Adding weight plates to the Ab Coaster

If you read my review of the ab coaster, I called it "The best abdominal workout machine on TV". What's great about the Ab Coaster is that it does exactly what it's supposed to do: isolate your abdominal area.

The motion is easy and, yes, fun to do. I would never say this about crunches or hanging leg raises. I actually look forward to my abdominal workouts now.

The model I have is the CS1000, which is the light commercial model. You can add up to 30 lbs. of weight plates to the seat and the maximum capacity of the machine is 400 pounds. As your abs become stronger, 30 pounds attached to the seat is not a lot of weight.

Some lifters subscribe to the theory that the abs should be worked like any other muscle, with heavy weights. Personally, I like the option to do either high reps with little weight, or low reps with heavy weights. I needed to find a way to add more weight to the seat posts.

According to the manufacturer of the Ab Coaster, you can ONLY add 30 lbs to the posts on the seat of the CS1000 model. They can hold more than that! Here's how much I have added so far:

This is 130 pounds attached to the seat. With my body weight of 170 pounds, I still could add another 100 pounds before I reached the machine's capacity.

Adding weight plates to the Ab Coaster was relatively easy; all I did was remove the 1/2" thick, round plastic spacer and slip an Olympic plate adapter over the one inch post and tighten the set screw. I removed the plastic spacer so the Olympic adapter would sit flat and right up against the metal sides of the seat.

I purchased these 10" long Olympic plate adapters at Second Wind Sports for - get this - $2.50 each! There wasn't a price tag on them and the salesperson couldn't find a price in any book, so he said, "What the heck, $2.50 each". SOLD! I went back a month later to buy two more but the price went up to $20 each. Go figure.

When you add plates, you need to start off with a few smaller diameter plates. This is so you can still swivel the seat.

Conclusion

My Ab Coaster now is just as versatile as the Hammar Strength ab machine at a commercial gym. If you decide to try this with your own Ab Coaster, you do so at your own risk of snapping one of the seat posts off.

Don't email and blame me!

Keep liftin'.