Are Ab Devices Saviors Or Scams?

Question #1: Are you being sold a complicated-looking (and expensive!) piece of equipment to do a simple exercise?
What you need to know: Typically, most infomercial products offer a "better" way to do the basic crunch or sit-up. These upgrades usually involve increasing your range of motion, so that you work more muscle. But when researchers at Slippery Rock University put several ab gadgets -- including the Ab Rocket, Ab Lounge, Bender Ball, and The Bean -- to the test, they discovered that the infomercial products didn't activate any more abdominal muscle than the classic sit-up. Here's a quick rundown of how each product fared.
Ab Rocket
This device actually edged out the sit-up in regard to upper-adominal activation. However, the sit-up fared better on lower-abdominal activation. Interesting note: The makers of this abdominal rocking chair tout its neck- and back-supporting design. Yet study co-author Jeff Lynn, Ph.D., says users reported neck strain and thought the motion felt "unnatural."
Ab Lounge
Participants enjoyed this exercise; their backs, however, did not. "It allows you to hyperextend your back," Lynn says. "This puts potentially damaging pressure on the low spine." For an at-home routine can help prevent and even alleviate back pain, check out The Best Exercises for Your Lower Back.
Bender Ball
Standard sit-ups produced 25 percent greater lower-ab activation than the Bender Ball. What's more, a rolled-up towel can serve the similar purpose of increasing your range of motion. So can a Swiss ball, which you can pick up for about $20, and is more versatile. That's because the Swiss ball allows you to perform a much wider range of exercises -- not just for your core, but for your upper and lower body as well.
The Bean
Banish this blow-up chair to the kiddy pool. "The Bean was the worst of the lot," Lynn says. "It actually facilitates movement forward, so you do less work."

Question #2: Does the ad claim that the machine makes the exercise effortless?
What you need to know: You won't sculpt your abs without some work. That should be a given. After all, if it were so easy to achieve a washboard stomach, anyone with a credit card would have abs like Georges St. Pierre. (For comparison’s sake, click here to see The Georges St. Pierre Workout.)
Question #3: Does the commercial suggest that simply using the device will transform a fat gut into flat abs?
What you need to know: If you aren't lean enough to see your midsection muscles already, you need to eliminate the fat that covers your abs. And simply doing ab exercises -- even a lot of them -- isn't going to be very useful. In fact, a new study from Southern Illinois University shows just how futile this approach can be. The researchers had people do two sets of 10 reps of seven different ab exercises -- sit-ups, dumbbell side bends, leg lifts, oblique crunches, Swiss-ball crunches, Swiss-ball twists, and regular crunches -- five days a week for six weeks. That's a total of 140 reps per workout.