What Moves Burns The Most Belly Fat & Love Handles? 6 Moves In This Workout Do!

Why are love handles so hard to lose? Endless crunching and full-body planks alone won’t target that belly fat that sits on your side waist. To lose those love handles, you need to shed fat—and to whittle your waist, you’ll want to follow a strong nutrition plan.

As you burn off that fat, you’ll also want to incorporate twisting exercises that will carve your body into a sexy hourglass physique. Here are our top exercises to help target those unlovable love handles. Remember to incorporate cardio workouts—particularly interval training to fire up metabolism—and eat clean to see fat loss results and a sexy waistline.

Torch that side waist fat with these exercises that can help you get a slimmer, trimmer waist and the hourglass shape you want.

Plank Knee Cross:

How to:

Hold a regular plank with arms extended, and then balance on your left foot while bringing your right knee under you toward your left elbow.
Keep your hips low to the ground.
Return to full plank by placing your right foot back down, and repeat on the other side.
Aim for a minute of plank knee crossing.

Outer-Thigh Side-Plank:

How to:

Side-planks are great for carving your obliques, and holding one leg in the air adds an extra challenge.
Plank on your right hand or forearm and lift your left straight leg off the right leg and toward the sky.
Lower the right leg and repeat 10 times.
Move into a plank on the other side and repeat the single-leg hip raise plank on the other side.

Thread the Needle:

How to:

Get into a side forearm plank or a full side-plank on your right arm.
Lift your left arm to the sky and stagger your feet so your top (left) leg is in front.
Sweep your left (top) arm toward the mat and “thread” it under your right armpit, reaching for the back of the mat while rotating your hips to face the ground and balancing on your toes.
Rotate your body back to a side-plank and repeat 15 times.
Then do the same on the other side.
You could add a light dumbbell for an extra challenge once you feel comfortable doing this without additional weight.

Spiderman Plank:

How to:

Get into a full plank on your forearms or hands.
Balance on your right toes as you bend your left knee out to the left and toward your left elbow.
Return to start.
Repeat 20 times, then do the other side.

Cardio Knee Hop to Mountain Climber:

How to:

Start by simulating a jump rope by twirling your hands and using your biceps to move your “rope” while bringing your knees up to belly-button height.
Repeat for 20 reps.
Next, hit the deck to do cardio mountain climbers.
To work your abs and continue the cardio burn, jump lightly onto the floor on your hands and feet into plank position.
Keeping your gaze above your fingers and your hands directly under your shoulders, start “running” your knees in toward the chest one at a time, “climbing” the floor.
It’s almost the same as the standing knee hop but you’re holding yourself up with your arms and abs.
You could also do this holding a sturdy surface a few feet off the ground if you need to.

Cardio Side-Kick Plié:

How to:

For a left side-kick, put your weight on your right leg with your knee and toe pointing out to the side at 45°.
Think of the kick in four counts.
Count one is hinging at the hip and dropping your right shoulder to the right, firing your core while bending your left leg and bringing the left knee toward your navel.
Flex your foot, straighten your left leg, and kick, making sure to keep your heel diagonally up and toe diagonally down.
Visualize this as if your front hip bone (or “front pocket” of your kicking leg) turned down toward the floor, and your “back pocket” rotated up to the ceiling.
Look at your foot with each kick to ensure appropriate form.
As you kick, drop your opposite shoulder toward the floor.
Your obliques will work to get the kick up in the air.
For count three, quickly retract your knee back toward the core and place your foot back to the floor for count four.