If you're a woman, you've most certainly heard of the phrase "saddle bags" which is a euphamism (if you can call it a euphamism) for those stubborn pockets of fat that tend to accumulate on women around the outsides of there thighs, creating, well, a look of saddle bags.

Yep, it's taken from those convenient bags that hang off the sides of motorcycles to hold items, on either side of the motorcycle, and it's the perfect way to describe these pockets of stubborn fat that so many women have, because in a nutshell, that's what they look like.

These pockets of extra fat are what give women a womanly shape and curve to their body, but they can also be large and distracting, and give a woman a pear shape, or simply make a woman's body look disproportionate when they grow out of control, usually in relation to when we gain weight or take a really long time off of going to the gym or working out. Many times, saddle bags are hereditary.

I for one, inherited them from my mother and my grandmother, who are skinny, but they've always had that extra pocket of fat on the thighs, so it's always been a problem area for me, especially when I put a few pounds on, because that's exactly where those extra pounds all like to go - to the thighs.

I know there are some of you out there who are reading this and going "yes!", I have the same problem, and yes it does run in my family on the women's side! But take heart, there are some exercises you can do to help minimize the look of saddle bags on the sides of your thighs, and of course a low fat and quality protein diet always helps as well, so the fat cells shrink and in turn shrink this area.

Exercises cannot completely eliminate saddle bags on their own. Yes, they can help to pull them in and tone them, resulting in a smaller, more compact appearance, but you also must watch your diet. Isn't this always the unfortunate truth of shrinking any part of our anatomy though?

OK, now let's talk about some simple aerobic machine exercises we can do to help minimize the appearance of large thighs, AKA saddle bags. A very simple one is to use the elliptical machine and slightly turn the feet out as if you are walking like a duck.

Turning the feet out helps to isolate the area on the sides of the thighs, and the aroebic activity combined with the isolation of the muscles in this area can help to pull and sculpt the saddle bag problem area. The elliptical machine is one of my favorites for helping sculpt and tone my buttocks and thighs, without bulking them up, and they are great for helping sculpt this problem area as well.

Also, going backwards on the elliptical can help sculpt out this area as well, if you can, with pointed out feet, but if it's too uncomfortable, just go backwards for a few minutes without inverting the feet. Every little bit of diversification in positioning will help this area.

Running on the treadmill or even walking doesn't compare to the elliptical if you want to concentrate on the thighs, because the elliptical's motion is much more conducive to working this area since it is a half circle motion, and this targets that tiny area much better and more effectively.

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