I've actually had one of these Fitness-Mad Swiss Balls for years now, I bought mine under the advice of a Physiotherapist who thought it would be good for my joint condition to do core stability exercises and over the years this ball has been hit and miss until recently. When I bought mine I think they were possibly cheaper than they are now, they seem to be an item that increases in popularity more as the years go by but this ball is now available for between £18 and £22. My ball has the old style pump so not the turbo one it comes with now but I still don't find pumping it up a bit more every so often to be much of a problem and the plastic stopper in the top is easy  Read the complete review

Fundamentally, what Swiss balls are is failed Spacehoppers. And, well, that's the kind of negative juxtaposition that any piece of sports equipment struggles to recover from. Just think: Spacehoppers are orange, bouncy, have horns to hold on to and a face drawn on the front. Granted, said face does have the unfortunate distinction of looking like a lot like a perverse, sex-mad kangaroo - sort of an anthropomorphic Hugh Hefner - but this can easily be overlooked when you consider the fun that's to be had by bouncing on it (which is, incidentally, what I bet Hugh wishes his latest fiancée was saying about him. She's probably too busy totting up his money and life ...  Read the complete review