P90X Reviews: A Complete Review on the P90X Workout System

“And now let’s roll on our side and work our oblique muscles!” Have you ever heard a fitness instructor yell that? Have you ever wondered exactly what muscles he or she was talking about? You probably figured out that your oblique muscles are part of your abdominal muscles, but which ones are they? And why are they so important?

Your oblique muscles are the abdominal muscles that run down your sides. There’s actually an external oblique muscle that is on the outside of your side and in internal oblique muscle that is closer to your central abs.

The reason that working these muscles is so important, other than the fact that a strong core is beneficial for many reasons, is that they create the very attractive cut that happens to make a v-shape in a set of ripped abdominals. They also don’t get worked as naturally through daily activities as some of your other core muscles may.

The types of exercises that work the oblique muscles involve moving twists and twisted positions. You can work your oblique muscles by standing up and doing fixed twist movements. You can also do a number of floor movements in which you twist your body to one side or the other and then perform various crunch maneuvers. You’ll find many good moves for the oblique muscles in both martial arts and yoga moves.

However, unless you are already an abdominal expert, you may want to leave designing an oblique muscle workout to the pros. The best place to start would be with Hip Hop Abs with Shaun T. Hip Hop Abs is an abdominal-focused workout set to blazing hip hop music. It works all of your abdominals including an emphasis on your oblique muscles. P90X includes a section called Ab Ripper X and also has sections for Yoga X and Kenpo X (a martial arts section) that work your oblique muscles extensively. Finally, the combination of dance moves and martial arts moves in Turbo Jam effectively creates great, ripped oblique muscles.

The oblique muscles can sometimes be the hardest to target because of the twist positions required to really work them, but the end result of focusing on them is not only a strengthened core but also the sleek, shapely midsection that everybody’s after. Try just doing some twists the next time you’re standing in line at the bank. Every little bit helps!

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