Ah, the search for the Holy Grail, or in this case, what are the exercises that get rid of love handles. You know – the love handles; Those oh so grabbable rolls of blubber surrounding our guts. For some, it's not bad. I was watching the Rock DVD that just came out – an anthology chronicling his career and some of his best matches – and he looked great. But he had a little bit of blubber rolling over his tights. But, no biggie, because he looked great.
We're talking the full monty here, so to speak. We're talking about oversized muffin tops and monster truck, spare tire with it all complimented by a hanging gut. Which brings us back to what exercises to do if we're to lose those lovely love handles.
And if you were to watch one minute of late night infomercials, then you would think the answers would be self identical. I mean the plethora of hard bodies swiveling, rotating, rocking, and grinding their way to sweating, glistening bodies that would make the gods envious are pretty good evidence right? The answer being that you need to spend 50 to 200 bucks buying whatever that gadget is.
After all, that gal, and that guy, swiveling back and forth on that round thing which evidently is suppose to be a treadmill for you abs make a pretty compelling case.
But no …
The fact of the matter is those folks on late night infomercials run a border line scam that seek to capitalize and profit from you at your most vulnurable – late at night, by yourself, and feeling the rolls of blubber around you as you watch ungodly, Sexy people sweat.
Because fundamentally, there is no one exercise or group of exercises that are best at getting rid of love handles.
Dieting strips the fat from your body is the hard truth. Dieting is not sexy and there are no glistening bodies to look at. Yet, it is your diet and your ability to achieve daily caloric flaws that will determine whether you lose that spare tire or not.
Take a look at that reality show, Survivor, and tell me what you observe about midway through the season. You should notice all the remaining contestants are showing abs and none of them have muffin tops. They are all looking lean. And there is no secret ab rolling / swiveling / rocking thingamig in the back somewhere for them to use.
So, you have six pack abs. It may not be hard, protruding blocks of muscle like baby back ribs under that belly fat, but you already have six pack abs waiting to come back. That's the good news.
What you need is a good, sound healthy diet. But you need to achieve a caloric deficiency, daily. Here are some guidelines:
- Drink water – lots of it. I'm talking about a minimum of 8 oz per hour, adjusted to your schedule.
- Eat whole fruit. You need to skip juices (unless you're juicing your own) and skip all the calories that come with it. Eat whole fruits and veggies instead.
- Stop when you are no longer hungry. This is a hard one because we are condition to eat until we are full. That is not what you want, but you want to eat until you are no longer hungry.
- Cook your meals. If you're not a good cook, learn – it's fun and you get to control what you eat.
- Avoid high fructose corn syrup, and simple sugars in general.
So, those are some of what you need to consider as you plot your dieting strategy.
But back to the exercise part again …
While there are no exercises that will burn the fat off your sides, there are exercises that will strengthen you abs and obliques underneath. Because you need a 2 prong approach. You diet to burn the fat and exercise to strengthen the muscles underneath.
To do that, I suggest you do the following exercises:
- Bent Leg Raises on Parallel Bars supersetted with Hanging Side to Side Knee-ups
- Tri-Set of Plank with Left Side Plank with Reach then Right Side Plank with Reach
- For the first two exercises, you should do 3 to 4 sets of max repetitions with no rest between exercises and about 30 seconds between supersets.
- For the planks, work up to 60 seconds on the plank, then elevate your feet. For the side plank with reach, do about 10 slow, controlled repetitions per set. You can repeat for a second circuit, or not.
There you have it – my conclusion is anyone suggesting that an exercise is best for losing fat is misleading you at best. Diet will strip the fat and while there are no exercises that get rid of love handles; There are exercises that strengthen the muscles underneath.