Training Tools: Riding The Ab Coaster
By: Sean Perine
Yeah, yeah, you’ve seen ‘em all, from the Abdominator to the AbSolution, on those restless nights when the TV was the last ditch cure for your insomnia. In late-night infomercials, you’ve heard the exultant promises of perfectly coifed fitness models with their sculpted midsections and wondered who was actually gullible enough to buy this, the latest abserciser of the week?
So have I, and yet here I find myself giving enthusiastic approval for the latest, much to my surprise. It’s called the Ab Coaster, and I had the opportunity to give it a test drive at this year’s Health+Fitness Business Expo in Denver, CO.
The machine resembles what you might expect a hovercycle to look like when they started building them. The best way to describe it is as a cross between a leg curl machine and a seated crunch device. However, this little gem works your abs like nothing else I’ve ever used before in over 25 years of training.
The Ab Coaster’s movement is pretty much a hybrid, somewhere between a hanging leg raise and a crunch. You pull leg pads along an armature that resembles a leg raise, but the track’s curve avoids the straight back syndrome that often plagues the exercise, curling your torso inward, as in a crunch. The result is a unique movement that hits every inch of your midsection. The leg pad can also be adjusted to allow for asymmetrical pulling, which is great for oblique work.
Click HERE to find out more about the Amazing Ab Coaster.
