The Exercise Ball

Today, at lunch, Nikki and I headed to the YMCA for one of our lunch gab sessions that involved walking around the indoor track. Much to our dismay, it was raining, thus we could not do our usual outdoor route through town. Anyways, we were having a good time walking around in circles and Nikki suggested some ab work downstairs in the weight room. Looking at my not six pack abs, I agreed this was a good idea. For those of you who don't know, Miss Nikki and I met at her kickboxing class at the YMCA. Well, actually, at the time, it was held at a church because they didn't have the big YMCA yet... Needless to say, Nikki knows how to use all of the fancy aerobics equipment. So, I should have known the ab work would involve one of those ab balls. I have never liked the ab ball things. What makes them so effective is you have to use your muscles to balance on the ball while you do the crunches. They live up to their promise of giving more bang for each sit-up done, and for the most part I can handle them ok... but then we did a move the required lying on the ball sideways to do side crunches. Oh- how to explain this- Nikki is probably already dying of laughter. Anyways, as I lay there sideways, trying to work the oblique muscles by cruching up, I would lose my balance on the ball and fall either forward or backward. Forward wasn't too bad, but backward I would hit the wall. But when we switched sides, I really had issues and kept hitting the wall. Since my back was to her, she could hear the thud as I threw my arm against the wall to regain my balance. She says, "Sounds like you're having trouble over there." I managed to do about 8 of the side crunches on each side. Thankfully, there were only two other people in the room to witness my graceful side crunches on the ball.
Oh the things we do to have flat abs!