A person's obliques are the abdominal muscles located on the sides of her waist. When a person doesn't work her obliques, they become soft and flabby and are often called love handles. Oblique workouts mainly consist of crunches and other moves that work the muscle. To get the most out of her oblique workouts, a person should combine the workouts with a healthy diet and cardiovascular exercises.
Perhaps the most effective and common of the oblique workouts is the bicycle, or flutter kick, crunch. To do the bicycle crunch, a person lies on her back on a mat. She should interlace her fingers behind her head and lift her legs up to a 45 degree angle, with her knees bent. She should pedal her feet as if on a bicycle, pushing her right leg out straight while twisting her body from the oblique muscle and bringing her right elbow to meet her left knee. She turns back to lie flat on the mat, then repeats the motion on the opposite side.
There are several other oblique workouts that involve different types of crunches. A person can do a variation on a regular crunch by sitting up and bending from the oblique, bringing her elbow to the opposite knee. She can also do the same exercise lying on an exercise ball. If she has access to a decline bench, she can try doing crunches on the bench, twisting her body from the waist to work her obliques.
Oblique workouts that do not involve crunches include side bends and knee raises. To do a side bend, a person should stand up straight with her feet shoulder width apart. She can hold a dumbbell in one hand or a barbell across her shoulders, depending on her strength. The weight should provide just a bit of resistance and she should not strain to carry it.
If she uses a dumbbell, she should hold it in her left hand and place her right hand on her right hip. The left arm should hang straight down. She should bend to the left from her waist and then straighten up again. If she has a barbell across her shoulders, she should hold it with both hands and bend from the waist to one side, then straighten and bend to the other side.
Knee raises require a bar for a person to hang from. She should hold the bar with both hands. Her hands should be a bit more than shoulder width apart. Keeping her body facing forward, she should bend her knees and raise them as high as she can, twisting her legs to the side slightly. She should then lower her legs with control and repeat on the other side.
