What are the best ab machines?

This is a question often asked, with no easy answer. Are there actually any that work? Would you bet better off just doing normal abdominal exercises with your own body rather than buying one of these contraptions?

Let’s explore further.

Holy grails

Thanks to all the hype on informercials, abdominal exercise machines are sadly seen as the holy grails of weight loss and fitness by too many people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

While some of the best ab machines do offer some benefits, many of them are just a shameless exercise in ripping people off. With silky and smooth sales pitches delivered by godly figures at the pinnacle of fitness, it’s easy to get sucked into the void that most of these things will ultimately leave in both your wallet and the “Results” column on your exercise sheet.

Not a total solution

No spot training machine is a total fitness and weight loss solution. If you really think you’re going to see the pounds just melting off you by just sitting in an ab chair and doing crunches all day, well, here’s your wake up call. It’s not going to happen.

Losing weight needs a combination of diet and various types of exercise, including interval training and resistance training. Sitting on your ass doing crunches doesn’t really qualify.

So, what are the best ab machines?

Ok, with that out of the way, what if you want to build really strong abs. What abdominal fitness tool or equipment will give those abs one hell of a workout? Here are a few that have merit, but we also tell you why they ultimately fail to help you better understand the inherent flaws of most of these products.

Ab Rocket

This is one of many abdominal exercise machines that attempt to make crunches “easier”. The Ab Rocket has more divided opinion than negative opinion about it. For some people it seems to work well, others complain that it actually makes their back problems worse.

Our verdict is simple: money spent, machine assembled, and all you have is something you can do crunches on. It may or may not give your back some relief. If you have a bad back, you probably shouldn’t be doing crunches anyway, whether you use a machine or not.

There’s an arsenal of exercises beyond crunches that you can do for your abs. Why limit yourself to that, and pay for that limitation?

Ab Circle Pro

This ab machine has one thing going for it – it moves beyond crunches. Unfortunately it also limits you to basically one type of abs exercise.

The idea here to to put your knees on the pads you can see on the picture, with your hands on the handles. You then swing your body from side to side, which targets your obliques and to a certain extent your whole core.

Problems? Lots of questions have been raised over the durability and quality of the machine. Also, yet again, you’re paying money (much more than the Ab Rocket this time) to do just one type of exercise. It may help tone your obliques a little, but so can many exercises that you don’t need a machine for.

On to the best ab machine we’ve found…

…the Power Wheel. Yes, it’s just a wheel, not some fancy contraption that looks impressive on TV with a sexy model riding it.

This simple device will give you a better ab workout than anything you’ll see on infomercials. It’s not easy to use at first, but start slowly and you’ll soon be amazed how strong your core is getting as you find yourself capable of doing more and more demanding exercises with it. The great thing about this wheel as opposed to many other similar ones is that you can attach it to your feet, which opens up a whole new range of targets.

If you don’t have sore abs the morning after the first time you use this, you’re superman/woman. Stop buying ab machines and go save the world.

So, there you have our verdict on the best ab machine for targeting your core. We’re not saying this is all you need to get fit. You still need to combine it with a proper diet and plenty of interval and cardio training for best results. However, this actually tones and strengthens your body.