In the time I’ve been a Personal Trainer I have looked at several exercise devices that guarantee to give you a toned, shapely waist and a flat sixpack and one that have been quite impressed with its called the Ab Rocket. Imagine a low deckchair with a high back consisting of several rollers to support the spine and you’ll get an idea of what the Ab Rocket looks like. It claims to get you up off the floor and blast your abs into shape.
The Ab Rocket has several advantages over others that I’ve seen, in that it places you in a seated position where abs are shortened and therefore your ab crunch is at its most effective. Not only this but the unique design of the Ab Rocket provides support to your back without helping you perform the exercise, and the padded rollers give your upper and lower back a massage at the same time. You can also vary the resistance with special springs that come with the Ab Rocket so you can tailor your workout to your own fitness level.
Doing ab exercises in a seated position is a very effective way of sculpting lean and sexy abs and not putting yourself in any danger of hurting your back which is what a lot of people do when they attempt to do stomach exercises on the floor. Sit-ups done on the floor can be very useful for toning the sixpack, but beginners especially have to be extremely careful to use the stomach muscles correctly, as failure to do so will result in pulling on the neck, pain in the muscles of the throat and strain in the lower back. Pulling a back muscle like this means you will not be able to exercise and is likely to put you off exercises for life!
Your physiology when you are lying on the floor means that your stomach muscles are at their longest, as they attach at the bottom of the pelvis and run up under your lowest ribs. This means that they are in their weakest position at the starting point of a sit-up. Lifting your rib cage and head against gravity is very hard work for your abs, and unless you know how to stabilise them by drawing in your tummy button, you are going to have trouble performing your sit-ups. This means your back will ache and persisting can even result in a damaged muscle or a ruptured disc.
The Ab Rocket goes a long way towards protecting your back just by getting you up off the floor! Seated, you’re in an ideal position to work your abs as hard as you like and the whole emphasis of the exercise will go into them, with your back muscles staying comfortably supported and free from strain as the padded rollers of the backrest will act as both support and cushioning. With the Ab Rocket you can target your upper, middle and lower abs and also your obliques for a flat stomach and shapely waist. Add regular cardiovascular exercise, plus a reduced-calorie diet and you will blast your way to those perfect abs.
