What Exercises Slim Your Waist?
Q: My love handles come in useful for giving my man something to grab onto while he’s plowing me from behind. But other than that, I could live without them and would much rather have an hourglass figure. So yeah, what exercises slim your waist?
A: If you want a slimmer waist, then it stands to reason that you have love handles, or excess fat along your waistline. So if your goal is to have a slimmer waist for an hourglass figure, it seems logical to focus your attention on exercises that target the obliques, which are the abdominal muscles on the side of the torso. After all, if you do exercises that target that area, you should lose fat there. As sound as that logic is, however, it’s wrong because that’s not how fat loss works.
All the side bends in the world won’t do shit to slim the waist because while it’s possible to build muscle in a particular area of the body with a particular exercise, it’s not possible to lose fat in a particular area by performing an exercise that targets it. Instead of fat loss being a local event, it occurs globally with the body losing fat from all over and the desired area losing it faster or slower than other locations depending on a number of variables, such as your genetic predisposition to store fat.
The best thing you can do to have a slimmer waist is to create a calorie deficit by eating fewer calories, increasing your physical activity, or a combination of both. With that as your main priority, you can then turn your attention to the exercises you should do to improve the appearance of your waistline when the layer of fat that’s covering it is removed.
EXERCISES:
• Standing Side Crunches
• Standing Bicycle Crunches
• Bicycle Crunches
• Triangle Crunches
• Side Crunches
• Side Bridges
• Side Planks
• Plank Hip Dips
• Heel Touches
• Oblique V-Ups
• Wood Choppers
• Cross-Body Mountain Climbers
• High Knee Twists
• Corkscrew Twists
• Broomstick Twists
• Russian Twists
• Mason Twists
• Banded Elbow Thrusts
• Windshield Wipers
• Landmine Windshield Wipers
• Landmine Rotations
• Medicine Ball Rotations
• Prone Back Extension Rotations
The recommended exercises mostly target the obliques. While those muscles contribute to the appearance of a slimmer waistline, it should be noted that the rectus abdominis and transversus abdominis muscles should also be worked in multiple planes of motion to give your midsection a more complete look.
Concerning the execution of the exercises, movements targeting the rectus abdominis are usually performed with weight and for that muscle, it’s alright to use heavy resistance. That shouldn’t be the case with the obliques because they’re like any other muscle, which means the load can have the effect of making them bigger, resulting in the sides of your waist appearing blockier instead of slimmer. To avoid this, keep the weight very light for oblique exercises that use plates, dumbbells, kettlebells, cables, medicine balls, and other forms of resistance. Lastly, focus more on quality than quantity because many of the exercises for the obliques involve rotational movements that can be dangerous to the spine if done with improper form.
Apart from losing fat and performing exercises for the midsection, there are additional things that can be done to make the waist appear smaller once the body fat has been reduced. Examples include widening the lats, developing the lateral delts so the shoulders are broader, and increasing the size of the gluteus medius. One or all of those training objectives can help create the illusion of a tapered waist.
…but that’s assuming that you’re not built like a refrigerator. If you have such crappy genetics that you are, then there’s really nothing that can be done to overcome your blocky build. In that case, YOU’RE FUCKED!!!
Now, does anyone else have a fitness or nutrition question of their own that they want to ask?
Glossary: abdominals, caloric deficit, calories, crunches, dumbbell, exercise, fat, fitness, genetics, goal, lats, lifting form, muscle, nutrition, training
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