The Russian twist is a simple abdominal exercise for working the core, shoulders, and hips. It is typically performed in repetitive sets and tones the core muscles via a twisting motion focused around the abdomen.
What do Russian twist do for you?
Russian twists strengthen your core, obliques, and spine. It's a total core exercise that also works your balance, builds stability in your spine, and trims your mid-section all at once.
Does Russian twist burn belly fat?
Yes, Russian twists help burn love handles or the excess fat at the side of your belly. What muscles does a Russian twist work? Russian twist works on the obliques, abs, and lats.
What muscles does a Russian twist work?
Russian twists target the following muscles:
- obliques.
- rectus abdominis.
- transverse abdominis.
- hip flexors.
- erector spinae.
- scapular muscles.
- latissimus dorsi.
Do Russian twists give you abs?
"The Russian twist targets all the muscles in your core, making it a great abs exercise when you're tight on time," says Peter Donohoe, NASM-certified personal trainer, core strength teacher at The Boston Ballet, and Functional Performance Specialist for Hydrow in Carlisle, MA.
Do Russian twists slim your waist?
No ! Russian twists won't make your waist bigger, eating more than your body requires/burns which will put you into a caloric surplus will make your waist bigger and make you gain weight all over !
How to do Russian Twist
the Russian twist is a core exercise that targets the obliques hip rotators, and so as begin halfway between sitting erect and laying in supine lift your feet slightly off of the floor, and slightly bend your knees interlock your fingers rotate at the trunk bringing one elbow towards the floor, and slightly drop your knees to the opposite side.switch sides exhale with each rotation these have been Russian twists.
How to do the perfect Russian Twist and the most common mistakes
welcome to this gay exercise confident video, I'm with will and we're going to talking to the Russian twist which is a really great core stabilizing exercise.
we're gonna talk you through the different progressions of the Russian twist and it's really important that you make sure you're confident with each progression before you move on to the next one.
so well so we get started and show us the first progression brilliant brilliant
so the positioning of this exercise is you sit up wium flex our knees to about 45 degrees and keep our heels on the floor we lean back ever, so slightly we make sure our back is nice and straight.
so we have a plumb line coming up our back we put our arms out in front of us and what we're doing with this exercise is letting the weight of our arms fall from side to side just like that keeping our belly button pointing forward the entire time.
this is perfect was demonstrating accidentally common mistakes that we've seen with this exercise what we're moving on to now, so the first mistake people go through is with a really hunched back.
so was going to hunch your shoulders forwards and then move his arms from side to side and this isn't great, because we've lost that nice straight cut that nice straight line of her back we've got this curve in this place.
let's deactivate some of the core muscles and it means the exercise isn't quite as efficient so it was now going to correct this by imagining a plumb line keeping us back nice and straight brilliant.
the second most common mistake that we see is that rather than moving the weight of our arms just from side to side, keeping our belly button forward what we see is people rotating their entire lower back coming all the way across with their belly button moving
from side to side, as well so I was not going to demonstrate this.
so as you can see his lower back was rotating as he does his exercise and his belly button rather than pointing forward he started to point from side to side just like this.
this isn't great because we're not actively engaging our core which is lefting a lot of that do the rotation than having to pull ourselves back to a neutral position.
so was now going to demonstrate in perfect position so his belly buttons pointing forwards, he's only moving his arms as far as though his belly button doesn't move across and he's moving back to neutral perfect excellence and ours going to move on to progression too which was going to demonstrate.
now it's very similar to the first progression perfect brilliant so as you can see the difference with this progression is that his feet are no longer on the floor.
they're up a few inches off the ground, this means that we engaged both the upper and the lower abdominal muscles in order to keep this nice v-shaped posture again.
it's important to have them really straight back and arms out at a couple of lessons in front of you so what's going to demonstrate this now move side to side perfect and perfect the mistakes for this a very similar to the second progression whereby you don't want to over rotate with your lower back like this.
and you don't want to hunch your shoulders forward like this so now the perfect position again.
and finally one out of the extra mistake that we often see because our legs aren't anchored on the floor what happens is that as we move from side to side, our legs move the opposite way so as to counterbalance the weight of our arms now doing this.
we're not actively engaging the bottom of us, our bottom of our abdominal muscles which is letting our legs do the work and and counterbalance the weight so was going to demonstrate this now, so you can see his legs are moving from side to side, as he does this so now if he does it with perfect technique him his legs nice and still he's really using his core to keep stable and keep balance.
excellent we're going to relax a really nice progression of the Russian twist is to do it with weight in our hands out in front of us now, how much weight you have depends on your abilities and how strong you're feeling but one of the really common mistakes that we see with this is that people when they go from side to side.
they put the weight down and then pick it back up again and then put the weights down and pick it back up of them.
and this is actually a really common mistake because when we do this we've disengaged and destabilize the core muscles that were using to work.
- the important thing with this exercise when we do it is that we use the same, the same motion as in the second progression whereby we only move our arms the weight of our arms to the side
until our belly button stops start stops pointing forwards as soon as it starts to move to the side you've gone too far and you're rotating your lower spine, so again just keep it to the center make sure your belly button points for with the entire time and keeps your core nice and strong thanks for watching let's get exercise confident video.
How to Do a Russian Twist | Ab Workout
OK, now I am going to demonstrate how to do a Russian twist.
Now what you are gonna start with is your feet flat on the floor at a ninety degree angle and then you are gonna kind of tilt backwards and lift them off the floor at about forty five degrees, okay, and you are going to twist; you can either actually do it with your body weight or if your had a medicine ball or a dumbbell you can do that variation as well to add weight of resistance.
But you are gonna twist, try to look straight ahead so you are not kind of getting dizzy.
You just want to look straight ahead, twist your torso not your head keeping your neck neutral.
Okay and you can do this for about a minute try it for a minute if you can.
You can always work up to a minute even if it is still too difficult.
But everything starts in moderation. So you can always, progression is the most important part of anything we exercise.
You always have to start where you can keep up with it, and then you can make it more advanced.
Okay, notice I still lean slightly back and I am exhaling as I twist.
So on the contraction is when you turn the torso.
Try to be careful and not move your legs.
You want to keep them as still as possible when you are twisting.
That will create the sense of feeling it more in the oblique region when you twist and that is the proper way to do a Russian twist.
How to Do a Perfect Russian Twist | Female Bodybuilding
Hi, my name is Erin and I'm a former US Junior, Olympics certified swim coach and personal trainer and fitness is my passion.
So I cannot wait to share it with you guys.
All right, onto the floor where most of the magic happens, one of my other favorite exercises is the Russian Twist.
A modification, if you're new to this, not so strong, just keep your heels on the floor, lean back slightly. If you are a more advanced exerciser you can bring your legs up and cross them, but I'm going to show the modified version for now.
Take your medicine ball, lean back, you should already feel the contraction in the abs, and then you're just going to tap the ball from side to side.
If you're feeling adventurous, bring the legs up for a greater burn.
You could do 3 sets of 30 to 40 of those, they're pretty quick but you should feel a nice burn.
How to do a Russian Twist Properly and Safely
hi there today i am going to show you how to do a russian twist properly, so you really get to target those abdominals.
hi there and welcome back to my channel if you are new here my name is deborah from journey to wellness where we work on eating healthy moving well and just living our best life and today i am going to show you how to do a russian twist properly.
i will tell you a lot of chiropractors a lot of physiotherapists
don't necessarily like this exercise and i really don't blame them, because a lot of people do this one incorrectly.
so today i am going to show you how to really get this exercise down pat so you can really work those obliques and you can hopefully avoid any back pain which is one of the biggest risks.
when it comes to the russian twist and please remember if you like this video to give it a thumbs up, it really does help my channel when you comment let me know what you thought of the exercise if you gave it a try and how it felt and of course.
please subscribe to my channel click the bell so you get notified whenever i upload a new video.
so if you're ready i'm going to show you how to do one okay.
let's get into position one of the biggest things that i see incorrectly when we're doing a russian twist is that i see people round their back okay we don't want to do that that's not how to do a russian twist properly.
you're not going to work your abs the same and of course if you're going to do an exercise you might as well make sure you're working the correct muscles. so if you are a beginner, i do recommend that you keep your feet on the floor a little more advanced, you can lift your feet when you do this exercise for now, i'm just going to show you with my feet down and i'm going to show you using the medicine ball so you start with a seated position to keep your back from rounding.
what i want you to think about is pushing your shoulder blades back and lifting your sternum up so you're trying to get as tall as possible with the weight in your hand now.
remember you can do this without a weight with the weight in your hand or without you're going to lean back, just a little bit you don't have to go very far in order for those abdominals to do a lot of work, keeping the elbows tucked in at your side pressing that sternum up, you're going to do a little twist you do not have to bring the ball all the way to the floor when you do that you actually take it out of your abs. a little bit more put it into your back and then put it into your shoulders right we want to work the obliques.
we want to work the abs, so you don't have to make it as big try it try to go a little bit smaller, stay nice and tight you're going to feel this in your obliques.
you're going to feel this in your rectus abdominus down the front of those abs twisting and then come back up if you're gonna do it without your feet on the floor.
i'm just gonna use a smaller weight you can use anything at all anything that's a little bit of resistance or nothing, so from here still going to keep that back flat the sternum up lift the feet trying to keep the feet forward still doing that little twist. okay so i hope that helps the biggest things to remember is that if you're feeling this in your spine if you're feeling this in your lower back you, you don't want to push through that sometimes we like to do that right it's like i can push through it i can do that joint pain.
you never want to push through if it's a muscle burn.
if you're feeling that in your obliques and your abdominals, yeah absolutely you want to push through that that's what's going to get you stronger, but biggest things to remember shoulder blades back chest is up, keep that back flat leaning back and it's a little tiny twist not a big one just keep it small.
keep it focused you're gonna work those abdominals much more when you do that.
thank you so much for joining me i hope you got something out of this put a comment below if you gave it a try.
NEVER DO THE RUSSIAN TWIST LIKE THIS! | 3 Most Common Mistakes
what's up guys welcome back to my channel today, I'm gonna do something little different, I want to talk about the Russian twist now how to perfect the Russian twist and I think this is really important because I know a lot of you are doing it wrong out there. and I'm gonna show you exactly what you're doing wrong, when we're doing the Russian twist and we're trying to work our Bleek's in our full core when we have the legs and back off the ground.
I notice look at the feet right here you guys are crossing your feet, it makes it easy as you're doing the Russian twist so what happens it relaxes your lower core your lower abdominals, so that we're not triggering the full spectrum of our apps.
okay if we're only working the upper and obliques and a lot of times people will keep the knees out like this, they're not even doing anything so doing this you're just working your obliques your bit, this is easy so what I want you guys to think about is that when you're doing this, you have to create that mind-body connection where when we're doing the Russian twist, knees got to be together.
the closer the knees are together then we're targeting our lower core, you'll feel your lower court activate and I'm telling you'll feel it and also don't cross the feet, crossing the feet is only pressing the knees together, so it relaxes my stomach. so my stomach is not engaged so relax the feet, keep them together not crossed knees squeeze them tight and here do the Russian twist and don't shorten it either a lot of people, do right I want you guys to get full reach pull reach work on the twist.
once you get really good at this and you want to start incorporating weight I definitely recommend weight. okay so doing that is really gonna help you get more benefits out of that exercise, so don't just go through the motion focus on really like activating your entire core and abs so just doing this simple thing knees together feet together okay
that's it all right so I hope you guys enjoy this little tip thank guys so much for watching, I hope you guys learned something about the Russian twist and how to go ahead perfect it and I expect all of you to go ahead and try it at home and I'll see you all in the next one.