A common mistake made by a lot of people wanting to lose fat around their stomachs and hips is to just do exercises that focus in on those specific areas, hoping that this will work the ‘right’ body parts hard and result in fat loss in the desired places. This technique is known as “spot reduction” and is unfortunately very ineffective, even though it is seen fairly often in fitness magazines and across the internet. The main exercise you see in the gym to fight love handles is side bends, but repeatedly doing exercises such as this are just not going to give you the results you are after.
The truth is that the most effective exercises to lose love handles fast are ones which are going to burn a high amount of calories and raise your metabolism for extended time periods, therefore encouraging fat loss over your whole body. You see, trying to lose fat from just one area isn’t going to work. When burning fat effectively it will be lost fairly equally all over, not just in one place.
The Best Way to Lose Love Handles
Below we will take a look at some simple and easy exercises to lose love handles as promised, but first it is necessary to quickly go over the bigger picture. What you really need to do to shed fat from any area of your body as quickly as possible is to make sure you are following a solid nutrition plan (such as the Paleo Diet) and also exercising as effectively as possible for fat loss. My preferred training methods to achieve a lean body are a mix of high intensity circuit training sessions and also high intensity interval cardio. These workouts are always short, intense and very effective.
Basically the idea I am trying to promote here is that you should not just be focusing on any one exercise to lose love handles just because it works your obliques or core, but looking to follow a well balance training schedule for fat loss and also eating correctly. You can of course include some oblique and core exercises in your sessions, but don’t focus on these. Now I have highlighted that point and we know there is no one ‘best exercise to lose love handles’ we can take a good look at some of the exercises you could include in your workouts.
Exercise Ideas List
We want to focus on a lot of full body and compound exercises that will increase our heart rates and metabolisms when trying to lose fat from any area of the body. These would ideally be completed as part of some kind of circuit in a high intensity workout – this means completing exercises one after another with little rest between circuits. I highly recommend checkout out Max Workouts for some awesome high intensity fat burning training workouts – they definitely contain some of the best exercises for losing love handles as well. On to the list…
1. The Woodchopper – Using a medicine ball or weight – one of my favorite medicine ball exercises
2. Kettlebell Swings - Kettlebell weight to suit your strength
3. Sprints – Short bursts for around 20 seconds each. If you can do these up-hill then even better
4. Kettlebell Clean and Press – Either with one heavier bell or a lighter one in each hand
5. Burpees – Excellent full body exercise that will get your heart rate going.
Obviously the above list is far from exhaustive and was just designed to give some good exercise suggestions that will get your metabolism up to a good level. As I mentioned before, the purpose of this post was to highlight the fact that all of the best exercises to lose love handles will ideally be part of a solid training regimen that contains high intensity circuit sessions and also interval cardio. Combine this with an effective eating plan such as the Paleo Diet that removes foods such as grains, refined carbs and sugars from your meals and you will without a doubt be will on your way to losing your love handles, along with any other unwanted body fat.
I highly recommend going through a program such as Max Workouts as mentioned earlier, also take a look at Fat Burning Furnace. These programs will lay out the kind of exercise and meal plans you want to follow for effective, sustained fat loss. They also contain many excellent exercises to lose love handles for women and men alike as part of their programs.
Your Views
I would love to hear your thoughts on the content in this post and also any experience you have with love handles and trying to shed them. If you have any particular workouts or good exercises to lose the love handles you once had or are currently trying to defeat then be sure to let me know in the comments section below!
