waistline

[El Supremo]

my girlfriend trains with me and is worried that she is losing her waistline. shes 34yrs, weight about 9 1/2 stone and has a great body but this is getting her down. any ideas for exercises to get a narrow waist or exercises to avoid?
thanks for any comments

 

[Daisy_Girl]

Has her waistline changed? (inch-wise)

What exercises is she doing?

 

[Sassy69]

Well -- we generally say "abs are made in the kitchen". If she's training but wants to get the bodyfat in her waist reduced, that just means she is a typical female having to deal w/ estrogen-pattern fat depositing. Women have estrogen. Estrogen, by nature, promotes fat depositing in that area from thighs to midriff to protect a fetus - just basic survival design. So sometimes depending on how each person's body tends to store fat, its harder to get that tight look.

Since your body reflects (responds to) the lifestyle you lead, if you want to drive a specific change, you need to tweak some part or all of your lifestyle - meaning diet / training / cardio / recovery (sleep + stress mgmt). Specifically for bodyfat loss you can't do spot reduction - your body just won't respond like that. Since there's a higher concentration of fat cells in certain areas, e.g. waist & hips for women, work on tweaking the diet to get over the hump. I"d say review her diet to see if there are some things she can optimize - doens't mean she needs to go on a spartan competition diet, but to get to a specific goal, approach it like competition prep where there's a phase of specific diet/ trainign geared towards the goal. There may be just a few simple things she can do to optimize the diet. Also if she doesnt' do cardio, consider a couple 20 minute sessions of high intensity interval training (HIIT) - walk / sprint / walk /sprint / walk / sprint, 3-5 min cool down.

Exercise-wise - mostly I'd just say don't do shitloads of crunches w/ the intent of "working that area to cut down fat" - because you can't do spot reduction. Further a lot of things like weighted crunches, side bends, etc. are buildign your muscle, not specificallly cutting fat and can actually make some people look blockier in that mid section. BTW I'm NOT saying some ab work isn't good - just not piles of it thinking that the more you do the leaner your stomach will be. Its just another muscle group to work.

But approach the waist area as a bodyfat reduction effort. If she's already fairly lean and muscular but tends to hold bodyfat there, she will need to step up the diet and maybe cardio a bit or more generally intense training for fat burning becaues she's partially working against nature there (that's why its so freaking annoying for women....its how we are designed...)

 

[El Supremo]

Has her waistline changed? (inch-wise)

What exercises is she doing?

not sure if its changed inch wise. the exercises she does with me are mainly seated crunch on an ab machine and leg raises. she also does this sort of side crunches (dunno the correct name but its like crunching while lying on your side). ive told her to stop these but she says because she isnt using weight it wont do any harm! (i dont agree)
i remember reading an article years ago by juliet bergman, she was saying she had a blocky looking waist which was holding her back in competitions but it was so long ago that i cant remember exactly what the article said but it showed before and after pictures with a significant difference.

 

[El Supremo]

Well -- we generally say "abs are made in the kitchen". If she's training but wants to get the bodyfat in her waist reduced, that just means she is a typical female having to deal w/ estrogen-pattern fat depositing. Women have estrogen. Estrogen, by nature, promotes fat depositing in that area from thighs to midriff to protect a fetus - just basic survival design. So sometimes depending on how each person's body tends to store fat, its harder to get that tight look.

Since your body reflects (responds to) the lifestyle you lead, if you want to drive a specific change, you need to tweak some part or all of your lifestyle - meaning diet / training / cardio / recovery (sleep + stress mgmt). Specifically for bodyfat loss you can't do spot reduction - your body just won't respond like that. Since there's a higher concentration of fat cells in certain areas, e.g. waist & hips for women, work on tweaking the diet to get over the hump. I"d say review her diet to see if there are some things she can optimize - doens't mean she needs to go on a spartan competition diet, but to get to a specific goal, approach it like competition prep where there's a phase of specific diet/ trainign geared towards the goal. There may be just a few simple things she can do to optimize the diet. Also if she doesnt' do cardio, consider a couple 20 minute sessions of high intensity interval training (HIIT) - walk / sprint / walk /sprint / walk / sprint, 3-5 min cool down.

Exercise-wise - mostly I'd just say don't do shitloads of crunches w/ the intent of "working that area to cut down fat" - because you can't do spot reduction. Further a lot of things like weighted crunches, side bends, etc. are buildign your muscle, not specificallly cutting fat and can actually make some people look blockier in that mid section. BTW I'm NOT saying some ab work isn't good - just not piles of it thinking that the more you do the leaner your stomach will be. Its just another muscle group to work.

But approach the waist area as a bodyfat reduction effort. If she's already fairly lean and muscular but tends to hold bodyfat there, she will need to step up the diet and maybe cardio a bit or more generally intense training for fat burning becaues she's partially working against nature there (that's why its so freaking annoying for women....its how we are designed...)

i believe this is more of a shape issue as she relatively low body fat in that area. i agree with you in as much as its the exercises she doing, especially the side crunches. thanks for your replies, im gonna print these off and let her read them cos she wont listen to me but might listen to another woman!

 

[Sassy69]

Its goign to be all about diet. I personally think it takes an awful lot of crunches to actually make you blocky but if you are looking to crunches to get the 6-pack, its just the wrong thing completely -- the two are not really related - if your diet isn't going to allow you to cut the bodyfat down enough to expose your abs, it really doesn't matter what your abs look like.

 

[El Supremo]

Its goign to be all about diet. I personally think it takes an awful lot of crunches to actually make you blocky but if you are looking to crunches to get the 6-pack, its just the wrong thing completely -- the two are not really related - if your diet isn't going to allow you to cut the bodyfat down enough to expose your abs, it really doesn't matter what your abs look like.

the point im making is if she is doing these side crunches and diagonal crunches which bring in the obliques, surely that will build the muscle and hence thicken the waistline rather than reduce it? we're not looking to get a 6 pack through exercise alone as we both understand that diet is the key to that.

 

[Sassy69]

I"m saying the 'reduction' is going to be from diet. I don't believe that training your abs (the full set - upper / lower / obliques) just like any other muscle group will ever hurt you. Doing it 1000x every day w/ the assumption that that is how you "reduce" is wrong. THAT will get you thick. But just doing some ab work won't. Esp if they aren't weighted crunches then you are just working them and not necessarly expecting hypertrophy from that work. Further it is still a component of a workout which will still be fat burning to some degree. But focusing specifically on them and not diet and all that w/ the expectation of slimming up isn't really correct.

I understand what you are sayign -- but its just another part of a muscle group - focused training session. If its the ONLY thing she focuses on, then the point is just wrong.

 

[El Supremo]

I"m saying the 'reduction' is going to be from diet. I don't believe that training your abs (the full set - upper / lower / obliques) just like any other muscle group will ever hurt you. Doing it 1000x every day w/ the assumption that that is how you "reduce" is wrong. THAT will get you thick. But just doing some ab work won't. Esp if they aren't weighted crunches then you are just working them and not necessarly expecting hypertrophy from that work. Further it is still a component of a workout which will still be fat burning to some degree. But focusing specifically on them and not diet and all that w/ the expectation of slimming up isn't really correct.

I understand what you are sayign -- but its just another part of a muscle group - focused training session. If its the ONLY thing she focuses on, then the point is just wrong.

thanks for the replies sassy. i printed them off and showed her so its up to her now. we're both gonna up the cardio anyway after the xmas pigout!
thanks again
El

 

[gymmum]

I agree with Sassy....Diet is the key. I was also told by my trainer that to many oblique crunches does thicken the waist. Tell her to cut these down to once a fortnight as muscle doesn't diminsh very fast. I was doing obliques once every 2 weeks and I did thin out in that area, but also diet had a good part in that as well.