One of the oldest truths in the exercise and fitness world is that you cannot lose fat in a certain area by working that area out more than other parts of the body, or just more intensely on it’s own .
For example, you can’t shed belly fat by doing hella jackknifes and crunches. These beliefs have been dependent on volumetric research that guessed changes in lean mass and fat in the abdominal area after weeks of specific exercises for that area.
Well people, that frustrating and forever dogmatic assumption turns out to be WRONG!
Recently, in exciting news for the bodybuilding , fitness world and really anyone who cares about how they look, scientists in Denmark shown that spot reducing is possible and effective after all. The Danish researchers were led by Dr. Bente Stallknecht headquartered at the Panum Institute in Copenhagen.
To resolve the question once and for all the scientists used radioactive tracers to gauge changes in fat mass during high-rep knee extensions, this is much more precise than measuring simple density variations in the arms and legs.
They also studied blood flow and fat breakdown within tissue adjacent to working muscles and in fat tissue around inactive muscles in the other leg.
Following 30 minutes of knee extensions using one leg, test subjects switched legs and did knee extensions for 120 minutes using extra weight. Guess what? Blood flow and fat breakdown were best around the latter, working muscles. The more work, the more fat loss in THAT AREA.
The scientists concluded that exercises could in fact cause “spot reducing of fat” since blood flow and fat utilization is higher in fat tissue adjacent to working muscles.
In other words they exercised one leg a little bit and then worked the other leg a lot, then measured which one, (if either did) had mobilized fat for use as energy, and the latter did so.
Spot reducing was most successful at higher intensities since intense exercise creates more heat in the muscles and triggers an elevated release of catecholamines, a certain hormone well known to health scientists.
This of course was an exciting conclusion for bodybuilders and others, as it has overturned decades old assumptions about the possibility of spot reduction in fatter areas of the body . The latest idea looks to be a loud YES that spot reducing is possible and actually does work in practice.
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Pretty amasing. I was always told thta too. How much would I have to workout to slim my legs a little?
That’s not been worked out yet I don’t think, but it would seem that you’d have to create heat around your legs like wearing sauna pants or sweatpants, then work them out. Light and a lot of reps.
I have a colleague that’s using a belly belt (not the electric kind from TV ads – which are bunk) to lose fat around the ab region.