Some good info here guys, keep it comming.
I think the "love handles" or "spare tire" is an area that everyone has a little trouble with. Doing the twist (diagonal) crunches will help, however if your body fat % is too high, it will actually make things worse as you build muscle in that area and make it look even bigger.
Usually, the best thing you can do is continue to define your upper and lower abs with various crunches, and just hit your obliques with the twist crunches once in a while. This way, as your frontal abdominals grow, it will sort of fill in your midsection with muscle and make those areas appear less fatty.
Unfortunately, abaez, it sounds like you're in the same boat I was in. I lost a monumental amount of weight a couple years ago, and I was left with a lot of lose skin and fat deposits around the sides and even the front of my abdomen. I hated this, and worked very hard to eliminate it by working my frontal abs as described above. While I did see much improvement over time, I simply now had too much "skin" for my body (which was previously more than 100 lbs bigger). So, I cheated and went under the knife - yep, that's how much it bothered me. Now I'm left with a couple big nasty scars and always wonder if I did the right thing - maybe I should have just stuck with the excersize and crossed my fingers....oh well, live and learn right?
As for variations of crunches, yes unfortunately they really are necessery for a complete and well-defined entire package. Standard crunches are great, make no mistake, they hit pretty much every ab group at least a little. However to full define your obliques, you will most likely need some twist-crunches of some kind, and to see your lower abs, probably some leg raises and such.
Good info on carbs above, BTW!!
I think the "love handles" or "spare tire" is an area that everyone has a little trouble with. Doing the twist (diagonal) crunches will help, however if your body fat % is too high, it will actually make things worse as you build muscle in that area and make it look even bigger.
Usually, the best thing you can do is continue to define your upper and lower abs with various crunches, and just hit your obliques with the twist crunches once in a while. This way, as your frontal abdominals grow, it will sort of fill in your midsection with muscle and make those areas appear less fatty.
Unfortunately, abaez, it sounds like you're in the same boat I was in. I lost a monumental amount of weight a couple years ago, and I was left with a lot of lose skin and fat deposits around the sides and even the front of my abdomen. I hated this, and worked very hard to eliminate it by working my frontal abs as described above. While I did see much improvement over time, I simply now had too much "skin" for my body (which was previously more than 100 lbs bigger). So, I cheated and went under the knife - yep, that's how much it bothered me. Now I'm left with a couple big nasty scars and always wonder if I did the right thing - maybe I should have just stuck with the excersize and crossed my fingers....oh well, live and learn right?
As for variations of crunches, yes unfortunately they really are necessery for a complete and well-defined entire package. Standard crunches are great, make no mistake, they hit pretty much every ab group at least a little. However to full define your obliques, you will most likely need some twist-crunches of some kind, and to see your lower abs, probably some leg raises and such.
Good info on carbs above, BTW!!
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