Knees hurt with Ball roll outs

[aerobicgirl]

Hi Cathe,
I have been doing Core Max and the exercise where you kneel on the floor and rest your arms on the ball and roll it out in front of your body hurts my knees alot. In fact, I don't even feel it in my abs. It just feels like my knees are taking the strain. Is there any substitute exercise I can do? Plain ol' 2-2 count crunches? Thanks for any help!

Mandy

 

[Zora]

My knees used to hurt with this one, too, until I rolled up an extra towel and put it under my knee caps (using a mat alone didn't protect my knees). I also made sure to really contract my abs hard during the movement and go as far out as I could on the ball.

 

[kathryn]

Along with padding, make sure you are rolling out onto the top of your knee (bottom quad) and not onto the kneecap itself (ie: make sure your upper leg is angled forward, which will bring you onto the lower quad (and also help you feel it in the abs, where the work is supposed to be), and not straight up-and-down with your butt in the air, which will put more pressure directly on the kneecap.

 

[pjval]

My weight room at home has the interlocking rubber mat squares on the floor and I've never had problems with that exercise hurting my knees. But I just started working out at my fiance's house which has different flooring, and my knees really hurt during that as well...Even putting a towel down didn't help!
You may want to try a couple of those mat squares. I got mine at Sam's Club and they came in a pack of 10...but I bet you could buy them individually too.

 

[SirenSongWoman]

I've been working up to doing that particular segment but because much of my body weight (180 lbs) would be supported on my hands (which are still a bit delicate after recovering from a car crash) I'm doing the other two segments until I get there. I haven't used the interlocking matts yet but you may also want to check out those extra large, much thicker matts used to protect floors from treadmills/elipticals/bicycles... Target carries the one I got (about $30). It's big, thick, and heavy (... and somewhat cumbersome) but it's much bigger and better than a standard matt and my knees love it. I can never have too much knee padding.