To get the most benefit from your Swiss ball as a chair, follow these four suggestions:

Always choose a ball at least one size too large. For exercising, when sitting on the ball, your thighs should be parallel or slightly inclined with the hip no more than 10 degrees above the knee relative to the horizontal plane. To use the Swiss ball as a chair, you will use the same guidelines, but start with one size too large (the person that would exercise on a 55 cm ball should sit on a 65 cm ball) and deflate it until your hip is slightly elevated relative to your knee. This will give you a soft ball to sit on, whereas if you sit on a ball properly inflated for exercising, you may suffer compression of your sciatic nerve and related discomfort.

Use only an anti-burst Dura Ball Pro ball . If a traditional Swiss ball is punctured by a staple or any sharp object, it can explode and you can easily get injured hitting the ground, the wall or furniture! Anti-burst Duraballs will deflate slowly and safely.

Always check the floor daily and remove any potentially offending objects.

Don't get rid of your chair just yet! Sitting on a Swiss ball requires full activation of your postural muscles and if they fatigue, you will just be someone sitting on a Swiss ball with poor posture, which defeats the purpose. Therefore, I recommend only sitting on the Swiss ball as long as you can hold good posture, like you see James doing in Figure 5. When you're tired, switch to the chair for an equal time period and rotate back and forth between the Swiss Ball and chair. For example, you may sit for 15 minutes on the ball and 15 minutes on a chair. As your postural muscles get stronger, reduce the amount of time you sit on the ball.

Exercise As You Sit

While sitting on the ball, you can pump nutrition into and remove waste from your spinal muscles, ligaments and discs as you work by using the following fun and effective movements on the ball:

The Seated Posture Trainer (Figure 6): Sitting with good posture, simply lift one foot off the ground for a second or two and alternate from left-to-right repeatedly for 30 -- 60 seconds intermittently throughout the day.

Seated Balancing (Figure 7): When you are comfortable lifting one foot and then the other and can do it with good posture, try lifting both feet off the floor and balancing on the ball. Again, work at keeping good upright posture just the way you see C.H.E.K Practitioner J.P. Sears doing here. The first few times you try this, I suggest moving the ball away from furniture so you have room to move if you lose your balance. Remember, the harder it is to balance on a Swiss ball, the more you need the exercise!

Forward and Backward Tilting of the Pelvis (Figure 8a and 8b): Here you see me demonstrating how to tip the pelvis forward. Imagine the pelvis is a bowl and you are pouring the fluid in the bowl out over your belt buckle and then backwards. As you do this exercise, keep your head and shoulders as still as possible to encourage the pumping motion in your low back region. This is a good abdominal and back muscle exercise too! Performing 20 repetitions two to four times an hour can be very beneficial.

Side-To-Side Tilting (Figure 9a and 9b): Keeping your head and shoulders still, rock your pelvis side to side 10-20 times two to four times an hour.

Pelvic Circles (Figure 10): Moving your pelvis in circles is very effective too! Again, keep the head and shoulders very still to encourage lumbar pumping and muscle coordination. This will also improve your performance on the dance floor! Do pelvic circles at random throughout the day for good results.

Pelvic Figure 8s (Figure 11a and 11b -- Front to Back & Side to Side): As you can see in the images below, you can make figure 8 movements in a front to back motion or a side-to-side motion. This is a better, more comprehensive coordination exercise. You may perform this at random or complete 10-20 figure 8s in each direction each hour for great results.

By using a Swiss ball (Duraball) as a chair, I'm positive you will enjoy the same benefits that my staff and I at the C.H.E.K Institute, as well as thousands of patients seen by C.H.E.K practitioners around the world, do every year.

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