SIXPAD Abs Belt

I am the sort of person who would look ridiculous with a six pack on the rest of my physique but I am on a diet and I wanted some definition to my stomach where I have lost weight. I have used the belt nearly every day for a month and it definitely works. I have gained definition at the sides of my stomach on the outside and my stomach muscles are much firmer underneath the remaining flab. This is an expensive item and the cost does not end with buying it. About thirty days after you buy it you will need to replace the gel pads that cover the contacts at £38 per set. Each time you take the belt off you have to take care to roll back the edges of the pads to re-form them and this should extend their life. Talking of life, the battery will require recharging every three uses not every five as claimed. I am not a fan of equipment that requires you to download an app but to this belt's credit you do not have to register to use it. The app controls the settings of the belt and also indicates how long into the 23 minutes per day program you are. On the sixth use the belt malfunctioned and it couldn't be reset from the app. I had to abandon the session but a full recharge solved the problem despite their being 38% life left in the battery at the time. The belt has to be stored flat on a laminated board that is provided to protect the gel pads so storage space is also an issue if you don't have much. The instructions say to start on low power and built up to a level that is not uncomfortable. You should reach this level quite quickly and you can't take it any further of increase the exercise program length either. It is quite strange to have your stomach muscles being pummelled whilst the surface doesn't move. You can't even feel it if you place your hand on your skin. The belt is well made and appears to be durable except for the little cover over the USB charging port which quickly became detached. I will definitely invest in another set of gel pads when the first set wears out but for now I am eking out their life as best I can. That is a recommendation after all.

My wife used this product. While the pads stuck so well the gel didn't want to come off her skin, she found the skin prickling was uncomfortable before the muscle stimulation was effective when some pad-based equipment she's tried before wasn't as prone to this. The belt was more effective than the other belt type ones she's tried, but that's comparing sub £20 belts to something costing nearly 20x as much, so if it didn't do much better it really would be a poor performance. She didn't find the fit was that great on her - finding it difficult to get a position that stimulated lower and upper abdominal muscles together effectively and not sitting as comfortably as she'd have liked - again, this is compared to other such (cheaper) equipment she's tried before. It was effective at stimulating the muscles at a stronger power setting, but only when fairly uncomfortable on skin prickling sensations. The main reason I can't recommend this is that I don't really see much to justify the massive price hike compared to already relatively expensive, better known, longer-established competitors. A serious athlete might see a justification for this given the ability to strongly tense muscles, but for most of us this is too expensive and too uncomfortable.

I've now been using this abdominal trainer for three weeks, sadly I just haven't seen any real effects. The belt was quite easy to set up, with the caveat that it just won't connect to my phone, no matter how many times i tried. Thankfully, it does work without a phone so I could still test it. There isn't much assembly required, and you stick the sticky pads to the device (get them the right way around unlike I did with one of them otherwise it's a right pain to fix) and get it charged and ready to use. The controls are quite clear and you then let the belt run through its program. The power settings ranged from unnoticeable to genuinely uncomfortable - bordering on painful - I used it just below the level at which it became uncomfortable. Vs other cheaper belts you can definitely feel this work, the stimulation makes your muscle jump and I had muscle ache after the first couple of days - not unlike a heavy session at the gym. The thing is, I'm not sure that actually amounted to much, as I just can't see any different in my abs. Perhaps this works for some, but for me, it just doesn't. It is a well presented, and well thought out premium product, but perhaps if the mobile app worked for me I could have customised everything better, as it stands, I saw little impact.

Does this thing work? Yes I'd say so but at a huge price. I've used this belt for around three months now and can say although I don't have a six pack, too fat for that, it has definitely improved my abdominal strength and made some difference to my waistline. The belt comes in a variety of sizes and the one I was supplied with was a little too small for me but in no way did this make it unusable. It just meant I couldn't be active whilst doing so. The gel pads on the main and side unit provide more than enough adhesion to keep it in place while it cycles through the programme. I fairly quickly moved up through the intensity levels until after a couple of weeks I was using it at full power over the duration of the 20 minute workout. It starts out with a gentle pulsing as warm up then intensifies through a number of different patterns to give your abdominals a varied and thorough going over. I actually enjoyed the sensation and felt pretty relaxed after its use. However there are some major downsides. I could never get the app for this product to discover the belt so wasn't able to track my progress using it. It takes a long to time to fully charge and I was lucky to get 3 full workouts from one charge as opposed to the claimed five and the gel pads don't last long and are expensive to replace. A years use of this product including the initial purchase cost is going to set you back over £800. That's frankly eye watering. It's a pity as I actually quite enjoy using the product but there are better value options out there.