More from Joanne at Marie Claire UK. Here she shows an exercise for the external obliques and why you want to target these instead of the internal obliques. She says NO! to Side-bends.
First, she explains that the External Obliques are the diagonal muscles of your stomach and the internal are the ones that run up and down.
Target the External and you get a trim waistline, but if you target the internal you can end up with a bulkier waist.
Don't do side bend, do do Leg Cross-overs:
1. Engage ab muscles and make sure your feet are far enough from butt that your big toe is about to come off the floor. Rotate, think about coming from ribs to hips
Specific and Tips
1. Think small. Foot only comes only slight off ground. Anything more and you are actually engaging the leg muscle.
2. Think about rotating through the torso - so visualize rib across to hip.
3. Keep knees still and don't move arms around. If you start to move knees, ti can take the emphasis off the waist.
Video here.
