Exercise is an important part of many people's daily lives. It is well known that regular exercise is a significant factor in maintaining physical fitness, controlling weight, improving intellectual functioning, and emotional well being. Exercises aimed at strengthening the back and abdominal muscles, also referred to as the “core” muscles, are known to be particularly beneficial. However, a significant challenge the many different forms and types of core exercises is that the person must place their body in contact with a floor or other hard surface. Extending contacting with hard surfaces while performing core exercises may cause discomfort and/or pain for many people, in particular, those who are just commencing with regular exercise routines.
One way of reducing discomfort and pain during performance of core exercises is to position a person's back or alternatively their abdomen or alternatively, their sides on an exercise ball while they are exercising. Exercise balls are also commonly known as Swiss balls, balance balls, body balls, pilates balls, yoga balls. Exercise balls are typically constructed of soft pliable and elastic polymers and generally available in a broad range of diameters between 14 inches to about 48 inches. The air pressure within the exercise ball may be adjusted as desired by a user to provide a desired degree of comfort and stability when the ball is used to support the user's body during their execution of core exercises. It is known that the use of exercise balls to support a user's body while performing core exercises will result in continuous positional instability during the full range of body movements thereby assisting in strengthening of the core muscles because they are directly engaged in stabilization of the body while it is in motion on the exercise ball.
A problem commonly encountered with the use of exercise balls, particularly those in the early stages of developing a routine exercise program, is that a user may have difficulty maintaining their balance on the exercise ball during the exercise resulted in unexpected falls or slipping of the exercise ball resulting in bruising and more serious injuries. Falls and slipping by users may be due to a lack of gripping surfaces or devices on the balls or adjacent to the balls to enable the user to stabilize themselves. Furthermore, where a user may be able to locate walls, bars or other objects to hold onto during the exercise, such surfaces may provide insufficient strength to properly stabilize the user. Additionally, the surfaces that a user may be able to find in a given location may be insufficient to provide the variety of grips desired by a user.