How To Banish Bra Bulge
Feel good when you strap the girls in for the day. (Photo: Comstock/Getty Images)
If you’re a woman, you’re probably familiar with the infamous bra bulge — the fat that tends to show up near the middle of your back around your bra, often accentuated by a slightly-too-tight bra band.
In the world of body trouble spots, the bra bulge is like having a dull ringing in your ears: It really only bugs you, and it’s not the biggest deal in the world, but it’s still hella annoying. And you’d love it if it just went away for good.
WHY YOU NEED TO MAKE THE CHANGE
The bra bulge is actually caused by a combination of factors. The first, as you can guess, is body fat (duh). The second is the muscle underlying that fat, called the latissimus dorsi, or lats.
The problem stems from this: Women traditionally have very weak lats, says Holly Perkins, CSCS, creator of Women’s Strength Nation and author of Lift to Get Lean. “There is a very interesting coincidence between weak muscles that are common on women and the trouble zones we complain about,” Perkins tells Yahoo Health.
Related: 10 Ways You’re Sabotaging Your Workout
When a muscle is strong and firm, the fat and skin covering it typically appears smooth, says fitness researcher Wayne Westcott, PhD, instructor of exercise science at Quincy College. Weak muscles, however, make it so the fat tends to bunch up, pucker, or ripple (depending on the area of the body in question).
In addition, the lats are one of the biggest muscles in the body, and you use them any time your arms reach overhead, fitness expert and trainer to professional athletes Mike Robertson writes. Therefore, training the lats will not only help you move easier, but also pump up your metabolism by working such a big muscle group.
HOW TO DO IT
The hands-down best exercise for women to train their lats, Perkins says, is an exercise called the narrow grip lat pulldown.
To perform the move, sit at a lat pulldown station with your feet flat on the floor. Grab the bar with an underhand grip (palms facing you), your hands about 8 inches apart. Lean backward slightly and pull the bar to the top of your chest. Perform three sets of 15 reps with 30 seconds between each set; perform the exercise two to three times per week.
Related: 10 Exercises You Can Do Without Getting Out Of Bed
The key to making this exercise work for the average woman, Perkins says, is the narrow grip. Grabbing the lat pulldown bar at the ends, where most people do, will make your muscles develop outward, creating that broad-backed appearance that most men strive to achieve. A narrow grip forces the muscles to work a direction that limits the cobra-back look and creates a firm, strong, and feminine-looking upper back instead, Perkins explains.
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