The Ab Wheel (sometimes called Ab Roller) is definitely in the class of ‘simple and effective’ abdominal exercise equipment. What’s more, it’s nice and compact – if you’ve got enough room in your house for a couple of loaves of bread, you’ll be able to accommodate an Ab Wheel. This one really will fit under the bed.
What is an Ab Wheel?
The Ab Wheel (pictured) is really little more than a stick poking through a wheel. This concept has been around for decades, and hasn’t changed much over the years. In fact, the one I use here is probably 30 years old.
How is it used?
This is where the fun begins. Regardless of your current state of fitness, there’s an abdominal exercise here for you to try.
Ab rollout, kneeling, inclined : kneel down in front of a gentle slope somewhere. It doesn’t have to be terribly long – a few feet will do. A handy way to do this is to lay one end a wooden plank on the bottom step of a staircase.
To increase the slope, simply lift it to a higher step.
Grab the ‘handles’ of the device (the axle itself), and lean forward; rolling the wheel up the slope. When you’re stretched all the way forward, squeeze your abs and pull yourself back to the starting point. Pause for a second, mutter a couple of appropriate words and do it again. Excellent.
If this is too challenging to begin with, simply use a steeper slope.
NB : when you reach the spot when the wheel is beneath your face, stretch your arms forward as if you’re superman. Keep going until your body is almost parallel to the ground.
Ab rollout, standing, inclined : once you can comfortably do the above version of the rollout (whether it takes you 3 minutes or 3 months), you’re ready to try the standing version. Instead of beginning from a kneeling position, begin standing; holding the device just in front of your feet.
Complete the exercise in exactly the same way.
NB : you’ll need a slightly longer ramp this time.
Ab rollout, kneeling, flat ground : once you consider the above versions easy, get rid of the slope and perform the exercise (from a kneeling start) on flat ground. Just make sure you have enough room to lie fully extended on the floor first.
Ab rollout, standing, flat ground : if the above versions are no longer a challenge, try performing the exercise from a standing start, on flat ground. You’ll definitely feel a difference.
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Ab rollout, standing, flat ground, one hand : for this version you’ll probably want to use something with two wheels – at the outsides of the device. A dumbbell is great.
Simply perform the exercise above using only one hand. Swap to the other hand and do it again. Yes, this is extremely difficult. To see it in action, look no further than Ross Enamait :
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Where do you get them?
As with many pieces of fitness equipment, there are three major sources :
- fitness and sporting goods suppliers, both online and offline
- garage sales and auctions (eBay is a personal favourite)
- construct your own
If you’re just looking for something solid that will do the job comfortably, this one on Amazon
Ross is my new hero.. Geesh.. (have you watched that second video above?)
I just started my own abdominal exercise workout with my new Power Wheel 2. It’s similar to the Ab wheel except that it has foot pedals on it so that you can attach the wheel to your feet and work your abdominals from the other direction, doing pikes and even just walking on your hands etc. I’m going to see how far I can “walk” on my hands (or run) over time.
The first time I started doing Abdominal rollouts with the ab wheel, I wanted to be able to do 12 reps in whatever amount of time it took.
My first two workouts, I did:
1 set of 6 reps
2 sets of 3 reps each
the second week I was stronger and was able to do
1 set of 9 reps
1 set of 7 reps
I do the ab wheel on Monday, then I do obliques on Wed, then the Ab wheel on Friday, then Obliques on Monday etc
I use the ab wheel ever second workout
http://www.formerfatguyblog.com, how do you do it?