I am currently having a try of Thermoplasty to try and loose some fat around the mid section. My clinician advised me one thing to help me would be to do some Ab exercises, like stomach crunches. I am useless at stomach crunches, and not only that I do not believe I do them right, knowing me I will end up doing more harm, and very little good.

One thing I had seen on TV was the Ab King Pro, it seemed to have a lot of comments about how good and useful it was, how it helped you keep in the correct position and how easy it was to use. The trouble with the Ab King Pro is that it costs £99 from TV and I managed to find it on the net for £60.

I had a look on Amazon for it and managed to find this Medicarn Ab Pro, the reviews on Amazon seemed to indicate this was pretty good, but it was around £50+P&P, I noticed it was from a marketplace seller, so I had a look on EBay and found the same seller on there doing it for £30+P&P. I ordered it, I was told it would arrive within a week, 2 days later I had it (I did order it at 11pm).

I opened the box to find the few parts easy to take out and put together with literally pins. No need for any tools, it took about 5 minutes to put together and have it ready to use. The seat and back support is firm, but nicely padded. All area of this machine seem to be easily adjustable to meet anyone's needs (although someone really tall might have a problem). The machine is study with good quality adjustable attachments. It certainly will support me at 14 stone without any worry, as for its max weight I can't see it anywhere, but from its build I am pretty sure it could hold up to 20 stone (however do check this out).

I gave it a try out that afternoon, and I can understand why this is classed to work well. If you do ab crunches while laid down on a mat, odds are your doing them wrong, you'll bend your spine and end up curling your body up, rather than lifting your body using your abs. Same with your feet will move and aide you. Using this device, while keeping yourself firmly rested against the back support, as you lift your self keeping your back against it, it is loads more difficult. Because your feet are held in place they can not move in order to help you up. You really feel the effect as you lift yourself up, but you know your arms are on the rounded support, and you think "hold on a min, I'm not doing Ab Crunches I am lifting the board up using my arm muscles." Well as soon as you think that, trust me your not. Being a technical person if I hypothesise something I must always test it, so I laid relaxed on the bench and tried to use my arms to lift me up. Trust me it was far more effort and you felt it in your arms, there was no way what I was doing before, using my Abs to lift me, had any major impact from my arms. All my arms did was support me as I lifted up, making sure the back support was firmly against my back.

From this device I can clearly feel the impact is upon my abs not hurt from any other part of my body. I know now what I am doing will have an effect, and not cause me any damage. How much of an effect will be down to me watching what I eat, my Thermoplasty or this actual device I don't know. I know this device is purely to help you tone, the Thermoplasty helps you release stored fat to be processed and what I am eating helps make sure I am eating less fat, and the calories I need, as part of the Thermoplasty is to give you a good calculation of your base rate required calories, as well as an accurate BMI.

I will update this review as I use it further to let you know what kind of effect it has on me. I will also be doing a review of Thermoplasty when I am towards the end of my 15 session course.

Currently though I can see that this will be doing me more good than harm, due to the support it gives. If you want to do abs, and want to make sure you keep your body in the correct form as you do them, make sure you buy one of these. I know there are many fakes out there, but the Medicarn clearly is good quality. Definatly a recommended purchase.