Crunches on a fitness ball

[papperclippy]

I have just been doing crunches on a slantboard instead. Should I be looking into buying one of those fitness balls or are regular crunches okay?

[flagmonkey]

I also do regular crunches, guess that's ok. There are more excersises I substitute because I don't have access to a complete gym.

[Phaedrus49er]

A crunch is a crunch is a crunch when all is said and done. Any variation works on trunk flexion. That being said, the slantboard adds a straight-line overload factor while a Swiss ball forces more stabilization work, so it depends on your goals and needs.

[Aoife]

A towel/blanket or something under your lower back will give you a bit of an increase of ROM that the ball gives you.

[papperclippy]

I am not really sold on the whole swiss ball thing from what I read so far. If you guys had to choose one item to buy which would be more useful, a swiss ball or a foam roller? I haven't used either but I've read more positive opinions about the foam roller.

[Phaedrus49er]

Just given those two options, I'd go with a good-quality foam roller. You can work around not having a Swiss ball. Foam rollers are much tougher to substitute for IMHO.

[Lisa~]

Foam roller