love handles; tiny abdomen

landon2124 wrote:

> I'm a naturally skinny guy but i have these huge love handles.

I have always had a big gut and lovehandles since I was a little kid. Last
year I worked off the gut, and got body fat down far enough to see a 6-pack
without flexing. Even at that point I still had love handles, but they
seem to be more on the back side now then in the front. It is disturbing
but I think I will live, and not get surgery.

--Falooley

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 04:03:32 GMT, Patrick Falcon
<falconeyes29.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On 11 Jan 2005 16:24:29 -0800, "landon2124" <sandman726.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>I'm a naturally skinny guy but i have these huge love handles.
>>
>>This gives me a sort of )( appearence. I have a pretty developed
>>chest and pretty developed shoulders so this really gives me an
>>unporportional look in that area.
>>
>>I tried doing oblique exercises, which seemed to give me a burn in that
>>side abdomen area, but i'm told this also builds my love handles.
>>
>>Should i just stick to Crunches and their derivatives? I mean, building
>>ab defintion is not my first goal, but building my abdomen OUT (like
>>the sides) to make by body look more proportional is. I really need
>>some help on this.
>>
>>thanks.
>
>Another thought ... would it help your proportions if you were to
>develop your lats?
>
>Patrick Falcon

Exactly what I thought.. so many folks wanting to get hyooge focus on
arms and chest. But it's the "hidden" muscles that give the shape. Big
arms rely on big triceps. A big chest relies on big lats, etc.

This is all a part of our natural tendency to evaluate ourselves by
what we see in the mirror. Since our eyes are on the front of our
heads, we see the front.

Similar to what I constantly tell singers that train with me. When you
take a deep breath, it expands your ribcage all the way around, not
just in the front. You'd be amazed at the difference it makes for
folks to realize that the ribs not only expand at the front, but
around the back as well, and that they don't just move away from the
center of the body but louvre out like venetian blinds too.

From bodywork I've had I've also gotten the info that our backs are
ignored (for the same reasons listed above), and often far too tense
as a result. How many of us (lifters or not) are really that concerned
with what our lumbar region or ass looks like?

The last corollary is these guys who work upper body exclusively..
their body image is generated by a mirror set at waist-height. Screw
the legs, you can't see 'em.

I often wonder what it would be like for folks to have film footage of
themselves from front and back.. like a cam chasing them around all
day. What would that do for body image?

BLink