5 Reasons Why You Should Use an Exercise Ball at the Office

Working in an office has certain benefits — potluck day, doughnuts in the conference room, getting paid to surreptitiously surf the internet — but it also has its downsides. A recent study by CareerBuilder found that 55 percent of Americans who work in an office said they were overweight, and 56 percent of those attributed their overweight state primarily to sitting at a desk all day (compared to just 17 percent who blamed the doughnuts in the conference room and 9 percent who blamed feeling pressured to eat food their co-workers kept bringing into work.)

Sitting Still is Bad News

A lack of activity contributes to being overweight and obese, and it's also a major risk factor for numerous cancers, Type-2 diabetes, heart disease, and scores of other devastating diagnoses that are highly preventable.

Wellness programs in the workplace are becoming more and more prevalent as study after study reveals that businesses lose 450 million days' worth of productivity every year at a cost of $153 billion due to employees who are overweight or obese.

A major component of most employee wellness programs involves moving. You know the drill: take the stairs instead of the elevator, ride your bike to work, have walking meetings, pace while you're on the phone, take a walk around the block during lunch — anything that gets you off your patootie and involves putting one foot in front of the other. Humans are meant to move, and that's why God gave us athletic shoes. But too many of us get just a mere fraction of the recommended 10,000 steps a day and we're dying prematurely because of it.

Good News for the Sedentary

If you're entirely too busy during your work day to rise up off your sit bones and move around the office, there's a way you can remain in a seated position and still get some exercise. It's called an exercise ball, and it keeps you moving for as long as you sit on it.

An exercise ball is very large, and using one as your chair at work for just two hours a day has numerous benefits. As long as you don't have any back problems or musculoskeletal disorders — in which case you should talk to your physician before planting yourself on an exercise ball for any length of time. Spending a couple of hours trying not to fall off the ball can help you get fit. These are the top five benefits of ditching your chair for a while each day in favor of an exercise ball.

1. Strengthen Your Core. Your core muscles — namely, the abs — keep you upright, and they keep you balanced. A strong core helps prevent injury when engaging in any type of physical activity, and it helps prevent lower back pain from sitting too long. It also promotes good balance and posture. Sitting on an exercise ball engages your abs, which get a heck of a workout for the duration of your perch. And remember: building muscle means an increase in your metabolism, which translates to more effective weight loss.
2. Maintain Good Circulation. None of your body parts are going to get bored while you're balancing on your exercise ball because each will be otherwise busy keeping you upright. Every time you move — every time you reach for the phone, turn to converse with a co-worker, bend down to retrieve something from a drawer — your entire body will be engaged in adjusting itself to maintain balance. This means that blood is flowing constantly, preventing your rear end and your legs from taking little naps and helping you stay mentally alert.
3. Burn More Calories. You can burn up to 50 more calories an hour by sitting on an exercise ball. Add a little bouncing action or side-to-side fidgeting and you're looking at an extra 500 calories burned a week if you use the ball for two hours a day. Those babies add up and, if you do absolutely nothing else differently, can lead to a weight loss of eight pounds of fat a year.
4. Improve Your Posture. You can't slouch on an exercise ball since it's unstable. Slouch, and you're gonna slide right off. Sitting on an exercise ball helps improve your spine alignment by keeping your back straight, shoulders back, and core engaged, which means that while you're on the ball, your excellent posture would make your mom proud.
5. Have More Energy. Sitting still for hours on end leads to sluggishness and fantasizing about napping when you should be crunching those numbers. Sitting on the exercise ball keeps you moving, helps you to focus, and keeps your blood flowing to help you stay energized, even when you're performing the most boring tasks on earth. Which, incidentally, are made just that much more fun when you're performing them while sitting on an exercise ball.