Shaper Ball Workout, YFP & Ball Question

[Guest guest]

I was able to workout this morning and right at the end of my workout DH's doctor's office called with results we should have had yesterday (at least they called early this morning). His blood work was the same as Friday which means he's stable but still not improving. It did mean there was no need to reschedule tomorrow's kidney doc appt to today and they're not rushing into anything. He went to work again today and is planning to lead his Cub Scout den meeting tonight. Today we're seeing his gastroentologist but I don't expect much of anything important from that one. Tomorrow he'll go into work again and then in the afternoon we're meeting with the kidney doc. Hopefully we'll leave that one with more of a plan for next steps.

Anyway... on to my workout...

I did Kathy 's Shaper Ball Workout today. It was pretty good. I haven't done hardly any ball workouts so I don't have much to compare it too but I like Kathy and (whatever his last name is) was a great (and good looking) workout partner for her. No annoying, flirtatious or stupid chatter either. I really liked how between the two of them they showed beginner, intermediate and advanced modifications in this workout. It is only 30 minutes and because it is broken into at various length segments it seems to go quickly.

After that I decided to find the short (15 minute) yoga practice for hips I saw mentioned on this board recently. It was on Yoga for Inflexible People and I LOVED it! I wasn't in "yoga mode" meaning I wasn't focusing a lot on my breath but the poses still felt great. I will definitely have to do that one again soon.

Now, here's my question about exercise balls... Kathy and 's exercise balls were much smaller than mine. How do I know if mine is too big for me? I thought it was just a matter of making sure your knees were at a 90 degree angle when you sat on it (Kathy's looked too small for her using that criterion) and mine seems to be or at least fairly close to it. However, I could not do a lot of the exercises the same way they were because I couldn't lay on my side on it and put one hand on the floor, it was too big for me to get my hand to the floor beyond my fingertips. I also had trouble with the inner thigh work with the ball being held with your inner thighs because it is so large. Keep in mind I'm not quite 5' tall. I did mostly intermediate and advanced modifications at least partly because those were the ones that didn't need your hand touching the floor as you leaned over the ball!! I did okay with those but would have liked to have the beginner option when I was especially wobbly. So, do I need to get a smaller ball? I'm thinking yes. I'm not sure how big mine is but I thought it was one of the smaller ones. If it is, do they sell kid-size exercise balls (for use by big kids or very small adults) in most stores or do I have to through a specialty company to get a smaller one if I need it?

Thanks for your help!