An abs chair doesn’t offer the resistance that traditional ab exercises do, despite their claims. Most of these chairs have a bar on each side of the chair, which kind of looks like an arm rest, that the person exercising can pull against to left themselves up. How hard is that? And it certainly doesn’t target your abs. Other chairs have spring loaded back rests that boost you up during the most critical part of a crunch- when you’re at the bottom! And some, like the ab circle pro and ab chair 2, completely lack resistance.

The myth that an ab chair workout is based on is that you can work your abs and trim your waste line. Show me one scientific study that supports that – you won’t find one, because anaerobic exercise of your abdominal muscles won’t target the fat that surrounds those muscles, especially if you’re only working out 3 minutes a day. What burns fat is consistent exercise accompanied by a healthy diet. When you burn calories your body will use both carbs and fat for energy, so the more calories you burn the more carbs and fat your burn. But your body doesn’t say, “Oh, my abs are working, so I’m only going to use the fat that is around those muscles for energy.” It doesn’t work that way. Sorry. But most people don’t know that.

Another classic claim is that with an ab chair you get more range of motion. In reality, to work you abs, you only need 30 degrees of motion. During the first 30 degrees of a sit-up you work your abdominals, but after that it is impossible to contract your abdominals more. You actually start to work your hip flexors, like your psoas major muscle. You might think this is good, but it’s not. Do this little test for me and you’ll see what I’m talking about:

Get on the ground and do as many sit-ups, full range to where you hit you chest to your knees, in one minute as you can. Repeat that three times. Then wait one or two days. Where are you sore? Yes, your stomach will be most likely, but you’ll also feel this really weird deep pain inside your hips. That’s your psoas major muscle, and it attaches to your lumbar spine. So really, one of the best ways to irritate your lumbar spine is by doing full range sit-ups or full range ab chair exercises.

So, to say the least, we do not recommend using an ab chair. They’re expensive, lack resistance, and you don’t need it. There are much better and cheaper ways to work your abs. For example, if you want the best abs machine, go with a Swiss Abs Ball – it’s cheap, fit’s almost anywhere, and you can work your abs muscles very effectively on it.