Ok someone came into work today with one of these, all boasting how he would get his largely overweight body into a tight abbed stud machine!
I pointed out that perhaps excersize would be a more fulfilling and worthwhile approach.
But common sense just wouldnt get through to this guy cause infomercials have all the answers apparently.
But it go me thinking at any rate.
I do 100 - 200 sit ups and crunches a night
I walk for 20 mins every day and longer on weekends plus run around the park witha football with the mates twice a week.
One thing I have always hated is the fact i get stuck behind my desk for 8 hours a day with very little ability to excersie or work on my abdominal region whilst trapped.
I have not heard one anectdotal story in which these things worked. I am sure that somebody will no doubt come in and say how they lost some weight with it though, now that I say that.
I have heard lots of stories about how people got burned wearing these things, or experienced moderate electrical shock. YMMV
They don’t put out enough current to work well as muscle stimulators. You’ll get a little twitching, but not any real amount of ‘exercise’.
Something like this TENS unit can be good for relieving strained muscles, but it’s still not an exercise replacement. To actually work out the muscles you need still more power, and as far as I know, no one makes such devices for use anywhere but in a controlled medical setting. It’s quite easy to give yourself cramps with high current stimulators.
I’m assuming the belt sends a shock to your ab muscles and that makes them contract. When you do a sit-up or a crunch, you’re also making your ab muscles contract.
My speculation is that when you do a real crunch, the muscle is working a heckuva lot harder because it’s not just contracting, it’s pulling up your whole torso and head (or legs if you’re doing leg lifts).
Will it build muscle? I don’t know. I doubt it, though. Guys I see in the gym that have six-pack abs are doing sit-ups with 50-lb weights behind their heads, not sitting at a desk with a tickler around their bellies.
Muscle will “burn” fat, so if indeed you DO build muscle from it, it may help burn fat. But you CANNOT SPOT REDUCE. You may end up with rock-solid abs but if your body fat is high those abs will be under 3" of fat. I’ve got pretty tight ab muscles. If I “suck it in” you can feel them pretty well. But they are under 3" of fat. I’d be much better off at aerobics than doing sit-ups to get a flat tummy right now.
This is all speculation for others more qualified to expound on, tho.
fat isnt a problem here I already have good abs and fairly low body fat. Just wondering if the helping hand would be beneficial for the times im at work and unable to fulfill my other work out routines.
For this guy at work though i tell yah its no hope, the guy is massive to put it nicely.
They can build muscles in the way that they say, it’s just that the amount of muscle growth you get depends on the amount of work the muscle is doing. If you want a rock-hard sixpack, the belt would have to contract your abs hard enough to send you into constant crunch-like spasms. I believe these devices are sometimes used in hospitals to maintain minimal muscle tone on long-term bedridden patients whose muscles have almost completely atrophied; on an average person with average abs, a light electric buzzing won’t be enough to give the muscles significant exercise.
A friend of mine tried it, and while he didn’t believe it would do anything to improve muscle tone, he said it was great for relieving his back and neck pains.
If you want to work your abs a little a work, try getting a balance ball for a chair. Since you’re not as stable as sitting in a real chair, you’re forced to use your abs and your back muscles to support yourself. I got one about a year ago and it does work. When I first started using it, I would actually get tired and have to switch back to my real chair for a spell. The downsides are teasing from your mates. If I hear “wow, you’re really on the ball today” one more time…
If you want to work your abs while sitting at your desk all day (I know - I sit at a desk all day as well), learn how to do some yogic breathing and improve your posture.
Basically, get your spine straight (sit on your butt, reach underneath and pull both butt cheeks back - this will get your pelvis upright) then every so often (4 times an hour maybe), concentrate on your breathing. Relax on the inhale and firm your lower abdominal muscles on the exhail. Do this about 20 times. Rinse. Repeat.
It will be a better ab toning exercise than some stupid belt, and for the ladies there are other side benefits that I’ll leave out of this thread, but gals can e-mail me if they’re really interested.
