When you get right down to it, you can turn anything from a bare floor to playground equipment into ab exercise equipment if you're clever and determined. But television, stores and gyms are full of gadgets specifically designed to give you a faster, more comfortable or more challenging ab workout.
Types
Some popular types of ab exercise equipment intended for home use include the Ab Rocker, the Ab Slide, the Torso Track, the Ab Roller, the Cross Crunch and the Ab Wheel. Examples of ab exercise equipment you're more likely to see in a gym include ab slings, exercise tubing, stability balls, Bosu trainers and the captain's chair, which is also known as a Roman chair.
Function
Each of the various types of ab exercise equipment aims to enhance standard bodyweight ab exercises in one of several ways: providing an unstable surface that forces your abs to work overtime at stabilizing your body, supporting your head and neck as you do your ab workout, adding extra resistance to ab exercises or supporting your entire body so that you can work your abs against gravity at a new angle.
Efficacy
The American Council on Exercise conducted a study comparing various ab exercises and pieces of ab equipment. Of the ab equipment tested only the Torso Track, stability ball and captain's chair showed significantly more activity in the rectus abdominus and oblique muscles than a traditional crunch. Two pieces of ab exercise equipment, the Ab Rocker and exercise tubing, showed less muscle activity than a traditional crunch.
Cost
As of May 2010, exercise tubing, the Ab Slide, the Ab Roller, various forms of the Ab Wheel and low-end stability balls are readily available for less than $20. The Torso Track, ab slings and high-end stability balls are all available for less than $100, while Bosu trainers cost $100 or more on average.
Benefits
Toning your abs increases core stability. This, in turn, according to the Mayo Clinic, helps improve your balance and your entire body's stability. Better core stability also translates to greater ease with all movements, both the everyday variety and sport- or activity-specific movements. If a piece of ab exercise equipment keeps you entertained and motivated enough to put in the time needed to tone your stomach it will have served its purpose, no matter how it affected the exercise itself.
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