Naturally Intense High Intensity Personal Training™ Blog

The myth of spot reduction

It is a widely held belief that if you exercise one area, it will make the fat go away. I am often told that a personal training client wants to work their arms more or their stomach or butt more since those are their trouble areas and they want to focus on losing as much fat there as possible. Go to any gym and you will see people on the ab and butt machines for hours at a time, day in and day out. But try as you may it will make no difference in terms of fat reduction. Spot reduction, you see is simply a myth and is no more a possibilty than being able to turn lead into gold.

When you work a muscle- it has absolutely no direct effect on the fat that surrounds it. For example- if I had a big gut and worked my abs every day, it wouldn’t do anything to reduce the fat around my waist, only to strengthen and develop the muscles lying underneath. In fact, my experience has been over the years that many people end up with even biger stomachs from working their abdominal muscles too much. Muscles get bigger and thicker as a natural response to increased workloads and so many end up building big blocky abdominal muscles which do nothing but push the fat around them out even more! Unlike what most call show muscles like your arms and shoulders, few of us want bigger abs- the look most seek is a sleeker and tigher midsection, and training your ab muscles day in and day out is not always the best way to get it. The same rules apply to every other muscle in your body from your hips to your glutes, you can work them as much as you want, but you are not going to do anything about the fat around them unless you exercise correctly (which requires moderation and in most cases the assistance of an experienced professional personal trainer), and most importantly- you eat properly.

You lose fat pretty evenly throughout your body, be it from an increase in muscle mass from a properly executed weight training program and adherence to diet, (which will result in long term fat loss) or a caloric deficit from major dietary shifts and increased energy expenditure from significant amounts of exercise (which will make you lose weight, but only temporarily). In either case you will always see the fat loss mostly in the areas where you have the least fat to start with. So if you naturally have a high concentration of fat in in your lower abdominal area, (as is the case for most people- both men and women) that will will be the place that you notice the fat loss the least. That is not to say at all that you are not losing fat in that area, but if since there is more fat in that region of your body, it will appear that you are not losing as much in that area. You will however see fat loss faster in areas where there is less fat, which explains why you will always see a change in your face and lower arm areas when you being to lose fat before anywhere else.
Genetics does play a role in this as does gender. In my experience as well over the years some people are simply predisposed to having low fat concentrations in certain areas. I know of several women that naturally have well defined abdominals- but  have big problems getting the fat around their legs and hips under control. The bottom line is that you work the entire body to reduce fat everywhere and as time goes on, you will see those trouble spots going away slowly but surely! Remember, fat loss is always a marathon, not a sprint- so take your time and don’t try to rush it!

Kevin Richardson is the creator of Naturally Intense High Intensity Training™ a lifetime natural bodybuilder and founder of Naturally Intense Personal Training NYC. Get a copy of his free weight loss ebook here.