Congenital Wide Waist

Diagnosis

Wide waists come in two textures: hard and soft. A soft wide waist is fat, and it should be treated with diet and cardio. A hard wide waist is primarily a genetic problem. This type of midsection is broad even when lean, and it is primarily the result of a naturally wide hip and waist structure.

Remedies

• Waist width corresponds closely to hip width. There is nothing you can do to reduce the breadth of your hip bones, but you can avoid exercises that work your hip flexors, such as free-weight squats, leg abduction rotations, situps and deadlifts.
• To avoid expanding your midsection width, do no direct oblique exercises. The worst offenders are weighted side bends.
• Continue to train abdominals and spinal erectors, as muscles at the front and back of your midsection will distract from your waist width.
• Never become so overweight that substantial fat pockets (love handles) develop on your sides.
• There is no routine that will reduce a hard waist and hip width. Instead, focus on growing your side deltoids and upper lats (use the same shoulder routine as for Problem 1) and your outer thighs. To accomplish the latter, keep your heels close together and angle your toes slightly outward for lifts such as hack squats and leg presses. Just as the middle of an hourglass appears thinner than a test tube with the same center circumference, widening your top (shoulders and upper lats) and bottom (outer thighs) will create the illusion of a slimmer center.
• Refrain from working your obliques during other movements.

Shoulder Widening Routine

Professional's Advice

Jean-Pierre Fux wears a training belt for virtually all exercises to avoid working his obliques and to keep his waist from stretching when he’s breathing heavily.