How To Reduce Your Waist Size Without Doing Ab Exercises

Reduce Your Waist Size With This One Trick

Let’s face it; many people get a gym membership to lose weight and to fit into smaller clothes. Following the advice of the broscientists, these people spend most of their time on the cardio equipment. Since you’re reading this article, chances are you’re one of them.

It isn’t long before they lose the motivation and return to their old ways. They blame their genetics for their inability to lose the excess body fat. The ‘too busy to workout’ excuse follows.

The others don’t like spending their time on the dreaded treadmill or doing ab crunches. Hardly do they know, it’s not their genetics. It’s the lack of knowledge which makes them quit working out altogether.

Changes In Bodybuilding In The Recent Eras

Have you wondered how bodybuilders in the golden era had small waists even when there was no fancy electronic cardio equipment? They used techniques which are long forgotten but were way more efficient than the ones employed by the pros now.

Unlike the bodybuilders today, the golden era bodybuilder focused primarily on symmetry and maintaining a narrow and tight midsection. Most of the current pro bodybuilders focus on getting big and turning into mass monsters.

The Vacuum Pose

If you haven’t heard of the vacuum pose, you’re already missing out. Frank Zane brought this technique into the mainstream by performing this pose on the stage. Before him, the athletes usually performed this pose in the gym as an exercise.

In this pose, you have to suck in your stomach to your spine to make it look like it has completely disappeared. When you hit the vacuum pose, you’re contracting your transverse abdominis (TVA).

The TVA runs across your waist just like a weight belt. It works like a weight belt in your daily operation. You can only perform this kind of thing with your belly.

TVA lies under the rectus abdominis and obliques and is one of the deepest abdominal muscles. Unlike most other muscles, it doesn’t connect to or move bones closer together. Many of TVA’s fibers don’t attach to the bone at all.

You need to take baby steps when it comes to performing this exercise. It will also need a lot of patience and persistence if you have never tried hitting this pose before.

There are four steps to mastering this exercise. In this article, we will take you through each step assuming you’ve never tried this exercise at this point. Each step will be harder than the previous one.

Don’t get intimidated by the four steps; you need to take one step at a time. Once you master one level the next will be relatively easy to perform and will be more efficient than the previous step in achieving your goal of a narrow waist.

1. Supine Vacuum

This is the first step in performing the vacuum. It’s also the easiest way to suck in your stomach since the gravity will be your friend in this exercise. Confused? Let us explain.

Lie on your back with your knees bent, so your feet are touching the floor. This will help you isolate and focus on your abdominal. Once you’ve assumed this position, exhale all the air you can. This will raise your diaphragm and shrink your stomach.

This is where your TVA will have the maximum contraction, and you’ll be able to hit the vacuum pose. In the beginning, you might be unable to see or feel the vacuum, but it will come with time.

Hold your breath and perform this exercise for 15 seconds in the beginning. As you get better with time, increase the contraction time to 60 seconds. Take small breaths in between if you’re unable to hold your breath.

2. Quadruped Vacuum

Once you’re confident with your abilities at the supine vacuum and can perform it at will with no problems, it is time to the move on to the quadruped vacuum. If you’re performing each variation every day, it should take you a couple of weeks at most to perform them optimally.

The quadruped vacuum is called so because you perform them while having four touch points with the ground. In this exercise, you’ll be working against the gravity, and this makes this exercise harder than the previous variation.

Begin in a knee push up position so your shoulders are vertically over your elbows and your wrists and hips are over your knees. Follow the same steps as in the supine vacuum; exhale and suck in your abdominal.

This exercise is harder than the supine vacuum. So, if you were doing 60 seconds on the supine version, you should start with 30 seconds and work up to the 60 seconds mark.

3. Seated Vacuum

We know what you’re thinking. Isn’t the anti-gravitational version harder than the sitting on your ass version? No, it’s not because many stabilizing muscles come into play while performing this exercise.

Sit on a stable surface without leaning on to anything. Taking the support of a wall or any other surface will reduce the effectiveness of this exercise.

Exhale, pull in your navel and hold it for 30 seconds. Work your way up to 60 seconds as you get better at this exercise. Also, use unstable surfaces like a swiss ball to make this exercise harder.

4. Functional Vacuum

This is when you become a pro at hitting the vacuum pose. You’ll be so good you could perform it at any time, anywhere. Functional vacuum is the real life variation of this exercise.

You could be performing the vacuum pose in a subway, on your office desk or anywhere else without the people beside you knowing it. As you get better at the vacuum poses, you’ll be able to hold them for long durations.

This can result in a tighter, narrower and firmer midsection. Once you’re at this stage, you’ll find yourself vacuuming throughout the day. You won’t have to wait for long before your waist size drops.

Which ab tightening technique works the best for you? Let us know in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.

*Header image courtesy of Envato Elements.