Aireen Ortega Belly Dancing instructor at Crunch Gym in Miami has got some abs to die for. She says oriental dance, commonly referred to as belly dancing, deserves a lot of the credit.

“It actually works the whole body, and it works your muscles in different ways than they’re used to.”

I’ll say. Maybe you have to work your way up to belly rolls, but let’s start with the basics.First a hip thrust…isolating and punctuation the movement on the beat. After you’ve got that down, you can take it into a shimmy.

Add some hip twists…great for those obliques…and finally, hip circles…contracting and isolating those abs in each direction…and making it look as sexy as possible.
Aireen says “It’s very sensual and it’s very feminine, so it actually works with your body rather than forcing it to do something. IT actually works with the natural movement of your body.”

And it sure beats ab crunches on the floor. For Fitness Magazine, I’m Bonnie Kaye.