In general, it's unlikely that any exercise will increase your waist size. When you keep your diet the same and start to regularly work out, performing squats or any other form of exercise, your body burns off deposits of fat and generally slims down. If your training involves strength training, the muscle mass that you develop may increase the size of certain body parts, such as the arms, shoulders, chest or legs. However, the abdominal muscles and lower back muscles rarely grow larger. Body weight squats can give you a well-defined waist area with visible muscles.
Basic Form
The body weight squat is easy enough for a beginner to perform, making it a practical option for home workouts. Start by standing with your feet a little wider than hip-distance and your toes turned slightly outwards. Let your arms rest at your sides and stand upright, with your shoulders relaxed and back, your chest open and your gaze straight ahead. Engage your ab muscles and inhale, pushing your hips backward and downward and letting your knees bend. Continue as far as you can until your thighs are parallel with the ground. Exhale and reverse the movement, returning to the starting position. Throughout the squat, keep your chest upright, your abs engaged and your lower back flat.
Variations
Provided that you stick to body weight squats, without any additional weights, there are relatively few variations on the movement. One way to increase the difficulty of the exercise is to perform the same movement on top of a BOSU ball, an inflatable dome-shaped ball that requires greater core strength to maintain stability.
Risks and Warnings
As long as you're doing body weight squats, without any extra weight, it's unlikely that you'll injure yourself. Maintain proper form and avoid rounding your back to minimize the risk of strain. By keeping your abdominal muscles engaged, you'll keep the work distributed between the front and back of your core. Stretching your hamstrings will also help protect against strain.
A Whole-Body Approach
Increasing the size of your waist isn't a common goal. Assuming that you aren't interested in putting on abdominal fat, a serious health risk, but in evening out your musculature, one technique is to work on the proportion of your overall frame. Instead of trying to enlarge your abdominal muscles or lower back muscles, neither of which typically "bulk up" very much, instead focus on developing lean muscle mass around your chest, shoulders and legs. In comparison to the rest of your frame, your waist will appear stouter.
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