15 Best Exercises for Love Handles to Burn Belly and Back Fat Faster

The best exercises for love handles aren't as cut and dry as the best leg exercises, best chest exercises, and best shoulder exercises. When looking to burn fat, some areas of the body are tougher to crack than others—namely belly and back fat, for men. Determining how to get rid of love handles takes a multi-pronged approach.

If you’ve tried to get rid of love handles using a combination of situps, cardio, and dumbbell side bends to no avail, it's time to change up your workout routine—or start a new one—and take a holistic approach with a meal plan to lose belly fat.

To identify the best exercises for love handles, we reached out to Sadik Hadzovic, an I.F.B.B. men’s physique professional; Adam Rosante, a strength and nutrition coach; Rachel MacPherson, C.S.C.S., a writer and exercise nutritionist; and Alex Barber, C.P.T.

If you want to burn belly fat faster, consider this your blueprint.

15 Best Exercises for Love Handles

What follows is a range of exercise types. Some are compound movements (e.g. barbell front squats, farmers walk, single-arm dumbbell rows), meaning they target multiple body parts and muscle groups, which recruits more energy to perform, burning more calories. These are great exercises to burn fat and build muscle simultaneously.

Others are "fast-paced and/or designed to target both the rectus abdominals and the transverse abdominals," Hadzovic says. "To burn fat, you must do more than just crunches; you need to recruit your entire body to enter a thermogenic state that leads to an accelerated rate of fat loss." We call this the afterburn, meaning you continue to burn calories long after the workout.

In addition to a clean diet, weight training, and a mix of both high-intensity interval training and steady-state cardio, add these best exercises for love handles to help reveal your abs.

What Are Love Handles?

Love handles are stores of excess body fat, typically over the lower portion of the obliques and lower back muscles. Unlike visceral fat, a more insidious type that weaves throughout the internal organs, this is subcutaneous fat that sits just below the skin's surface. Men tend to accumulate more visceral fat than women, so their fat stores can lead to an apple-shaped body, whereas women tend to accumulate more body fat in their thighs, rendering a pear-shaped body, according to scientific literature published in Frontiers in Physiology.

Colloquially, they're also known as muffin tops. Despite the endearing names, love handles are less than desirable, especially when working hard to achieve optimal health and fitness goals. They're often the last piece of the puzzle.

What Causes Love Handles?

Similar to any other obstinate area of fat on the body, love handles are caused by a bunch of different factors with no quick fixes.

“Those pesky areas around the hips people refer to as love handles or muffin tops are primarily about fat storage,” says MacPherson. “Your body stores extra energy when eating more calories than you burn. The hips are a common fat storage area for many people, especially men. There are several reasons for this, such as stress hormones cranking up, getting older, not moving enough, eating calorie-dense foods, not getting enough sleep, or even some health issues that make it challenging for your body to use up those calories.”

Related: Knees Over Toes Exercises: The 10 Commandments of Healthy Joints

Why Are Love Handles So Hard to Get Rid Of?

There's a common saying: “You can’t spot reduce fat,” but you might wonder why that is. When you drop a pant size, whether from diet or exercise, your body will reduce fat and water weight all over. What’s left over after months or even years of hard work comes down to a few different factors with genetics being one of the biggest.

“Where your body fat is stored is heavily influenced by genetics,” says Barber. “One individual at 15 percent body fat, could look drastically different than another with the exact same levels depending on their genetic predisposition."

Most people will have love handles to varying degree at some stage of their lives, unless they're naturally very lean and follow a protocol to to keep excess body fat off.

"Hormones, specifically cortisol, insulin, testosterone, and estrogen all affect body fat storage in one way or another, too," adds Barber.

Of course, exercise is a huge part of any weight-loss regimen, but it should be combined with other options for shedding extra fat off the flanks. MacPherson emphasizes diet, sleep, and stress management are key for completing the picture.

“First off, what you put on your plate is huge," says MacPherson. "You need to create a lifestyle where you're using up more energy than you're taking in, using a combination of movement to burn calories and nutrition strategies that mean you feel satisfied and energized while eating less than you burn.

How Long Does It Take to Lose Love Handles?

Walk into any healthcare store and you’ll be met with an array of pills and powders promising near-immediate weight loss. But ask any nutritionist or personal trainer about weight loss and they’ll tell you patience and persistence are the keys to true success.

When it comes to losing your love handles, specifically, “it depends on where you're starting from and how consistently you're moving towards your goal,” says MacPherson.

“Since love handles didn't show up overnight, they won't vanish overnight, either," she says. "Aiming to shed about a half to a full pound a week, sometimes more depending on your starting weight, is a doable goal for most people. This means you're looking at a few months of consistent effort in eating right, staying active, and taking care of your overall well-being.”