Part of the six-pack look, the obliques are the rippled muscles surrounding abdominals, and provide the outer-frame of the stomach package. Many abdominal exercises also help to stretch and strengthen the obliques, just as the following oblique exercise have a strong strengthening and toning impact on the related abdominal muscles.
How to Get a Six Pack
Among the most effective oblique and abdominal exercises, bicycle kicks keep the mid-body in motion and help to tone the muscles around the waist. It is an intermediate exercise that can be done for certain lengths of time, often around a minute continuously.
Bicycle Kicks
The starting position of the bicycle kick is lying on the ground with knees elevated and the feet straight out. The back is straight and the arms are pulled back beside the head.
The bicycle kick is executed by pulling the head and upper chest up with the abdominals, and kicking the legs alternately back and forth, as if you were riding an invisible bicycle. As the legs kick, one continuous crunch is performed throughout the entirety. The abdominals stay flexed, and the obliques work to rotate the crunch from left to right, and back again in rapid motion.
Oblique Crunch
The oblique crunch is another complement to the standard crunch or sit-up, and has the upper body crunching on the sides, to provide the same tension in the obliques as you usually would in the abdomen with an abdominal crunch.
The starting position for the oblique crunch is laying flat on your side: the side of your legs, your one arm, and the side of your upper body. The legs are placed flat, one on top of the other, and the top arm is supported on the side of the head, as it normally would be during an abdominal crunch.
To work the oblique crunch for one side of the stomach, the side of your body facing up, crunch your upper torso toward your legs as far as you can using your mid section. At the same time, crunch your straight legs upward toward, in the same body line, toward your upper body. Crunching at the mid-section will provide the same double-workout as the double crunch mentioned earlier.
These are some of the best workouts that can enhance your obliques during your fitness routine, and complementing them with a number of abdominal workouts can chisel your mid-section the way you want to.
Among the other abdominal exercises that can you can do to work your midsection are:
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