Today a female friend asked me for my opinion on "that circle ab machine" she's been seeing on TV. I immediately realized that she was asking about the
Ab Circle Pro, which has quickly become one of the top-selling fitness products in the US. She said that she wants to
lose some belly fat, tone her muscles (especially those thighs), and get her abs in shape for summer. She also asked about the
Ab Coaster Pro and the
Ab Roller Pro, neither of which I had even heard of until today.
I told her that, since I haven't actually tried any of those new abdominal machines yet -- and had very little knowledge about the Ab Circle Pro, much less the other two -- I couldn't provide an honest answer. The handful of reviews I've seen and heard for the Ab Circle seem to paint a similar picture: it provides a decent abdominal workout and a good low-intensity cardio workout, but it costs a lot, leaves you with "knee burns", and is easy to get bored with.
Personally, the boredom part seems obvious to me. While it's true that some machines make exercise more fun, the vast majority of them simply make you do the same boring movement over and over again like a hamster on a wheel. That's one of the main reasons why I avoid most exercise/fitness machines and focus instead on different types of "free-form" exercise (like bodyweight movements and free weight exercises). That being said, I really don't know how the Ab Circle Pro and its repetitive movements feel to someone using the thing on a regular basis. Shoot, maybe it really is like a "treadmill for the abs" and feels
great when you're on the thing!
Here's what I do know: all ab machines, and 95% of fitness/exercise gadgets for that matter, are designed to
leave you wanting more. What I mean by that is that, in reality, those thousands of late-night
infomercial fitness and weight loss products aren't really designed to be super-effective. If any one of them was actually
that great and helped the average person lose weight, get toned, build muscle, get six pack abs, etc. then people wouldn't need to buy anything else. Then the companies that make these products would stop making money and cease to exist. The goal is always to offer a relatively inexpensive, easy-to-use product that provides -- or at least has the potential to provide -- some sort of tangible fitness benefit, but is easy to get bored/frustrated with quickly and slide under the bed, out of site, so that it's easy to forget you never really used it and really wasted your money.... :-)
Anyway.... I felt bad that I wasn't able to help my friend with a real review or even a simple rating of the Ab Circle Pro. If you've used this "circle ab machine" and want to help us out, please leave your reviews, ratings, testimonials, comments, opinions, etc. in the area below. Thanks!
So the makers of the extremely popular Ab Circle Pro are coming out with a new as-seen-on-TV product called the "Mini Circle". It is apparently the Ab Circle's smaller, lighter, and cheaper little sister. According to a press release from spokesperson and fitness model Jennifer Nicole Lee it will cost about $100, half the price of the original Ab Circle Pro.
way back in 2006. I pretty much ignored it because I figured it was just another weight loss scam product sold on a late-night infomercial. I was especially wary because it's made by Beachbody, a company that is known for making pretty good products but has a lot of controversy surrounding its marketing techniques.