Ughhhh!!! How to Waste Your Money and Time!

These are the things that drive me crazy! Why do we need to buy an ab machine? The abdominal muscles main function is to stabilize the spine with any movement; whether you are climbing stairs, lifting a child, or getting out of bed. They are strengthened with movements such as squats, presses, pushups, pullups, and snatches. And, hopefully everyone knows that you cannot spot reduce body fat in the abdomen by exercising these muscles. In fact, the exercises that these machines have you do are great ways to herniate a disc (see the research here), add to poor posture, and possibly increase your risk of shoulder pain and dysfunction Also, you are wasting your time with these exercises when you can be performing much more effective exercises.

Maybe I should send Good Housekeeping the research article so they stop leading us to believe that we need to do these exercises:

RESULTS: Herniation (posterior and posterior-lateral regions of the annulus) occurred with relatively modest joint compression but with highly repetitive flexion/extension moments. Increased magnitudes of axial compressive force resulted in more frequent and more severe disc injuries.