Abdominal Exercise Equipment, What Is Available?

There is a lot of focus on the abdominal area when it comes to exercise equipment, there are a great deal of abdominal benches and other abdominal exercise equipment on the market that are designed to limit back pain, tone the abs and generally keep one in top shape.

In most sports stores these days you will not have to go far to find a few items of abdominal exercise equipment but the choice can often be confusing with so many options on the method of operation and other confusing options it can be hard for the potential purchaser to decide what is best for them.

In this article I aim to make that choice easier for you. Here is a list of the most popular items of abdominal exercise equipment.

The Stretch Toner
Contrary to popular belief the stretch toner is not exactly an abdominal bench but its use will achieve similar results. These are popular due to their portability and due to the fact that they are compact in size. Most stretch toners come with an exercise video showing you how to get the most benefit from the use of the toner. Stretch toners can be used on other stretching routines not just limited to abdominal and torso stretching. They can also be used to stretch backs, hamstrings, shoulder arm and chest muscles.

The stretch toner is highly effective at achieving great results and if used as directed can have a great effect on fitness.

The Exercise Bench
This is also known as a weights bench or an abdominal bench and is seen as a rather fundamental piece of exercise equipment particularly for those interested in strength training. The basic exercise bench is just a simple, flat bench with good cushion supports for the back. Benches like these are often used for dumbbell style workouts.

The abdominal bench is characterised by the fitment of feet holders on the sides. They are often adjustable for incline in regular intervals. They mainly focus on doing sit ups and other exercises that focus on the abdominal area.

The exercise bench has the added bonus that it can be used for many other types of exercising not solely limited to just the abdomen.

The Inversion Table

Inversion tables are aimed at back stretching as well as toning your abs. When used as an abdominal bench this type of exercise equipment will produce pretty much the same results when used to target other parts of an exercisers body within the scope of the equipment. These are not exactly the most common type of exercise equipment to be found but they are very good at what they were designed to do.