Patent ID: 7833142

Claim:
An abdominal exercising and strength testing device comprising: a support having a raised section for supporting a lumbar portion of a user's back, the raised section comprising an inflatable bladder; a sensor associated with the raised section of the support for producing a signal representative of a magnitude of a force applied to the raised section; a pump in fluid communication with the bladder, the pump connected to receive the signal from the sensor and automatically pressurize the bladder to a desired pressure based on the signal; a feedback device adapted to receive the signal from the sensor for providing the user with feedback based on the magnitude of the force applied to the raised section, the feedback comprising a strength level measured on a non-linear scale; a user interface for receiving: a user-selected operation mode from among a plurality of operation modes comprising a threshold mode and a target mode; a user-selected force threshold; and a user selected target force range; a processor coupled to the sensor and to the user interface; and a memory coupled to the processor, the memory containing computer-readable instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to: if the user-selected operation mode is the threshold mode, operate the feedback device to provide feedback when the force applied to the raised section exceeds the user-selected force threshold; and, if the user-selected operation mode is the target mode, operate the feedback device to provide feedback when the force applied to the raised section is outside of the user-selected target force range.