Waist exercises are an excellent addition to any workout regimen for women seeking a slimmer and tighter waistline. These simple bodyweight exercises will strengthen and tone abdominal muscles and obliques, making your waistline tighter and smaller in no time!
Beginning in a high plank position with your hands directly under shoulders and knees bent stacked directly under hips, slowly bring one leg toward your chest before slowly returning it back to its initial starting position. Repeat these movements 3-5 times for best results.
Hip Thrust
The hip thrust is an active closed-chain movement designed to target gluteal (butt) muscles, hamstrings, adductor and quadriceps muscles of inner and outer thighs as well as stabilizing erector spinae muscles in order to build functional strength that improves running speed, jumping ability and quickness. Hip thrusts combined with exercises like squats and deadlifts help increase functional strength necessary for running faster, jumping higher and jumping quicker.
Hip thrusts can help shape and strengthen legs, but proper form is crucial to avoid injuring knees or lower backs. Proper warming-up before performing strength-training movements is also crucial; 5-10 minute moderate cardio warmup followed by dynamic stretching should do just fine. A common mistake when doing hip thrusts is coming up onto their balls of feet at the top of movement due to foot placement issues or quad dominance; keeping heel contact throughout will ensure glute activation is maximized.
Mountain Climbers
Mountain climbers are an effective way to boost your heart rate while working multiple muscles simultaneously, including those found in your core, shoulders, back and legs. Mountain climbers engage these four muscle groups simultaneously – improving balance, agility and coordination as well as increasing strength while decreasing fat accumulation.
Start in a high plank position with hands directly under your shoulders and your core braced. Quickly bring one knee into your chest before taking two steps backward. Repeat this action with both legs.
Fast knees up and down towards your chest is an effective way to activate ab muscles (rectus abdominis and obliques), which help stabilize the trunk, minimize spinal movement, support legs and prevent backache. In addition, this move also targets your triceps, shoulders and hip flexors – working all at the same time! To avoid injury, don’t rush through this movement by trying to beat the rep count; doing so could compromise form and lead to overtraining too quickly; instead use this rep count as a guide and follow it for maximum benefit!
Side Plank Hip Lifts
This movement is an effective waist exercise for women that targets obliques, improves posture and burns calories. To perform it effectively, lay on your side with feet stacked stacked and one hand directly under shoulder before pressing up into side plank with top hip in line with shoulder and body in an inelastic straight line from head to toe.
Raise one leg towards the ceiling and hold for several seconds before slowly lowering it back down until it touches the ground again. Repeat to complete reps.
As with other exercises on this list, make sure your core and glutes remain tight during this move. Allowing hips to drop or your torso sag puts at risk working the wrong muscles and risking injury. This move targets rectus abdominis (commonly referred to as “six-pack” muscles), external and internal obliques as well as quadratus lumborum for lateral trunk stability1, among others1. You can modify this move according to your fitness needs or fitness goals!
One-Legged Plank
Planking is one of the best-known exercises to strengthen core muscles, and offers a versatile workout. Different types of planks target different parts of the abdominal area; such as front- and side-plank variations which target frontal, middle, oblique abdominal, posterior abdominal muscles. Reverse planking provides additional challenges that strengthen hip inner-thigh muscles; finally there is the jack-n-plank which incorporates movement for added difficulty.
Straight-arm planks (sometimes referred to as full planks) resemble the top of a push up exercise; your shoulders should rest directly over your wrists and your feet shoulder width apart. The difficulty lies in maintaining a neutral neck position while strengthening both your arms and holding for prolonged periods.
The Eka Pada Vasisthasana side plank provides a dynamic way to strengthen both core muscles and shoulders simultaneously by combining hip twists with diagonal knee pulls for optimal results. This practice strengthens shoulders while simultaneously stabilizing your body when holding a plank pose.
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