How to Do Seated Waist Bends With Weights

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By Lori Newell
eHow Contributing Writer

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Seated waist bends target the oblique or waist muscles and help to tone those pesky love handles. If you are carrying excess weight around your midsection, you need to combine exercises such as this with aerobics or cardiovascular exercise. This will help you burn off those calories and unwanted fat, as well as shape and tone your body. This exercise is often demonstrated in a standing position. However this may cause you to arch your back or lock your knees. Performing this exercise while seated will still allow you to target the correct muscles and can be a good alternative to the standing variation.

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Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A chair without arms
Pair of hand weights

Step 1

Sit up straight in a chair without arms. Sit away from the back of the chair so that you use your abdominal muscles to maintain a straight spine.
Step 2

Hold a weight in each hand. On the inhale, bend to the right. Only bend as far as you can without tipping forward. The common mistake in this exercise is to lean forward bringing the shoulders towards your thighs in order to bend down further. Touching the floor is not the goal. When you lean forward, you are no longer isolating the correct muscles.
Step 3

Keep your back straight and your shoulders aligned directly over your hips as you bend.
Step 4

On the exhale come back up. Then inhale and bend to the left. Go back and forth for 8 to 12 repetitions.
Step 5

Tighten your waist muscles and use them to lift you up. Keep the hands and weights still and do not bend your elbow or lift the weights as you come up. The arms just hang and let your waist muscles work to bring you back up.

Tips & Warnings

The link below shows this exercise in standing. Just follow the illustration while seated in a chair.
Use caution with this exercise if you have any back injuries. To protect your back and to make the exercise as effective as possible, do not lean the body forward when bending.

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