When my sister was younger she had unbelievable abs because she was particular about the food which she ate, limited her intake of fat and did hundreds of ab crunches every day and, though it was hard work, the results were more than worth the effort. All of this changed however after she gave birth to her first child when she suddenly went very soft around the middle, developed very noticeable love handles, and could not rid herself of the flab regardless of how many diets she went on.

As if that was not bad enough she found that she could not even do ab crunches anymore because she had severe chronic back pain. Nevertheless, she was not prepared to accept being out of shape and so she resolved that it was time to check out several abdominal exercise machines.

Abdominal exercise machines are specially designed to concentrate on the abs during exercise and most machines mimic normal crunch exercises but are much easier on the body. For example, virtually everybody does crunch exercises lying on their back on the floor with their hands behind their head placing them at risk for back injury. But, this is not a problem with abdominal exercise machines since they limit your motion and force you to maintain good form in order to operate the machine. In this sense these exercise machines are almost foolproof and allow the remainder of the body a break while you are concentrating on your abs.

My sister had seen a number of infomercials for exercise machines but was not prepared to rush out and purchase one based solely on what she had seen on television. She did not want to listen to what professional bodybuilders and actors were paid to say but wished to hear what ordinary individuals had to say about these machines based upon their own personal experience.

So she jumped online and found a number of consumer reviews for some of the best known abdominal exercise machines. She wanted to know which of the machines were well-built, simple to use, and really worked on sculpting the abs and which machines would simply be a waste of time and money. She also wished to discover websites where she could purchase the more popular abdominal exercise machines at low prices because these machines are expensive and any discount that she could find would certainly be helpful.

One remark she made to me was that she was very pleased that she had read the internet reviews because one of the machines which she had been thinking about buying was not at all well received by the reviewers. It would seem that this particular machine has a couple of substantial problems which she would not have found before purchasing it. Consequently she purchased a machine which was quite a way down her list of possibilities but which had nevertheless received very good reviews.

The good news is that now that she has purchased her machine she is able to work on her abs three or four times each week without the back pain that she had previously without it. More importantly, she is now beginning to see a reduction in her waist line and should soon be happily back in shape once more and feeling very much like her old self.