The Abs Straps from Perfect Pull up are, in my opinion, one of the best things to ever happen to abs training. The provide an alternative to hanging from a chin up bar in order to do your leg and knee raises. They are used by bodybuilders and fitness experts around the world to build, tone and shape their abs muscles.

What are Abs Straps?

As you can see in the image above, Abs Straps are basically two fabric sheets that hang from a bar or beam that you slip your arms into and perform your leg raises. As you probably know, leg raises are the premier exercise for building your abs, especially the problem lower abs area. You see, the leg muscles are extremely heavy and the lower abs are the weakest area. If you can perform regular leg and knee raises you will build some sexy six pack abs in no time at all. They really are that good.

Normally you would do these exercises on a dip and chin station or by hanging from a chin up bar. The problem with these is that the former is really expensive and the latter makes your forearms give way before you have finished with your abs. The Ab Straps are a perfect solution that allow you to rest your arms and just focus on building those abdominal muscles.

How to use the Abs Straps for your abs workout

The Abs Straps are like any other piece of exercise equipment; you need to use proper technique in order to get the most out of the exercise and in order to avoid injury.

Start by placing your arms in the straps and getting comfortable. Make sure your weight is evenly distributed so that you don’t favor one side of your body over the other. Now drop your legs down so that you get a full stretch in your abdominal muscles. Tense your abs and then slowly, very slowly, begin lifting your knees up to your chest. Imagine that your abs are doing all the work and your legs are just like dead weights. Finally, when your knees get close to your chest, tilt your pelvis forward and “crunch” your abs as tight as you can.

Once you are in this position the exercise is not over. You need to begin lowering your legs even slower than you brought them up. This decline motion is, in fact, where a lot of the benefit occurs. The slower you do them the better.

Conclusion

The Abs Straps are a great addition to any home gym. They are a fantastic way to spice up your abs workout and will really kick start your abs progress if you are a beginner. I highly recommend them.

If you would like to price or purchase a pair of Abs Straps please click here.

We have all stayed up late at night watching TV and laughing at all the new abdominal gadgets that are on the market. There has been the Ab Roller, Ab Swing… the list is endless. But something is happening with these ab machines. Something interesting. They are getting better. The Ab Circle Pro is good.

Many gym experts laugh at these abdominal machines saying that they don’t work. But they do. In fact, they work very well. The reason that not many people see results when they buy these ab gadgets is because they don’t use them enough. They give it a go for a week and when they don’t see washboard abs right away they give up and call the machine a failure. But the failure in this situation is the user, not the machine.

Here’s the thing. When they say on the advert that you only need to do one or two minutes to get results, they are wrong. You need to give it a good amount of time. But if you worked on the Ab Circle Pro for five to ten minutes every second day and get out a lot of unnecessary calories from your diet then you will start to see results. Remember, sexy abs is about losing the fat that is covering the abs, not building up the muscles for years at a time. Chances are you have great abs, they are just hidden under the fat tissue.

How does it work?
The Ab Circle Pro works in a similar way to doing the “bridge” exercise with a pivot thrown in. You can definitely feel the burn when you are using it. Just slot your knees into the holders, grab on the the bars and start swinging your knees from side to side. It is quite a new motion for abdominal exercises, most of them involved some sort of upper body crunch or lower body curl. This one doesn’t. But it seems to work. If you are looking for something new to spice up your workout then this is the one for you.

You can price or purchase the Ab Circle Pro here or look for a second hand one in our gym equipment store.

The Iron Gym Total Upper Body Workout Bar is an awesome device that will sit in almost any door frame and allow you to perform all your upper body workouts.

What is it used for?
The Upper Body workout bar can be used for:

• chin ups
• pull ups
• dips
• pushups
• crunches

This chin up bar is perfect for anyone who wants to improve the muscle tone or size of their biceps, back, shoulders, abs and triceps. It can be used for a wide variety of exercises and is built from very sturdy materials.

An abdominal exercise used by Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and a lot of the greats. This Everlast Ab Roller Exercise Wheel is the perfect thing to hit your abs in a seriously intense way.

The Everlast Ab Roller Exercise Wheel

Basically this thing is like a wheel on two sticks! However, usually these things have a cog in them so that they start reversing after a certain distance. This is good for beginners.

They way you use this thing is by getting on your knees and rolling the wheel forward using your abs and arms to hold your body off the ground. Try to take your body all the way down to parallel to the ground.

Once you get better at it you can stand instead of kneeling as this takes it to a whole new level.

Buy the Everlast Ab Roller

If you want to get a price check on the wheel or buy one right now you can check it out here.

As far as medicine balls go this is just about the heaviest you’ll need. 12kg is a really good weight to use for an advanced abs workout or a really good martial arts strength training session.

PVC heavy 12kg medicine ball

This ball is tough. It is made for smashing against the floor or the wall in your hardcore abs or martial arts workouts. It is designed to be thrown across the room to your partner to workout your back and abs. This really is a medicine ball that will challenge you in your workout.

I use the medicine ball all the time to add extra resistance to my abs workouts by placing it on my chest and doing crunches or by getting a partner to throw it at me while I do sit ups. After a workout like that your abs hurt like never before.

Every martial artist, boxer and abdominal athlete should own one of these bad boys. It will really take your core training to a new level.

Get a price on the 12kg medicine ball.

Why does the Ab Roller work?

The ab roller is amazing because it really targets the abdominal muscle exclusively without bringing in anything else. When you do a set on the ab roller you can feel your abs burning but there is no input from your back or obliques. This is very important for many bodybuilders and fitness experts. Some people claim that they cause back problems but there is no real evidence to support this. As long as you do not yank on your neck when you do your reps you will be fine.

Why you should have an ab roller

Many people train their abs with very poor technique. They do not know how to tense their abs properly and as a result see poor muscle growth and experience pain in their neck and shoulers. The ab roller teaches you how to use correct form when working out your abs. This is the most important thing.

Get a price on the ab roller now.

Why everyone should have a fitness ball

Fitness balls are now crucial for total abs development. It is proven that the crunch you get on a fitness ball is far superior to when you do it on the floor. The contraction is tighter and the results are faster.

Futhermore, in today’s world of computers and couches we are all suffering from back problems. Sitting on and working with a fitness ball is one of the best ways to keep a healthy back. At many large companies around Australia the employees now sit on fitness balls as it is so much better for their posture and back.

The are so cheap and bring so much benefit.

Get a price check on the Valeo Burst Resistant Fitness ball now.