- The most basic ab exercise equipment helps you perform an abdominal crunch or sit-up. The ab exercise equipment is a flat weight bench with pads at one end to hold your feet still. While the feet are immobilized, you lie down then sit up again using only your abdominal muscles to pull you up. Beginners do this with no resistance other than their own body weight. More advanced athletes adjust the ab crunch equipment so that their feet are higher than their head. Gravity provides extra resistance.
- A more advanced piece of ab exercise equipment adds weight resistance to the abdominal crunch exercise. This ab exercise equipment starts you in a seated position. There is either a padded bar pressed against your chest or a pair of handles hanging down from behind your head that you hold with both hands. The ab exercise is performed by bending the upper body toward the knees. Resistance is provided by a weight stack that can be adjusted to the individual person.
- Muscles on the side of the belly, known as the external abdominal oblique muscles, are worked with twisting ab exercise equipment. The exercise starts in a seated position with the legs and hips immobilized. Your arms hold the padded arms of the ab exercise equipment that wrap around your sides. The upper body is then twisted from one side then the other. Resistance is provided by an adjustable weight stack.
- Many types of portable ab exercise equipment claim to tighten your stomach. Their effectiveness largely depends on how much and how effectively you use them. There is home ab exercise equipment that helps you perform abdominal crunches by supporting your back or head. There are others that act as compression devices that are squeezed between the chest and thighs. Exercise balls are widely used to help with ab exercises. The giant blown up spheres pad the lower back during crunches and act as support for the legs while performing abdominal lifts. Since they are round, the body is also forced to stabilize the ball and work harder.
- Ab exercise equipment will make your abdominal muscles stronger, but it won't necessarily make them look better. The abdominal muscles are covered by fat. The only way to see them better is to lose that fat. This involves significant weight loss. Many highly trained athletes with strong abs do not have well defined abdominal muscles because it is impractical to maintain a body fat ratio that low. It is especially difficult for women who naturally have more body fat.
