For those wrapping their heads around toning, bulking, or physical fitness exercises in general, for the first time, it’s difficult to conceptualize how hard it is it build ab muscle and tone the waistline.
Belly fat is the most difficult fat to lose and it almost always brings up the rear as you shed weight everywhere else. It’s highly frustrating and we get it. It’s important to understand the core dynamics of toning and building your core physique.
It takes a combination of strict dieting and the right tools for the job. In this case, the right tools are ab rollers. With that being said, we’ve meticulously inspected and used the ab rollers on our list and determined them as some of the best on the market.
Best Ab Rollers
One thing’s for sure, there are a lot of ab rollers to choose from. The market is positively saturated with them. Our job is to separate the wheat from the chaff so you can make a better choice overall.
Our team has plenty of experience with ab rollers and is more than happy to pass that knowledge and experience on to you! If you’re in a hurry and don’t have the time to go through each one, here is our list of the best five ab rollers on the market today.
- Ab Carver Pro (Best Ab Roller for Beginners)
- SKLZ Core Wheel Ab Rollers (Best for Upper Abs and Body)
- Lifeline Power Wheel Ultimate Core (Best Advanced Workout)
- Valeo Dual Ab Wheel (Best Basic Wheel)
- Vinsguir Ab Roller (Best Budget Ab Roller)
- Gold’s Gym Ab Wheel (Best Wheel for Most People)
Now that you know what’s on our list, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of what makes these ab rollers some of the best on the market today.
Abs Carver Pro (Best Ab Roller for Beginners)
We might as well start off with one of the more unique-looking ab rollers on the market. We love the Ab Carver Pro’s aesthetics. One of the things that make it super easy for beginners is its large wheel, which places a lot of real estate on the floor.
When you use the Ab Carver, you don’t have to worry too much about accidental left and right movement. Though it’s designed for more floor contact, its aesthetic is what makes it a best seller. That’s not to say that the aesthetic is misleading.
The Ab Carver Pro is an exceptional ab roller. It features a kinetic engine within the housing, along with a carbon steel spring. The excellent stability, high-level components, and ease with which it rolls make this ab roller a must-have option, especially for beginners.
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What Customers On Amazon Have to Say About the Ab Carver Pro
“The ergonomics of the handles fit me very well, a nice curve which promotes smooth rolling and I could get very low to the ground.”
SKLZ Core Wheel Ab Rollers (Best for Upper Abs and Body)
This ab roller (or ab rollers) is a four-wheel beast that we really enjoyed. Like the Ab Carver Pro, this design is focused on stability. However, if you’re looking at a more focused ab workout, the design feature forces a more indirect focus on the upper abs and body.
The first thing we noticed, right out of the box, was the premium feel and durability of the rollers. The interior grip is very grippy, so you don’t have to worry about your hands slipping during a sweaty workout session.
The use of the SKLZ Core Wheels requires a bit of discipline as well because it’s easy to let one go in a different direction than the other. However, this design works in your favor as well, allowing you to line your hands up like you want them, according to what you want to focus on.
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What Customers On Amazon Have to Say About the SKLZ Core Wheels
“Offers the advantage of going in different directions than just forward and back. A great device that I highly recommend.”
Lifeline Power Wheel Ultimate Core (Best Advanced Workout)
Another ab roller on our list that comes with an interesting aesthetic is the Lifeline Power Wheel Ultimate Core. This thing looks like someone shrunk down a bike tire and threw in some pedals as well, just for good measure.
The treaded tire offers exceptional grip, especially if you are working out on linoleum, tile, wood floors, or laminate flooring. The stirrups are a nice addition and keep your hands in place while you work your abs, upper body, or lower body.
However, if you try to switch your hands to the bars instead, the stirrups can get in the way. Fortunately, they are removable if you want to do so. The Lifeline was certainly one of our favorites in testing and it’s a definite winner in the marketplace.
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What Customers On Amazon Have to Say About the Lifeline Power Wheel
“The item was easy to assemble and is well worth the buy. It is a great addition to my home gym that I am building.”
Valeo Dual Ab Wheel (Best Basic Wheel)
This may be one of the more basic-looking ab rollers out there, but we found a lot to love about it anyway. Like the Lifeline, the Valeo Dual Ab Wheel is treaded and offers a good deal of grip on any kind of flooring surface.
The handlebars feature a series of curved ridges for a comfortable grip that will keep your hands from shifting out or in. The wheel rolls smoothly and the materials are surprisingly durable.
Since this is a more basic ab roller, it works exceptionally well on your core abdomen muscles, along with your triceps, and back. This is also one of the more portable designs and it’s easy enough to stuff in a suitcase for long trips.
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What Customers On Amazon Have to Say About the Dual Ab Wheel.
“At this price, it is a great buy, I have always enjoyed the stretch you get when using these so I’m glad I have one to add to my workout gear.”
Vinsguir Ab Roller (Best Budget Ab Roller)
The Vinsguir Ab Roller has one of the coolest aesthetics of all the ab rollers we put to the test. It looks like a gaming computer scrunched into an ab roller design. It’s a dual-wheel ab roller, for increased stability and extra surface contact.
The Vinsguir is designed to focus on your hip flexors (Notoriously underused muscles), core abs, and lower back. Though it’s a dual-wheel, the diameter of the wheels is only 3.2”, which makes this one of the more portable ab rollers available.
The resistance level of the Vinsguir is spot on and the grips, which look smooth at first glance, are fairly grippy. If you want something that offers an excellent workout and draws the eyes of everyone that walks by, the Vinsguir Ab Roller should be on your list.
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What Customers On Amazon Say About the Vinsguir Ab Roller.
“Had it for 3 years now and it’s still as solid as I got it new and I’ve been using it an average of 3x per week.”
Gold’s Gym Ab Wheel
If you’ve spent any time working out in the last two decades, you’ll immediately recognize Gold’s Gym name. This ab roller is every bit as standard-looking as the Valeo but offers the same, high level of production value and capability.
What we love most about the Gold’s Gym Ab Wheel is the price—only $20 as of this writing. The only reason it didn’t get the “best budget buy” place on the list is because of its basic aesthetic, compared to the awesomeness of the Vinsguir paired with the latter’s low price.
This is definitely a wheel for advanced users. It’s a dual-wheel design but the two wheels are narrower than others on the list. Excellent concentration and coordination are required to get the best out of your ab workout. It isn’t constructed of the best materials, mostly just plastic—it requires consistent maintenance for longevity.
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What Customers On Amazon Have to Say About the Gold’s Gym Ab Wheel
“This ab wheel is the best way to exercise abs—great product.”
How to Choose the Best Ab Roller
Crunches, situps, and weightlifting equipment all have their place. But an ab roller covers a broader scope. For one, they’re highly portable. You don’t need to go to the gym or even have an elaborate home gym setup to use ab rollers.
Surprisingly enough, there is a larger degree of ab rollers, insofar as size, functionality, and materials, than you might think. Carefully selecting the right ab roller for you means doing a little investigative homework.
Pricing
Taken as a whole, there just isn’t much to an ab roller. The vast differences in pricing (you can find them between $5 and $100) is mostly due to the materials that went into the manufacturing. What the pricing most likely indicates is the durability of the ab roller.
Durability
Since pricing plays directly into durability, it makes sense to place this point next. A typical ab roller will be under extreme duress. And no, that’s not an indication of your weight. Leverage creates a lot of downward force and the dynamics of that force spread out as the ab roller is used.
In other words, you want something that can stand up to the weekly workout grind. That means quality materials and optimal design. An ab roller isn’t something you should go cheap on if you can help it.
Design Aspects
How hard can it be, right? A wheel and two handle grips are all that go into an ab roller, correct? Sort of. Once again, pricing and materials play a large role here. Stainless steel components or titanium should be high on your priorities list.
Not to mention the fact that stainless steel is anti-corrosive, so you won’t have to deal with rust further down the line.
Ab Roller Size
Believe it or not, this makes a huge difference. It’s not just a portability factor either. The smaller the wheel, the bigger the angles between you, the roller, and the floor. Smaller wheels equal harder workouts.
However, the plus side to a smaller wheel and less lengthy handlebars is portability. It’s a lot easier to pack away a smaller ab roller for trips than it is for a larger wheel and longer handlebars.
Do Ab Rollers Really Work?
An ab roller works just like any other exercise, whether you’re working out with resistance bands, free weights, doing yoga routines, or exercising muscle groups without weights (pull-ups, push-ups, and things of that nature).
What we meant to say is it’s all about form. Without proper form, even the best and most well-known exercise methods are reduced in terms of results or, even worse, do nothing at all to help you grow muscle and tone your body.
With the right form, ab rollers definitely work and it’s a far broader exercise than at first glance. When you form your body into a triangle, face down, with your hands on each bar, you have to slowly roll the ab roller away from your body. You also have to maintain a rigid posture throughout.
It is not an easy exercise. In fact, crunches and sit-ups may be in order, at least for a time, until your core is strong enough to perform the core exercise an ab roller offers. Plus, it’s important to consider the fact that the ab roller should not be the lone exercise in your toolset.
If you want to build biceps, you don’t just do standard curls. You do hammer curls as well. Pull-ups are excellent and even wide-grip lat pull-ups work your biceps. The same is true with the ab roller.
When I use my ab roller, I also do side crunches, standard crunches, bench situps, and standard sit-ups. An ab roller is merely a tool in my arsenal. Another thing it’s good for is providing you with a simple, standard workout when you can’t do everything else.
For instance, maybe you’re traveling and simply can’t get to a gym. Maybe you don’t have enough downtime to bother with the full range of exercises sometimes. An ab roller is an excellent sustainment tool, keeping you from losing tone and muscle just because you can’t get to the gym for a while.
What Muscle Groups Does an Ab Roller Target?
Of course, it’s called an ab roller for a reason and the main target of the ab roller is your abdomen muscles. However, this is a much broader workout device than just something for your abs.
Ab rollers also work your back. Trust me, when you jump on the ab roller bandwagon for the first time, you’ll feel it in your back long before you feel it in your abdomen. That’s because there are muscles in your back that don’t get the kind of resistance your abs do.
It works your gluteus maximus muscles. These muscles are difficult to tone and grow simply because they are two of the largest muscles in your body. Ab rollers work your obliques (those muscles to the left and right of your core ab muscles).
If you like the look of that V-shape running from the bottom of your abs to your lower pelvis, it gets a good toning as well. Your lower back obliques are also targeted, which is where the initial soreness will probably coalesce, at least until your body gets used to the exercise.
With certain forms and routines, you can also get an ab roller to target your chest more, and your arms (biceps and triceps) to a small degree. For these latter muscles, an ab roller shouldn’t be the lone exercise, though it will work them to a degree.
Can an Ab Roller Hurt Your Back?
I brought back soreness up for a reason because ab rollers can hurt your back if you don’t maintain the proper form and take it easy early on. Remember, some of the back muscles ab rollers work is not the kind of muscles that encounter much resistance on a day-to-day basis.
These back muscles are easy to hurt early on, especially if you can’t follow the right form. The best way to avoid this kind of thing happening to you is to practice proper form, never arch your back in either direction, use a wall or a partner to keep your feet in place, and use padding (at least for your knees).
When you pick up an ab roller for the first time, stick to basic exercise and focus on form first, function later.
All Things Considered
There you have it, six of the best ab rollers on the market today. While ab rollers are a fantastic way to help form and maintain your core muscles, they should be used in tandem with other abdominal exercises as well.
Think of it this way: a great ab roller is a fantastic addition to your home gym and they are highly affordable. With one of these six ab rollers to choose from, you should have no problem starting a simplified, affordable, and effective home gym!
References
- We’ve tested the best ab rollers to build core strength without weights – Retrieved from: https://www.fitandwell.com/buying-guides/best-ab-rollers
- Zayed, A. DR. (N/A). Best Ab Roller – Retrieved from: https://thefitnesstribe.com/best-ab-roller/
