Love Handles

Find the Best Exercises to lose your Love Handles

Search this site

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Love handles, despite their name, do not inspire much deep affection from their host bodies' egos but they do inspire passion to see them disappear. Their technical name is 'obliques'. It's the area around the sides of the stomach that make it spring out sideways and make your shape disproportionate. While you can't spot tone them to reduce their fat, toning up your middle muscles will definitely give them a tighter, flatter, firmer appearance.

Lose the Love Handles

There are certain flat stomach exercises and lifestyle changes you can adopt to get rid of those unsightly fat deposits. When you look below you will see that strengthening your ab muscles is a key step in reducing your love handles. But whenever you work on your abdominal muscles, you should also strengthen the muscles in your lower back to help balance the strength in your torso and reduce the fat on your back.

Love handles exist because of excess fat that is stored on your body. It is one of the first places that extra fat is stored. This means that to truly lose your love handles, you need to lose that weight. Exercise alone will not be able to remove your love handles. Learn more about the Causes of Stomach Fat.

Love Handle Exercises

Love Handle Crunch

  
  1.) Step One
Stand up with your feet hip length apart and have a table or chair to your left side.
  2.) Step Two
Place your left hand on the table and raise your right arm straight above your head as high as you can.
  3.) Step Three
Slowly bring your right knee up your side to about belly button height with your knee facing out to your side. At the same time bring your right elbow down to the same level and have them touch.
  4.) Step Four
Hold for a couple of seconds and return to starting position. Repeat 10-12 times then switch sides.

Torso Twists

  
  1.) Step One
Stand firmly with feet shoulder width apart
  2.) Step Two
Twist to the left and hold for a couple of seconds. Tighten your ab muscles while you twist.
  3.) Step Three
Now twist to the right and hold.
  4.) Step Four
Return to starting position then repeat 10-12 reps, 2-3 sets.

Oblique Crunch

  

This is the same as the ab crunch, but you come up off the ground at an angle across your body

  1.) Step One
Lie on you back.
  2.) Step Two
Place your feet on the floor as close to your bottom as possible and place your knees together.
  3.) Step Three
Rest your hands across you chest and relax the neck.
  3.) Step Four
Slowly raise your shoulders off the floor and turn to a diagonal angle across your body, keeping your lower back on the floor.
  5.) Step Five
Hold that position for a second and breath out forcefully.
  6.) Step Six
Slowly relax the stomach muscles and allow your shoulders to return to the floor. Repeat 10-12 times. Do as many sets you can with at least a minute rest in between.