you will have to go lighter than normal), lay down on the ball with my legs extended and braced and press away. You get a very large range of motion and work stabilizing muscles you never even realized you had. Try it the next time you want to re-vamp your chest routine.

[The French Curler]

Yes, very good suggestion. The Swiss ball is a wonderful piece of equipment, and most guys at the gym aviod it because nothing else like it brings more pain to their bodies!

[Sam_the_Ripper]

I agree with you pete on the swiss ball presses. Most guys are either too stupid to try it, cuz they cant balance on the ball in proper form or they think its feminish using the ball. I do ball presses and mostly use the ball for abs. its a great piece of equipment, and 90# you are doing good pete. keep it up

[jbrand]

Poliquin wrote a lot of literature on this. Keep in mind it is recommended that Swiss Ball size varies with weight (ie: S-M-L) I would recommend dipping in $30 and making a wise investment.

[vielbistdu]

Yeah, most definitely agree with you about the swiss bal presses. When I implement them they give me an extreme stress. I feel it helps bring out striations, kinda like speeding up muscle maturity. Jus my opinion, tho.

[demetri]

I've been using the swiss ball for some time. A while ago I found that my shoulders were just killing me doing flat and incline bench. I worked exclusively on the swiss ball for 4 months (flat, incline, flys) and my rotator cuffs have never felts better.

I don't think it's something that you should do for every chest workout but man do you get a great pump on your chest and shoulders. I use a 65 cm ball that I bought for $40.00. It defintaly worth it.

There are also balls with an anti burst seal but they tend to get a little pricey, some of them are rated for 4000 pounds. Mine is rated for only 450 but that's all most of us need.

[SAC]

the swiss ball presses are great. when you lay on it you want your torso parallel to the floor and your knees at 90 degrees. start with the feet wide and work it till you get your feet together(this a more advanced move). start lite with the wt and instead of upping the poundage just move your ft closer together. once you have hit this pt then start upping the wt.