You don't technically need any equipment to work your abdominal muscles. A 2001 American Council on Exercise-commissioned study on the best and worst abdominal exercises used the traditional floor crunch as the standard for all other exercises, and bicycle crunches -- also performed on the floor -- ranked among the top three ab workouts. Even though you don't technically need it, if a piece of abdominal exercise equipment motivates you to work out regularly it's usually worth the cost. But beware: Some abdominal exercise equipment doesn't live up to promised performance.
Stability Ball
Stability ball crunches were also among the top three exercises in the ACE-commissioned study. But you don't have to do crunches on the stability ball to work your core. Just sitting on the ball might challenge your abs at first. As you get stronger you can perform body-weight exercises like push-ups and planks on the ball, or use it as a makeshift bench for weight-lifting workouts. No matter how you interact with it, the ball's tendency to roll in any direction means your core muscles, including your abs, must work constantly to keep you steady.
Torso Track
The Torso Track recruited significantly more abdominal muscle activity than standard floor crunches in the ACE-commissioned tests. But testers reported lower back discomfort when using this machine. A number of wheel-style abdominal exercise products follow the same basic configuration and may produce similar results: You kneel on the floor, place both hands on the wheel handles, and roll the wheel forward. You straighten your body as you go, and in theory your abdominal muscles should protect your lower back. But in actual practice your hip flexors, which are the primary movers for this exercise, exert powerful pulling force on your spine and may contribute to the back discomfort.
Suspension Trainers
Suspension trainers like the TRX Trainer or gymnastics-style rings force your abdominal muscles to work for much the same reasons a stability ball does: Only strong core musculature allows you to keep both your body and the wobbly rings or trainer handles under control. For a truly fiendish ab exercise, try an atomic push-up. Place your feet securely through the trainer handles or rings and assume a face-down push-up position. Do a push-up, then pause in the "up" position. Pull your knees in toward your chest -- keeping your back flat and drawing the handles or rings along with you -- until your hips rise into an inverted shoulder-press position. Reverse the motion back to the start position and repeat.
Exercise Tubing
To use exercise tubing for crunches, you lie face-up on the floor as if for regular crunches, with the tubing anchored over your head. Then grasp the tubing and perform a normal crunch; in theory the extra resistance against your movement offers extra benefit. But this technique scored poorly on the ACE-commissioned tests, recruiting only 77 percent of activity in the obliques and 92 percent of activity in the rectus abdominus as compared to the conventional floor crunch. Try holding a weight plate against your chest, or straight over your chest, for extra resistance instead.
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