Easy Abdominal Exercises for Overweight People

If you are overweight, stomach exercises are intimidating. Certain exercises are too hard or uncomfortable for those with excess weight around the middle. Abdominal exercises seated are easier to perform than those on the floor, and there are quite a few to try. To lose weight around your middle area, you also need to do aerobic exercise. Stomach exercises tone the muscle underneath, while activities such as biking, swimming, and dance are aerobic and promote weight loss.

Seated Crunch
Perform easy stomach exercises in a chair. The chair provides back support and will not restrict your stomach area. Sit toward the front of a hard-back chair with feet firmly on the ground. Lean back so your shoulders touch the chair. Slowly come back up to a straight-back position without letting your feet lift off the floor. Use a stability ball to perform the same exercise. It will be more challenging because you can lean back farther.

Seated Pelvic Tilt
Using a small ball, you can do a pelvic tilt in the seated position. Sit in a chair. Place the ball between your lower back and the chair. Sit so you can feel the ball against your lower back. Contract your stomach muscles while you simultaneously press against the ball. Make it goal to change the shape of the ball while you press against it. This forces you to perform a pelvic tilt in which the pelvic bone tilts up toward the belly.

Torso Twist
Use a seated abdominal machine at the gym such as the torso twist in which you rotate from side to side for abdominal work. In a chair, you can simulate a torso twist by holding onto dumbbells at chest level and rotating from right to left. You can also do a cable row while seated on a stability ball by sitting with your back to the cable row machine.

Squat and Reach
Perform a squat while holding a stability ball arm's length in front of you. A squat means you bend your knees and sit back as if about to sit into a chair. If you contract your stomach while holding the ball and add a twist to the right and left, you will work the obliques (side muscles).

Knee Lifts
Do knee lifts either seated on a fitness ball or standing. Sit on the ball or stand next to a wall with one hand on the wall for support. Lift one leg with a bent knee. Keeping the knee bent, pulse the leg up toward the ceiling (eight to 10 times) while contracting the stomach muscles. Repeat with the other leg.