Customer Reviews

6 Second Abs - Ab Crunch Machine w/ DVD

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

With a rating of 1, it's way over rated. Cheap, plastic a mere toy. Our drummer picked one up and trashed in less than a week. Products of this (low) quality only make suspect ANY item for sale on an info-mercial. I was pleasently surprised that I was able to pull it up on Amazon and give it a proper burial. Save your money, hit the floor and give a batch of crunches a go.

It's a great concept although resistance is almost useless. I'm in my mid-thirties and, although reasonably fit, have never been able to pull off hundreds of crunches mainly because of back problems when doing them. Here was a solution which claimed to get around this.
When I first got the unit, I gave it a go and found the resistance almost unnoticeable. I opened the front, replaced the yellow bands with the "heavy duty" orange ones and tried again - again, almost nothing.
At 6 seconds a rep, 10 minutes gets you 100 reps. Don't know about you but although I could do 100 crunches in the conventional sense, I would certainly know about it the next day. I tried 100 reps on this contraption two days in a row without feeling a thing. This makes the commercials you see showing the six pack wielding workout freaks claiming they "feel the burn" very hard to believe.

With that said, this isn't necessarily the fault of "As Seen on TV" that they sell this product - what's worthless to me may still be of value to someone else although I can't imagine who. They did offer my money back in full despite the usual 10% restocking fee but given that a third of the sale price was a non-refundable shipping cost, it hardly makes it worth the effort. Am going to find another use for it - perhaps a coat hanger?
Positive voters must be getting kick-backs from somewhere. Perhaps they got their money back if they agreed to promote it.

Don't believe me - buy one and find out for yourself.

3 days after making the mistake and ordering one of these I found it in a store for less money. I cancelled my order before it was shipped but the Co. shipped it anyway to collect the S/H fees. I returned the one from the store because it is simply junk. A $10 toy being sold as exercise equipment. Any positive reveiws must be ritten by the Co. personnel. I am still argueing with AMEX over the charges just on the principle and will never buy anything from the Savvier Company again. A rip off !!

About three weeks of use caused the clicker to break off.
Two more weeks and one of the red rubber pieces snapped while I was using it, no response from customer service.

When I got the machine, my first impression was "I paid $60+ for this piece of plastic? I probably fell for the old infomercial again!" I was expecting the feel of a little more quality than what it was, however it has not broken over a couple month's "casual" use. To it's credit, it is easy to store being compact, and it is light. For the down side, I am a middle-aged office worker, a far cry from the hard bodied actors that advertise this product, yet I was not all that challenged with this machine's highest resistance. It has four rubber resistance "tubes" that are interchangeable, however the machine can only use two at a time. To increase from it's highest resistance, you must buy some stronger "tubes" from the manufacturer. Overall, because of the price versus the lack of flexibility to challenge me and the feel of "plastic" quality, I rated it a 2. I might have given it a 3 or 4 if it either had the feel of high quality and durability, OR had more resistance options, OR was priced at around $30. At the $60 price, I would expect a "durable" rather than a "cheap" feel to it, and a wide range of resistance. If this would have been the case, I would have gotten into the 5 star range because the idea of it is fantastic for those of us who do not visit the gym on any regular (or never) basis.

It's a great concept although resistance is almost useless. I'm in my mid-thirties and, although reasonably fit, have never been able to pull off hundreds of crunches mainly because of back problems when doing them. Here was a solution which claimed to get around this.
When I first got the unit, I gave it a go and found the resistance almost unnoticeable. I opened the front, replaced the yellow bands with the "heavy duty" orange ones and tried again - again, almost nothing.
At 6 seconds a rep, 10 minutes gets you 100 reps. Don't know about you but although I could do 100 crunches in the conventional sense, I would certainly know about it the next day. I tried 100 reps on this contraption two days in a row without feeling a thing. This makes the commercials you see showing the six pack wielding workout freaks claiming they "feel the burn" very hard to believe.

With that said, this isn't necessarily the fault of "As Seen on TV" that they sell this product - what's worthless to me may still be of value to someone else although I can't imagine who. They did offer my money back in full despite the usual 10% restocking fee but given that a third of the sale price was a non-refundable shipping cost, it hardly makes it worth the effort. Am going to find another use for it - perhaps a coat hanger?

Contrary to the opinion expressed in the previous review I found the resistance levels more than adequate. It might be that it was being used incorrectly by using the back and arms rather than pulling from the abs. I developed very good ab definition after around 2 months working out at 120 crunches on my back 3 times/week. Only problem was the machine broke when it wasn't even on the highest setting - but I intend buying another!

I BOUGHT A FEW WEEKA AGO. AND THIS IS TRASH,DOSN'T WORK I'M A GYM BOY .BELIEVE ME..I WANT MY MONEY BACK

There are a lot of theoretically good ideas that fail when executed. This is one of them. 1/QUALITY:It's made cheaply, and even before it breaks, it's flimsiness does not inspire confidence. 2/RESISTANCE:The levels of resistance have nothing to do with real progression , as anyone who 'seriously' uses this will be too strong for the machine in a few weeks,(many will be unchallenged right from the beginning). The standard: If the set is longer than a minute and you still have strength to continue, you need more resistance. 3/COMPARED TO CRUNCHES: There's a reason why crunches are done lying down: The weight of the torso supplies a fairly heavy resistance, whereas when you crunch in an uptight position the weight of the torso actually helps the effort, as you are dropping your weight down instead of lifting it up. Much of what makes the Ab Crunch Machine 'work' is your weight dropping on it, not your muscles working. This little piece of plastic doesn't have springs strong enough to resist your bodyweight and strengthen your muscles besides. (You may achieve an isometric contraction that has some effect, but you can get -exactly- this effect, or -better-, without any equipment at all! Just tense up in seated crunch position for minute or so.)... Of course, by the time a product is appealing to the public by claiming how supposedly -huge- a hassle lying down (??) to do crunches is, we've reached the real problem: This thing is designed to AVOID EFFORT. It seems as though no one goes broke helping people avoid effort. Unfortunately, exercise IS effort, and the more you avoid effort, the less exercise you get.

After being duped by the infomercials i thought what a bargain. I started to use it and felt unchallenged even at the highest resistance. I put the dvd in and attempted one of the exercises and the damn thing snapped!! It really is a cheap and nasty thing. The 3 'clicks' are annoying as when you come back up you sometimes have to stop what you are doing and pull it up for the 3rd click.
Waste of money. Only extremely unfit people will feel anything unless you fall for their trick of buying the added resistance.