Hi everyone. I'm new to this site, so hopefully I'm posting this in an appropriate section :).

I'm young, only 17 but I'm already into health and it's importance. My interest in fitness at such an early age is because of my mom. She's a body builder, and she looks amazing at age 47 I can honestly say I'm jealous of her body. She's been a great role model to me, and I hope to be somewhat like her when I'm older. Since I've been young I've played literally every sport out there, however recently my rep soccer finished and I've really been focusing on gym workouts. My mom, has big muscular arms and she does weight lift alot. Slthough she likes the look of them I'm not so fond of them. I'd rather just have small, petite arms, her tight curvy core and muscular legs.

Recently I've started to incorporate alot of ab excercises into my workouts, in an attempt to tighten my stomach. I hoped this would make my stomach smaller, however it seems to be doing the exacty opposite. Although I can now see definition, my obliques are slowly getting wider, not slimmer. It's not fat though, I feel like it's muscle developing. I took the time to stop and think about it because when I do ab exercises, with weights wouldn't it do the same as when I do quad exercises- build muscle? I don't want to build obqlie muscle, I want to have a smaller waist for a more hour glass figure. But I dont want to cut ab exercises completely out of my workouts because then I'm afraid my stomach wont be tight at all.
Any advice ? :)
Thanks

Oh yeah and here's a picture of my mom. Doesn't she look amazing!

Your mom does look amazing! And what an inspiration to you :) Congrats!

This is an interesting topic and one that I've also had to pick over, so i'll be interested to hear what people have to say on it.

Like yourself, I also felt that doing too much ab work was making my mid-section thicker. In fact, i've thus stopped doing all direct ab-work, especially weighted ab work and now try to get my ab training in though 1x-a-week pilates-fusion class and my main lifting (squatting, deadlifting, etc.) which i do about 2x a week. So you see, you're not alone.

As for whether or not ab-work will thicken the waist, I've heard a lot of different responses from different trainers/coaches. Some say yes, that weighted ab-work will thicken the waist, and some say, yes it will, but not more so than dead lifting or squatting. And then I've heard some trainers say, no it won't thicken the waist and what you might be noticing is merely a drop in body-fat.

My opinion is that its probably a combination of all of these, and the bottom line is if its important to you to have a strong "core" (as it should be if you plan to lift), then you should train your abs in some form or another.

If you're worried that your waist is looking thicker but you don't want to compromise your athletic abilities then you might just want to try to bring out your lats a bit and do some of that other body-building stuff...

Anyways, I hope other will chime in! And good luck!

ps. also, you should ask your mom! she should know a bit, no?

Thanks for the replies so far :)
Mascherano, I have asked my mom for advice and she doesn't do much ab spot workouts, it's because of her heavy weight lifting that she automatically tightens her core through each exercise.
Thanks for the advice! I just tried pilates last week and it's awesome. I'm also going to try hot yoga!

Inkaddict, thanks as well :) I'm going to try what you said.

No problem. Good luck with the hot yoga, I did Bikram yoga for a 2 week trial and loved it. It was hard and uncomfortable at first, but if you go every other day or every day, you'll adapt in no time.

Good luck!