Oblique Tummy Exercise

The following exercise concentrates on your obliques, which are the muscles at the side of your abs (“love handles”). This exercise is a little difficult, so you should work your way up to doing the final result, if necessary. The exercise I describe below uses a stability ball.


START:

Put the stability ball at your lower back, but this time, you are going to lie straight back, like in the picture above. Do not lean as far back as you can, like recommended in the basic sit up.

FINISH:

Now, pick up your head/shoulders a bit, like pictures below. When your upper body is in a “half crunch,” pick up either your right or left knee, and aim it towards your opposing elbow. Since this is the first level of the oblique exercise, we are not going to bring our elbow to our knee. You can see how close you can get them to each other. Just get used to the motion and instability of bringing up one knee to the opposing elbow. When you do one knee, lower it slowly and raise the opposing knee and aim it at its opposite elbow.



RECOMMENDED WORKOUT:

Two sets of 20, so you do 10 of each leg. Go slow and controlled so your body gets used to the instability of balancing on one leg on the stability ball. (You can also do the same type of sit up where you bring one elbow to the opposing knee, but keeping both legs on the ground. Do this if you are having trouble balancing on one foot).