What do side bends do

The best side bend exercise variations are the ones that don't require you to incorporate too much force. A side bend workout with exercises like these can help increase your flexibility and strengthen your oblique muscles.

The Kundalini Yoga side bend exercise is focused on increasing spinal flexibility. You can do this side bend exercise seated in Easy Pose a cross-legged position that requires a wider gap between the feet and the pelvis or standing.

The stability ball side bend exercise can vary in difficulty depending on where you've positioned your body on the exercise ball. For an easier version of this exercise, place your hips lower down on the stability ball.

For a harder version of this exercise, rest your hips higher up on the ball. Rest your feet against a wall to increase stability. You can also perform weighted side bends by using dumbbells, a cable pulley or a barbell lever. However, you may hurt yourself if you perform these exercises with too much added weight or if you use improper form.

You may want to avoid performing these side bends without the supervision of a physical therapist or personal trainer. Fitness Workouts Exercises and Workouts.

Side Bends Exercise Which Muscles? She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree and is a certified personal trainer studying sports nutrition.

The only way to fix this posture that will eventually lead to a hump back, also known as kyphosis, is to re-align your spine and practice better posture. A pose like Standing Side Bend opens the entire torso and encourages you to stand taller.

By taking a side bend without leaning either forward or backward — even slightly — you open up the muscle tissue surrounding your spine and your rib cage and you encourage a taller stance. It is not a mere standing and bending that you accomplish.

With each bend you exhale to make the stretch a bit longer. In addition, you practice leg strength by rooting your feet firmly into the ground and lifting the knee caps by squeezing your quadriceps. As you bend to the side, make sure not only to squeeze both legs completely but also your glutes and abdominals. This will give you a base of support and help you bend and stretch even farther.

This can cause a herniated disc. How to: Stand with your back facing a bench or box. Put one foot on top of the bench. Bend your front knee to lower your back knee toward the ground, and aim to get your front thigh parallel to the floor b. Push through the heel of your front foot to return to the starting position, keeping your chest up, eyes forward and shoulders back c. This core workout move, in which you sit on the floor and twist from side to side usually holding a weight , is a popular one.

Planks target your entire core while keeping the spine in a safe, neutral position. Add a side-to-side motion and you also get deep into the side of your abs, aka your oblique muscles. How to: Bring your elbows directly under your shoulders pressing both forearms into the floor. Keeping feet hip-distance apart, extend legs behind you as you bring your body off the ground. Your body should from a straight line from head to heel as you keep your chin tucked in, squeeze your abs tight, and tailbone tucked a.

Bring your hips back toward neutral, and continue through the middle to drop your right hip toward the floor c. Continue alternating. Plus, it uses dumbbells rather than a barbell, so each arm and shoulder joint has to work independently of the other, says Donavanik.

Open your arms out to the sides, bringing your palms to face forward c. The external oblique muscle extends from the lower half of the ribs and down to the pelvis. When we talk about any oblique exercise, we precisely talk about the external oblique training. Moreover, the function of this muscle is to pull the chest downwards and compress the abdominal cavity.

I have seen a lot of people holding dumbbells or plates in both hands while performing the side bends aka lateral flexion. Now this is what makes it an ineffective exercise.

Taking resistance in both hands actually becomes counterproductive, as it creates a balance which minimizes the optimal tension at the targeted muscle. In order to make it an effective exercise, always perform a set with a load in one hand at a time. Another common mistake that people do while doing loaded side bends is generating force from the biceps while doing a lateral extension. In simple words, people bend their hand holding the weight firmly while standing straight after a lateral flexion.

This actually reduces the tension from oblique and the force is now being generated from biceps as a prime mover.