First UK 6 Second Abs

I do enjoy watching shopping channels but the trouble with doing just that is you can tend to start believing what they say! I had seen the programme for 6 Second Abs some time ago and it looked good but I didn't do anything about it however recently, having lost some weight over the Summer with the Mayo Diet and now having settled for a healthy eating regime to keep my blood pressure under control (the DASH diet), I decided it would be good to get ...
...up again.

6 Second Abs is a small lightweight exercise machine designed to help you tone up your abdominal muscles without the dreaded sit ups. I hate doing sit ups and I do feel it puts a strain on my back and neck so anything that would help with that had to be an improvement from my point of view. I have also been very impressed with the improvements in my thigh tone that I achieved from using Leg Master so I was hoping I had found ... more

I do enjoy watching shopping channels but the trouble with doing just that is you can tend to start believing what they say! I had seen the programme for 6 Second Abs some time ago and it looked good but I didn't do anything about it however recently, having lost some weight over the Summer with the Mayo Diet and now having settled for a healthy eating regime to keep my blood pressure under control (the DASH diet), I decided it would be good to get a bit more trim and toned so I looked it up again.

6 Second Abs is a small lightweight exercise machine designed to help you tone up your abdominal muscles without the dreaded sit ups. I hate doing sit ups and I do feel it puts a strain on my back and neck so anything that would help with that had to be an improvement from my point of view. I have also been very impressed with the improvements in my thigh tone that I achieved from using Leg Master so I was hoping I had found a similar and simple solution to keeping my 'abs' toned which I could use on a regular basis.

The machine sells on the shopping channels for about £29.99 which to be honest was more than I wanted to pay so I did a little internet searching and found it is widely available for somewhere around £10 from other sites which was certainly a more attractive option!

I duly ordered it and waited for it to arrive .........

How does it work?
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The machine itself is made of moulded plastic and inside the front cover you can see two stretchy bands which make up the resistance in the machine. My machine came with four bands, two yellow and two orange, the two orange ones provide the greater resistance and according to the leaflet that came with it you can also get red ones which offer greater resistance still. They do say that you can use four bands to increase resistance but to be honest I can't see how four bands will fit into the narrow groove that holds them in place so I have just stuck with the two orange bands.

To operate it you sit on a chair, rest the base of the machine on your knees, tuck your elbows into your sides, lock your hands round the top bar and pull it down using a body movement rather than an arm movement so that you simulate a 'crunch'. As you pull the top bar down you hear a series of three clicks and the intention is that you move it slowly taking one second between each click down and again as you release the pressure. This takes six seconds to complete hence the name '6 Second Abs' - one repetition takes six seconds. So if you are reading this because you thought 6 seconds of exercise a day would give you firm abs - think again! You need to do a number of repetitions every day according to the manufacturers.

To be fair there are a range of exercises you can do with the machine. The straight movement on both knees is the basic exercise then you can repeat that on a single knee to exercise obliques, you can put the machine under your arm and press down sideways to get rid of those 'love handles' and as you get more ambitious you can move to the more advanced exercises which involve you leaning back and pulling up your knees against the resistance which was certainly a huge challenge for my weak abs!

Does it work?
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To be honest my measure of is it working is 'does it make my muscles hurt after a few repetitions' and doing just the basic exercise for about 20 repetitions didn't achieve that. However if you watch the DVD that comes packaged with it and work through all the exercises you will get a good abs workout.

Would I recommend it?
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Perhaps if you can find one for around £10. I don't think it is worth £29.99 and it doesn't feel as if it is robust enough to withstand heavy usage. Personally I think men would struggle to get a decent workout with it but for women like myself who aren't especially fit and want to tone rather than build muscle then it is OK. I suspect it is a bit of a novelty and will end up in the back of a cupboard before too long. So far I haven't got the wonderful flat stomach the model in the packaging appears to have but to be honest that will take time and doubtless a lot more effort that I am putting in at present - but it is helping and has spurred me on to do a bit more exercise than I was doing before. So all in all it is a bit of gimmick and not in my view a serious piece of exercise kit but I have stuck with it for a few weeks so it can't be all bad. 

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