Many fitness enthusiasts include exercise routines to firm up abdominal muscles with the goal of developing a well-toned abdominal musculature.
Some abdominal exercise machines are constructed to exercise muscles by toning and strengthening the waist by lying down in a sit-up position. Other machines exercise the waist while a user is in a sitting or kneeling position, moving the knees back and forth, such that resulting crunches tone abdominal muscles. By use of similar mechanism, most abdominal exercise machines have the ability to firm up muscles in the body middle section.
In general, existing devices for exercise of abdominal muscles have complex and expensive designs, which can be uncomfortable in use due to reliance on strenuous crunching movements. In addition, most existing designs may cause back pain and may not be useable by persons with existing lower back problems.
As such, considering the foregoing, it may be appreciated that there continues to be a need for novel and improved devices and methods for training abdominal muscles.