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What is the swiss ball?
The Swiss ball (Swiss ball or fitball or gymnastic ball) is a fitness machine used for various purposes, including muscle exercises - e.g. abdominal crunch - flexibility exercises, joint mobility, proprioception, balance etc.
Developed in the early 60s as a toy for children, it soon became a tool for physiotherapy, especially to improve sensitivity to muscle nerve stimuli and joint stability, reflexes etc.
The goal of this article is to educate users on the physiological mechanisms behind the Swiss sphere, shifting the focus from mere and unreasoned practice to the concrete reason why the coveted training progress takes place. Only in this way will it be possible to specialize and customize the protocols, reaching the set goals more quickly.
What is the Swiss ball used for?
Today, the Swiss ball is frequently used more widely also in athletic training and personal training, integrating the muscle strengthening and coordination tables; in fact, some physiological mechanisms are positively influenced and determined by certain stresses transmitted with the use of the Swiss ball.
Let us now try to clarify the reason for these improvements, analyzing first of all those who are the "protagonists" of the physiological systems involved.
General information on proprioception
The human body has multiple sensory capacities, which allow it to express appropriate motor functions; all these abilities are enclosed in the term "proprioception".
Proprioception is the ability to perceive the movement and position of the joints, or more generally of the body segments, in space. This ability serves above all to manage the motor patterns of neuromuscular control, necessary to perform precise and highly specific movements; it also contributes to muscle reflex and contributes to dynamic joint stability.
For example, the ability of an athlete to maintain balance - after being unbalanced in a dynamic game situation - requires the coordinated activation of various muscles which must exercise an appropriate level of strength; in other words, it requires excellent proprioceptive skills.
When the balance is disturbed, the receptors distributed throughout the body sense a change in the tissue in which they are located and communicate this variation to the CNS; after the brain has developed the best motor scheme to react to the imbalance, contraction and inhibition signals are sent to the muscles, which produce compensatory movement. The receptors that intervene in these situations are the neuromuscular spindles, the Golgi tendon organs and the joint receptors.
Neuromuscular spindles
Neuromuscular spindles are receptors that are sensitive to the length and intensity of stretching, which stimulate muscle contraction when they reach their arousal threshold. The neuromuscular spindles are located inside the muscles, arranged in parallel with the bundles of muscle fibers; in this way, when the muscle stretches reaching a certain length at a certain speed, the muscle spindle senses the change and sends a signal to the spinal cord. In response to this stimulus, the affected muscles receive a message that initiates a reflex contraction (myotatic reflex) of the stretched muscle, and a relaxation of the antagonist muscle.
Golgi tendon organs
The Golgi tendon organs are receptors of the muscle-tendon junction sensitive to the stretching of the tendons in response to the contraction of the connected muscles. Following a muscle contraction, their sensitive fibers are activated and send the signal to the spinal cord; to this stimulus replicates the total or partial inhibition of the corresponding muscle contraction (inverse myotatic reflex). It is therefore a protection mechanism used by the body to avoid excessive tension in the tendon, which could lead to serious injury (inflammation or interruption of continuity, partial or total).
Articular receptors
The joint receptors inform the nervous system about the joint angle, angular acceleration during movement and the degree of deformation of the joint compressed by the forces involved in the movement. The articular receptors therefore collect a large amount of data relating to the position of the body in space, the mode of movement and the joint load.
Visual and auditory function
To integrate this complex and highly efficient data collection system, there is the precious contribution of the visual and auditory organs. The perception of an incoming shot or an alert signal, for example, allows the body to prepare for action.
How do you use the swiss ball?We now explain how the use of the swiss ball can stimulate all these production reflexes and movement control.
We have already said that the swiss ball is mainly used for strengthening muscles and for correcting neuromuscular systems; these activities consist of sudden changes in joint positions, since they require the intervention of the neuromuscular reflex.
Thanks to the typically spherical shape of the swiss ball it is possible to create sudden alterations in body position and various imbalances; softening the consistency or increasing the diameter reduces the difficulty in the execution, while hardening and reducing it increases the demand for reactivity.
To achieve the maximum effectiveness of proprioceptive training with swiss ball it is necessary to customize and specialize the exercises and the entire protocol, establishing duration, difficulty level or intensity and therefore the overall training load.
These are just some of the variables to consider, as the objectives and abilities of a sedentary middle-aged person, for example, are certainly not the same as those of a young athlete.
Benefits
Proprioceptive benefits of the swiss ball
We now explain how the use of the swiss ball can stimulate all these production reflexes and movement control.
We have already said that the swiss ball is mainly used for strengthening muscles and for correcting neuromuscular systems; these activities consist of sudden changes in joint positions, since they require the intervention of the neuromuscular reflex.
Thanks to the typically spherical shape of the swiss ball it is possible to create sudden alterations in body position and various imbalances; softening the consistency or increasing the diameter reduces the difficulty in the execution, while hardening and reducing it increases the demand for reactivity.
To achieve the maximum effectiveness of proprioceptive training with swiss ball it is necessary to customize and specialize the exercises and the entire protocol, establishing duration, difficulty level or intensity and therefore the overall training load.
These are just some of the variables to consider, as the objectives and abilities of a sedentary middle-aged person, for example, are certainly not the same as those of a young athlete.
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