Inner Thigh Leg Raise Exercise with the Balance Ball

Video Transcript

" Hi! This is Manny Castro, Exercise Physiologist. In this next exercise, we’re going to do a leg raise using the ball. Now this particular exercise doesn’t necessarily use any type of balance, however you do have to concentrate on gripping the ball between your feet. This gives the exercise a certain level of difficulty. I’ll demonstrate the exercise and then we’ll talk about different sub-variations of the exercise. Now what you want to do is lay back in your abdominal crunch position. Your knees are up and you want to put your ankles around the bottom of the ball. Then your hands will be down on palms facing the floor. What you’re going to do is lift the ball up with your knees slightly bent and then let it back down. Now, when you are actually doing the exercise you don’t want to let the ball contact the floor, let your legs touch the floor or come back down that low. That will put a lot of pressure on your lower spine and you don’t want to necessarily do that. Again, with all these exercises, as a beginner, you probably want to start 12-15 repetitions. Then as you advance, about 15-20 repetitions or maybe even more. A sub-variation of this exercise would be to twist the legs so your obliques are doing some of the work. I’ll demonstrate that. While you come up, you can twist and back down, come back up, twist, back down, and then come back up. Again, the level of difficulty is much higher than the first variation. "