Since being released onto the exercise market earlier this year, the Ab Circle Pro has had a real combination of reviews, ranging widely from customers who absolutely loved it to those who would cheerfully chuck it in the garbage.

If it was a contender on Dancing with the Stars it would have been in the bottom two more times than I care to name; always however just managing to scrape through into the next round.

So what’s it all about?  Is the Ab Circle Pro as good or as bad as they say it is and does it work at all? The answer to this is to keep things in perspective; it can be as useful as any other fitness machine in that it may actually get people to do some exercise on a regular basis.

The idea behind it is good, as the all-fours positioning makes it much easier to work the muscles of the waist and sides correctly without putting strain on the back or the neck, which up to now was the major problem with trying to tone and shape the abdominal area. What isn’t so good, however, is the build quality and the customer service (although the latter has recently improved).

What people seem to forget all the time is that you simply cannot target just one area to try and lose fat, as weight loss and reshaping your body is a combination of several things, including various different types of exercise and altering your eating habits.  That is the only thing that is going to work in the medium and long-term.

Look at it this way; if you crash diet but don’t exercise – sure, you’ll lose weight. But it won’t be fat, mainly muscle – which is the one thing that you truly need to get and sustain weight loss. Added to that, you will feel as hungry as a wolf and as grumpy as a bear and as soon as you give up in disgust and go back to eating the way you were before, the weight will pile back on – this is what the billion-dollar diet industry relies on.

Then there are the people who do a little exercise (for a while anyway) but don’t overhaul their eating habits as well. In their case they lose a little bit of weight and tone up a little, but because they are still eating too much they don’t get the results they want so they decide that Exercise Doesn’t Work and go back to being a couch potato.  Deep down we all know what the answer is — eat a little less and move around a little more. Problem is, we don’t really want to do it for various reasons, the main one being that it’s too damned hard!

The secret is to make small changes – start with a few minutes exercise a day and a few less calories a day until you get accustomed , and then make more changes. In this respect, the Ab Circle Pro will come in very useful.  If you use it  three times a week for 10 minutes and add in other different types of exercise (such as an aerobics or step class, a few brisk walks and maybe some swimming), plus some weights exercises to tone your muscles, then you will achieve good results.

As I mentioned earlier, most of the complaints that I have heard are in regard of the quality of the Ab Circle Pro and frankly, it isn’t great; the kneepads can split and the wheels squeak, although many people have told me that wearing kneepads and the judicious application of WD40 does the trick nicely.

The bottom line is that you get what you pay for, and it stands to reason that a machine costing under $200 (plus S&H) is not going to be as well-built, tough and hard wearing as a treadmill that costs five times that much. But that being said, I believe the Ab Circle Pro is very useful as part of a weight loss plan and is nowhere near as ugly and bulky as a treadmill!

Posted by: At Home Workout Reviews

The Ab Circle Pro – Saint or Sinner?

The Ab Circle Pro is a great device to help you lose that ugly belly fat and those sagging love handles and give you those taut, toned abs that you’ve always dreamed of. It is a new piece of equipment for the home exercise market that lifts you up from the floor and makes combining your ab exercises with your cardio workouts easier and more effective than you ever thought possible.

To lose weight safely and correctly while toning and tightening all your major muscle groups, there are several components of exercise that must be combined.  The first is cardiovascular exercise which is described as sustained rhythmic exercise using large muscle groups and carried out for a period of at least 20 minutes three to four times a week.

Cardio should be at an intensity that makes you sweat, gets you warm and makes you slightly breathless.  There are two types of mistakes people make in cardiovascular exercise; one is not working hard enough – I see folk all the time in the gym sitting on the exercise bike reading a magazine; if you can read a magazine your heart and lungs are not working hard enough!

The second mistake is performing cardio at too high an intensity for too long at a time (as this puts your body under stress) and then not training again for several days.  You will lose any benefit gained if you do not do another workout within 96 hours.

The best and most effective way to exercise is to take the middle path; walk, pedal or swim at a moderate intensity, enough to make you slightly short of breath and give you a warm glow, for at least 20 minutes three times a week; every other day would be perfect.  This exercise alone can greatly reduce your risk of early heart disease and some cancers.

Cardiovascular exercise on its own is not enough for optimum health and weight loss, as you need to also do exercises to overload your main muscles in order to keep them strong and functioning correctly.  Strength training does not mean big burly men in leotards lifting huge weights; it simply means exercises using hand weights or body weight to challenge your muscles and make them stronger, especially as you grow older.

Just as important as cardio and strength training is core training to keep your deep abdominal and postural muscles strong, which also will shape your stomach and make you look much taller, as you will stand up straight rather than stooping.  Pilates exercises and most forms of yoga are perfect for this.

If you use your Ab Circle Pro as part of your regular workouts, you will be well on the way to correctly combining the principles of fitness for increased health, strength and a perfect shape, as the Ab Circle Pro combines cardio without abdominal and oblique toning to help you shape your body to the look you’ve always dreamed of.

Posted by: At Home Workout Reviews

The Ab Circle Pro – Two Mistakes Not To Make