One of the sheer and utter blisses of being young is that you have all kinds of energy bottled up. You can literally run, climb, swing, and jump for hours at a time. And you aren’t doing this specifically for your health, you do it because it’s fun. But then adolescence sets in, and it gets a little bit harder to workout. Your feet are disproportionately sized for you body, and you’re dreadfully skinny. This is when you start noticing that after a few minutes of intense workout that you experience this thing you never did as a child: you’re out of breath.
But lucky for you, there are plenty of opportunities to play sports at this time of your life, plus you have gym class a few times a week so you are at least active and getting some exercise. This can continue through college if you’re lucky, because you have plenty of free time to hit the multi-million dollar facility your campus has.
But when you get that diploma you would never believe how little free time you have. Free gym membership based on being a student is gone, and now you have to find a suitable gym that won’t rape you with a monthly fee and selective hours. Plus, these gyms are typically filled with people who take themselves way too seriously, and who wants to deal with those strokes?
Thus, the implementation of gym/exercise products that you can use within the comfort of your own home have grown in popularity. You can find them at the bigger chain stores, they are reasonably priced, and they afford you the opportunity to work out within your home, and more importantly, on your schedule. The Ab Circle Pro is one of these items that particularly caught my eye. Not only does it look easy, but it works on perhaps the most difficult portion of the body to work out (at least for me); the abs.
The Ab Circle Pro is easy to assemble, and you can be enjoying it within about fifteen minutes of purchase. And for $200, that is about 4 months worth of a gym membership you can save yourself, and countless hours commuting and waiting around at a packed gym. It is perhaps one of the “easiest” workouts, as you do nothing but kneel at swing side to side while gripping padded handlebars.
I slyly used quotation marks around the word “easiest” in that above paragraph not by accident. This is an easy workout to do, but by no means is the entire thing a cake walk. The major problem for me is that I have hardwood floors and the damn thing slides around pretty much the entire workout unless I find something adequate to secure it. This is the only major design flaw I have found. Even when securing it on a small rug or piece of carpet the thing fails to stay stationary. And this is from a 170-pound guy.
It is alleged to be able to support 275 pounds. I can imagine the problems people that sized would have with this product. But that lack of stability can be remedied by just adjusting your technique a little bit, maybe going a bit slower or less aggressively. But the thing does run significantly less stable than it appears to in the informercial or accompanying DVD.
Does the product successfully work the abs, torso, and upper body? Yes, it does. After a few minutes on the Ab Circle Pro, you are definitely aware of this. I was surprised actually how much it works the arms (which I shouldn’t have been, considering you are using your arms to support all of your weight). It also works the chest and lower torso well. But have I noticed the staggering results? Not just yet. I’m willing to keep working the thing daily because I would love to get my sculpted abdomen back (anyone wondering why I lost it should look no further than my previous review which required me to willingly consume copious amounts of beer).
Another slight flaw is that the device doesn’t multi-task like other home gyms are capable of doing. You are pretty much set into doing the exact same workout at slight variances of difficulty, and they do only focus on a small region of the body. But anyone who wants to focus solely on this region would be hard pressed to find a product that is this simple and does, to a degree, produce results.
Final Words:
The Ab Circle Pro is a mixed bag. It’s a relatively easy workout, recommended to be brief but subtly intense. It’s unique, and for people who want to work their core but have difficulty doing sit-ups or crunches (which my lanky ass does), it’s a welcomed remedy to that problem. It successfully works the regions of the body it claims to work, and is compact enough for any small home gym. The only major flaw is the lack of stability that would allow you to up the intensity a couple of notches, but I’m sure smarter people have figured out a way to stabilize theirs that I just haven’t discovered yet. Am I rocking a sweet 6-pack because of it? Not yet. It’s more of a 3 1/2 pack, but we’re getting there with the help of the Ab Circle Pro.
Final Score: 7.0/10 (Average)