When people talk about love handles, they are are talking about their stomach, oblique (side of stomach) and lower back area. Whether fat gathers here or elsewhere purely depends just on you and your genetics. Typically fat gathers there and particularly around the hips and thighs in women, to give extra protection to important organs. Unfortunately, we can not decide we do not want our fat stored there, so we have to do the best we can to reduce the weight in this area by watching what we eat and exercising.
Some simple exercises to help get rid of love handles are ones that concentrate on the abdominal muscles and the obliques. These exercises below can be done at home.
Seated russian twist – Sit on the floor with your feet together and knees bent. Place your hands in front of your stomach and keep them together. Lean back until you feel like your abdominal muscles are having to work to keep you in that position then slowly rotate from side to side. Focus on rotating the whole of your upper body.
Side plank – Lie on your side then lift your body off the ground, using your forearm that is nearest the ground. Keep your hips in line with the rest of your body and make sure they do not dip as this will not work your stomach muscles correctly. Hold each side for 30 seconds.
Slow bicycles – This exercises is like riding a bike but you are lying on your back. But your are doing this much slower. Place your hands behind your head like you would do when you are doing a sit-up. When your leg comes up to your stomach, reach over with your opposite elbow and feel the pull across your stomach. Repeat the opposite way.
Those are great exercises to get your started on for now. If you find these too easy or are looking for something a bit more challenging, then start using some free weights. These are great as you need to use more muscles to stabilize the weight than if you just use static machines. To keep it more interesting if you are doing exercises at home, then you can incorporate using the swiss ball and resistance bands.
Complete these exercises and you will see a more toned stomach in no time.
Want to find out more about love handle exercises, then visit Jo Northwood’s site on how to lose love handles the fastest way.