There Are No Instant Abs

ASK THE NATURAL CHAMP: There Are No Instant Abs – The Truth About The Gadgets You See On TV.

QUESTION: What is your honest opinion on the various gadgets for working your abdomen on tv? I bet I’ve seen a hundred of them, things like the plastic crunch machines, the 6 instant ab cruncher, toning belts, sauna belts, electrical stimulators, ab tracks, ab twisters and a whole lot others I don’t even remember. Which of them works the best?

ANSWER: I’ve only tried a few of these gadgets, just out of curiosity, but I don’t have to try them all to give you my opinion, which I can do in three words: Save Your Money!

While some of these gadgets can provide some benefit for exercising the abdominals muscles, particularly in sedentary, untrained people, some – which I won’t mention – are poorly constructed or poorly designed, in terms of muscle function, or both.

The fact is, the best exercises for the abdominal muscles can be done with little or no special equipment. The ones I, and a lot of other top bodybuilders have found best, are hanging leg raises and hanging knee ins from a chinning bar, leg raises and knee ins on an abdominal chair (the kind where your forearms rest on pads), reverse crunches, regular crunches, rope crunches, and twisting crunches. The key is to focus on the muscles being worked and to hold the contracted position for a pause…a one-thousand-one….one-thousand-two count.

One very important point to bear in mind: No matter how hard you work your abs, you won’t get a visible six-pack without proper attention to good nutrition.

Bottom Line: There Are No Instant Abs.

Charles Hawkins (with Arley Vest)