Real Ab Circle Pro Reviews

A few months back we started posting reviews and information related to the Ab Circle Pro. In that time this interesting "infomercial" abdominal machine has become one of the most popular and hottest-selling fitness products in the world! In fact several thousand are being bought in North America alone every month. Good. Great. We like to see so many people taking an interest in at-home fitness and healthy, exercise-based weight loss.

There are just a couple of problems. First, it's hard to tell which Ab Circle Pro reviews are "real" and which are fake. There appear to be quite a few reviews and testimonials of questionable authenticity on blogs, e-commerce sites, and product review sites. It's always troubling when you see reviews for any product that vary so widely as the ones for the Ab Circle. Among the hundreds of reviews/ratings we've looked at, most seem to be at the edges of the spectrum. In other words, they tend to be "5-star" reviews or "1-star" reviews. More than a little strange... to say the least!

The other problem is that, no matter how you look at it (and which reviews you choose to believe) there definitely appears to be some significant quality-control issues with a large number of Ab Circle machines. Dozens if not hundreds of user reviews we've read outline problems ranging from extremely uncomfortable knee pads to cheaply-made plastic parts to major breakages that led to injury! Apparently, there's a decent chance that you'll receive a rather poorly-made exercise machine from this company.

One of our contributing fitness experts was able to get his hands on an Ab Circle Pro recently. Below is his brief review, which we can assure you is as "real" as they come!

Despite my warnings, a neighbor of mine recently purchased one of those late-night infomercial products called the "Ab Circle Pro". After helping her put it together I asked if I could take it for a 10-minute test drive and away I went. My first impression was actually very positive! The butt-swinging movements of this machine are actually a lot of fun, at least at first. And you definitely feel your core muscles, arms, and shoulders working. I've used hundreds of different exercise machines in my lifetime and I can honestly say there isn't anything else out there like the Ab Circle... and certainly not for around 200 bucks!

Well, the initial "thrill" of using this machine wore off after only about 10 minutes, especially when the thing started making strange cracking noises, the knee pads started digging into my kneecaps, and the rollers stopped rolling so smoothly. Now I'm not a exactly a "light" guy, but you would think a product that's supposedly designed to help overweight/obese people burn fat and get six-pack abs would be able to support a guy who weighs 210 pounds! After just 10 minutes it became apparent to me that, with any moderate use, this thing would almost certainly begin to fall apart. The steel itself seems to be pretty decent but the rest of the machine -- especially the plastic components -- are not up to snuff.

The Ab Circle Pro is a great example of a good idea with lousy execution. If they had just made the thing a little bit better it would actually be a great home-workout option. But, at least with this current version, the quality of construction and materials is simply not high-enough for me to recommend it to the general public. Maybe the next version will use better-quality materials and actually be enjoyable to use (something that's important no matter what kind of fitness equipment you're talking about!). For now I'll stick with my exercise ball crunches and hanging leg-raises!

Hope this helps...

- Jake Mealy, CPT

If you have a real review of the Ab Circle Pro please leave it in the comments section below...