Originally posted by Mr_Furious
that ab tronic does not work?
I think in most cases it works more as a placebo than anything else.
There are two major elements to getting washboard abs.
1.) you have to build the muscle
You can only do that from resitance, and no not the rubber band kind of resistance that is offered by other gimmicky machines on tv like the bowflex or soloflex. Proper weight resistance like crunches or sit-ups, or using crunching machines at the gym.
2.) you have to lose the fat.
A lot of people have a layer of abs lurking underneath an even thicker layer of fat, the key is the burn the fat. The only way to do that is to burn calories. You can burn calories doing anything, I've heard that you burn 2 calories by flipping a page in a book (not sure if thats true), but you have to burn more calories than you consume, otherwise you'll just get fatter
The ab-tronic does neither of these.
Dr-Ho markets the exact same product but doesn't make the same claims. Therefore Dr-ho's marketing and product are much more legitimate than the ab-tronic....
I'll post a link here later.....
Actually you build muscle from electro-chemical stimulus. This is usually a result of peforming motions which recruit contractions of the muscles directly, but any type of contraction will induce stress that can lead to muscle growth.
To measure the effectiveness of certain exercises on targeting muscle groups, physiology labs often use devices that measure electrical activity within muscles.
You can build muscle with any type of stimulus, including elastic-induced. I once saw a pic of a guy who built all his muscles using isometric contractions (that is, he never moved his muscles, just contracted them), and although he looked weird, he did indeed have muscles.
The problem with the abtronic is that its attempts to stimulate the muscles have never been shown to do just that.
Of course the bit about needing to lose fat is quite true.
My advice is to lift weights, and do minimal cardio exercise. The weight lifting will increase your metabolism (in a way that cardio will not), resulting in an increase in caloric expenditure throughout the day as well as during exercise. So you use more energy just sitting around than before.
good luck.
<--- Out of shape
