Those big stability balls are everywhere, and Elizabeth Gillies takes a stab at telling us what to do with them in "101 Ways To Work Out On The Ball" (Fair Winds Press, $19.95).
Doing exercises on the ball helps you recognize your points of imbalance while building body awareness and developing core strength. Gillies, with the aid of color photographs, clearly describes the movements that target body parts, how they work together and the reasons for them. She also offers a workout plan she calls the "15 minute ab strengthener."
Gillies, a veteran of fitness videos, seems to find no point too trivial. She addresses fundamentals of posture, how big your ball should be and how to incorporate the prop with stretching, Pilates and weight training.
Pilates continues to be popular, and is making inroads into yoga's market. However, it can be rigid and intimidating for beginners, so Karen Karter strives to make it accessible in "Pilates Lite, Easy Exercise to Lose Weight and Tone Up" (Fair Winds Press, $19.95).
Karter's book includes 10 different 15-minute workout programs for beginners, and also offers information to help with advanced workouts. She does an excellent job of spelling out the principles and benefits of Pilates, but also spends pages urging the reader to learn the fundamentals of the exercise and his or her own body before diving into the workout.
"Yogalates, Total Body Toner" (Virgin Books, $29.95) is a year or so old by now, but it is still one of the better fusion-oriented workout books I've seen. Louise Solomon combines principles and moves of yoga and Pilates to help the reader both strengthen and relax.
Using easy-to-track illustrations and concise text, Solomon displays specific exercises for body parts and a holistic program for the more advanced student.
Solomon, based in Australia, was injured while taking a beginner's yoga class, and eventually turned to Pilates. There, she learned the importance of core strength. But she missed the calm and meditation of yoga. So she developed a combination workout. She also has Yogalates video workouts.
"How To Get a Hollywood Body in Just 30 Minutes a Day" (Broadway Books, $22.95) has many things going against it in my mind, not the least of which is the ubiquitous word, "celebrity." And I am not impressed that Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston heartily endorse Kathy Kaehler's program.
From the book jacket, it seemed to be reinforcing fantasy without fully acknowledging genes, body doubles, perfect lighting and camera magic. However, once you get past the hype, the book somewhat redeems itself. I found no quick fixes, but plenty of common sense. It provides help on eating properly and finding the right sort of exercises, and includes a series of well-illustrated exercises to target certain body areas.
While some women may care about Julia Roberts' workout, I imagine some guys would be curious how professional wrestling's "Triple H" gets his freakish muscles. We learn in "Making the Game, Triple H's Approach to a Better Body" (World Wrestling Entertainment Books, $26).
Triple H splices his advice and personal story with his regimen details. He is a monstrous man (who denies doing steroids) and an entertainer more than an athlete, but he worked hard to rehab from a serious quadriceps injury. And those wrestlers spend a lot of time on the road, which is a major setback for anyone trying to stay in shape.
Beyond the stories and ring photos, this is a fairly pedestrian book with some usable lifting tips. But it is clearly for the lifting and wrestling crowd.
While Triple H teaches you how to bulk up, "Ballet-Fit Workout" (Ulysses Press, $14.95) offers tips on how to lighten up.
Ballet strikes me as more intimidating than Triple H's body slam, but this book presents a program aimed at helping people gain "elegance and grace," as well as body awareness in a very simple way. It furnishes, through photographs and text, tips on finding alignment and "re-balancing" as you move through the day's activity. It also discusses ballet principles of dynamic stability, which helps support the body through the rigors we put it through. Dancers of the Australian Ballet model the exercises.
Richard Seven is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff writer. He can be reached at rseven@seattletimes.com.
