They're easy to do.
They basically work by "reciprocal inhibition". Originally, Janda would have a trainee get in a standard situp position, with the knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Then he would place his hands behind their calves, about half-way up. He would tell them to resist the pressure he placed against their calves and try to keep their feet on the floor while doing a situp. This recruits the glutes and hams and thus relaxes the hip flexors, "isolating" the abs.
That's the theory. Try it for your self and yeah, you will feel like your abs have been isolated like never before in a situp. You may not be able to do one rep without assistance.
Pavel sells a device called a Pavelizer. But I do them without a training partner by using some stretch bands. I'll try to describe it.
I use my low/high pulley station. With the seat off. I take two bands and hook one around each prong of the weight holders and then lay them over the knee pads. Then I lay in front of the pulley station and put the bands around my calves about half way up. I back up until they are placing a lot of tension on me which is perfectly placed in this sort of slanted upwards angle. In other words the straps are wanting to both straighten my knees and pull my feet up. Perfect. So I fight that and keep my feet on the floor and the hip flexors are GONE.
At first I couldn't do a rep without ANOTHER band to assist me.
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