Fitballs to the wall

The good news is that I now have a tri coach, which is awesome (more on that later!), and as a result I have my workouts for the week all planned out and purposeful unlike the vague "try to do a little of everything" scheme I've been doing on my own up to now. Having a coach helps me feel more accountable, more cognizant of what goes into becoming an athlete. I've been able to improve several key skills in just the week we've been working together, and I get the feeling he can spot weaknesses and help me overcome them in a thoughtful way.

Sadly, one key area of my improved training regimen is the use of a Fitball for core exercises and strength. You know what a Fitball is, it's one of those big blow up balls that are used for pilates and are vaguely reminiscent of those marbleized bouncy balls that you got in the supermarket as a kid (the ones in that came out the bottom of those big white cages). On the TV show Portlandia the Mayor sits on one. They are supposed to be good for your balance. A few hipster friends (the ones who aren't using those standing desks) have started using them at work. They say it burns calories and helps fend off the worst side-effects of being sedentary. Sure, why not.

But today I tried to follow the examples on Coach Chris's Xeroxed handout of core exercises that require use of the Fitball, and it was a fiasco worth of I Love Lucy, but with bluer language.

I couldn't hold my positions. My sneakers wouldn't grip the floor so I slid around like it was covered in Crisco. My arms flailed. In several instances I was trying to read the instructions while on the ball. Not a good plan. I smacked the back of my head once on the floor and once on the corner of the bed frame.

Diane returned from her run, heard me yelling expletives and came rushing upstairs to see if I was alright.

"Hon, are you okay?!" She looked genuinely concerned.

Fitball Face

I lay on my back, the Fitball having skidded off to the edge of the room where it was lolling lazily against the wall. My feet gamboled above me as if I were a cockroach flipped on its back. At that moment it occurred to me that the ball's smell had rubbed off on me and I now smelled vaguely like a condom.

"I'm fine. Go about your business. Nothing to see here." I told her.

She laughed.

 "You think it's funny, huh?" I asked. "Let's see you do the 'Supine Side Roll' then" [Note: many of the Fitball exercises sound like menu items at a sushi restaurant].

Needless to say, Diane got down on the Fitball and after a brief examination of the Xerox had masted and then demonstrated --with near perfect form-- several of the exercises that had nearly brought me to tears.

Obviously I'm Fitball Dyslexic. Up is down. Left is right.

The Xerox says the Fitball is also known as the "Swiss Fitness Ball." Maybe that's the root of my problem.

My family moved to Switzerland when I was 10 and it didn't go well. To say we were not embraced by the Swiss people would be an understatement. The Swiss make great cheese and even better chocolate, but they are notoriously xenophobic, and in the mid 1980's, at the height of Reganomics, Americans were despised. I went to a school where all my classmates and even my 5th grade teacher hated me. She was ready, able and more than willing to administer regular corporal punishment. I can only assume the Fitball raises in me certain spectral memories of being slapped hard against the ear as I incorrectly identified the capital of Sweden as Copenhagen.

When I find the Swiss sadist who invented the Fitball, I will put his head on a pike. In the meantime, what the heck happened to good old crunches?

Coach Chris advises: "Try the exercises in a padded room." A padded cell is more like, though he insists if I keep at it "it will get better." There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, I am relegated to The Trevor Project of Fitball.

Stay tuned to find out whether I overcome my Fitball issues or if I use my investigative journalism skills and keen knowledge of Facebook to track down Aquilino Cosani, the original inventor of the Fitball (for real).

Even Valentine Is Good at The Fitball