Contour Ab Belt

Ok, so was just surfing the forums and say an ad at the top of the page for the Contour Ab Belt.  So I decided to *click*.  It's interesting to think that if I slap a belt on me my spare tire will *poof* away. 

Has anyone ever tried it and did you actually see results?

I can not speak for the Contour ab belt but I myself bought a similar ab belt a few years ago. Simply put, all it does is stimulate your ab muscles. It does not burn fat at all. You burn fat and lose weight through proper diet and a calorie deficit. All the ab belt will do for you ::possibly:: in the long run is give you more defined abs and that's only if you yourself lose enough fat around your mid section. 

I swear to God I'm going to market dog piss in a bottle and sell it for $75 and call it the Spirochete Ab Miracle potion and be totally rich

You probably could spirochete!  Lol!

I'm also curious if these ab belts work. According to wikipedia electronic muscle stimulation works

I found a site comparing some ab belts: www.mydietarea.com/reviews/ab-belt-review

Has anybody gotten results?

 EMS works, for some value of work, but the muscles those ab belts are stimulating are about the size of a notebook and the current they're using is far too weak to cause any muscular contractions of any use to anyone who hasn't been on complete bed-rest for the past year.

 So it won't burn a lot of calories and it won't do much of anything to stimulate muscle growt, and it definitely won't do anything to preferentially burn off belly fat.

 The only workout that will have any significant impact on your abs are fork put-downs and table push-aways ;)

Phu.. sounds hard! I'm too lazy for that ;-)

i saw the info commercial on this, and said what the heck, i am currently active in the gym and dieting...so why not i need a lil extra push, so i ordered it. from www.thecontour.com

 

and OMG, its not like the older belts we seen come out when we were kids, this is a modern better sculpted version, im still in my 30day trial infact im in my first week and i am so impressed, with the stimulation and the way it flexis my ab section you can choose to work lower or  upper....i had everyone in my house put it on to feel the stimulation.  so i say order it only if you are currently active already in the gym, if you are not active all your gonna do is build muscle on top of fat.

brought the belt to work, have a sit down job, my desk neighbor is a skeptic too, let her try it on, changed her mind real quick, got the whole office talking i like to prove my point!

EMS works as therapy for people who have injuries that restrict a muscle's movement to basically nothing. It can provide enough stimulation to slow the atrophy of muscle, but that's about it. How many products have to come out every year, every generation that promise to give you results while sitting on your ass? How many of those products work? To get the results, you have to do the work... plain and simple. If you want to develop muscle, you need to load that muscle and continue to increase that load as it adapts. Small abdominal muscle contractions on is going to do absolutely nothing for a person who can stand upright because your abdominals easily get many times more stimulation from things you do in your daily life (standing up, sitting down, picking things up, turning, bending, etc.).

Of course, most of the people who will buy this garbage are doing it the wrong way even if the product actually worked. Great abs are made in the kitchen. There is a reason 12 year old boys who have never done situps in their life have 6 packs. Without anabolic steroids, rectus abdominis muscle growth is fairly limited because it's a very thin sheet of muscle. I'd say visible abs are 90% low body fat and 10% muscle development.

Original Post by spirochete:

I swear to God I'm going to market dog piss in a bottle and sell it for $75 and call it the Spirochete Ab Miracle potion and be totally rich

Just make sure in the commercial for your piss potion that you say "it's not your fault you can't lose weight", include a computer animated graphic of fat melting away, and throw in a few sciency sounding words that really don't mean anything. That seems to be the secret to selling crap. Oh and throw in some hot people who make a living as fitness models and say they got that body solely from your product.

Original Post by thatwallpaper:

If you want to develop muscle, you need to load that muscle and continue to increase that load as it adapts. Small abdominal muscle contractions on is going to do absolutely nothing for a person who can stand upright because your abdominals easily get many times more stimulation from things you do in your daily life (standing up, sitting down, picking things up, turning, bending, etc.).

This. 

not saying i don't agree, i said i recomment this product if you are currently active and already have a work out plan, but if your not currently active then why buy it. this is just like that lil extra push

 

again if your active try it, you can really feel the contractions in your ab area

Original Post by tashak:

not saying i don't agree, i said i recomment this product if you are currently active and already have a work out plan, but if your not currently active then why buy it. this is just like that lil extra push

 

again if your active try it, you can really feel the contractions in your ab area

Of course you can feel it, it's electrocuting you. No one is saying you can't feel the belt electrocute you. The question at hand is whether shocking yourself in the stomach is going to do anything for the appearance or strength of your muscles, and the answer to that is no.

To be fair, as you mention, a second, effective use for the belt which I hadn't thought of is giving you that "extra push" when you're already dieting and exercising. If that's what you want to use it for, more power to you -- if electrocuting yourself in the stomach is going to remind you to go to the gym and strengthen your muscles the traditonal, effective way, and to eat a proper diet that will reveal those muscles by reducing the amount of fat on top of them, then it seems that yes, it is effective at that purpose.

I make a note in my planner (usually something like 5:15 - Go to gym!), but I can see how electrocuting my stomach could serve the same purpose.

again if your active try it, you can really feel the contractions in your ab area

 I have actually tried one of these belts because my old neighbor had one. This was pretty hilarious because he was 350 lbs, had already had one heart attack and still drove to his mailbox (To be clear this is not in a rural area, I'm talking about a 20 foot walk). But I digress... I agree that you can definitely feel the contractions. But the reason it is so noticable to you is because it's a foreign feeling for the initiation of the contraction to originate outside the body. What you don't notice is all the times during the day your abs contract with the exact same intensity as you stand or walk because you've trained your body to do these things since you were a baby and it feels natural to you. We already easily exceed the load the an EMS belt puts on our abdominals in our every day movements (assuming you aren't bed-ridden, of course), so it won't earn us any gains.

On the other hand, everyone is entitled to waste money on what they want.

I'm also thinking about getting an ab belt. Still not sure which one I should buy.

During research I found an interesting blog post: Does the contour abs work?

@Tashak: Did you get any results so far?

EMS worked for Bruce Lee. 

(According to the legend.)

I think Spiro's dog piss could make anyone put down their fork.

You go girl, finally a product that actually works!

I read up on those once out of curiosity, and what I read said it pretty much only makes a difference on people with muscle atrophy or people who haven't been able to use their muscles at all (as in, a parapalegic in a wheel chair or someone in a coma).

i say yes. i have been using my belt since i got it 3wks ago. i am currently active in the gym so i have already stated seeing results...when u put this belt on you can really feel your muscles contracting which is what you feel when you do crunches anyway...u can try the 30day trial on the website i got mine and if you don't agree you get your money back but the 30day was like 14.95 so if you try it good luck and let me know.

Thanks for answering, Tashak!

I'll probably go for the other belt which is mentioned in the blog post I linked to in my last answer.

Will report back!