Out damned spot!

Is it really possible to target specific areas to get rid of fat? Not really, says fitness trainer

August 31, 2014 07:44 pm | Updated 07:44 pm IST - COIMBATORE

Combination of exercise and diet can reduce fat all over the body. Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Combination of exercise and diet can reduce fat all over the body. Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

I’ve been involved in the fitness industry for 10 years as a Personal Trainer. In all my years of teaching classes and training clients, the most frequently-asked question I hear is, “What exercises can I do to get rid of THIS? (tummy fat, thigh fat, arm fat or even just the double chin!).”

This is popularly referred to as spot reduction – a notion that one can reduce the fat from one specific ‘spot’ on the body just by doing exercises that target that body part. Allow me to explain the facts around this concept.

Many believe that abdomen exercises burn belly fat, back exercises burn back fat, chest exercises burn chest fat, arm exercises burn arm fat, leg exercises burn leg fat, and so on. But this is not entirely true. You can’t make your body lose fat from one specific area just by doing exercises for that area. Fat can only be lost from the body as a whole in an order which is predetermined by your genetic selective pattern.

Doing 200 crunches a day or holding planks forever will not automatically give you a six-pack. There are other factors to consider, all of which go hand-in-hand in creating those lean, toned body parts you are dreaming of.

There are just no magical workout methods, exercises or machines that can make it happen.

You Don’t Believe Me?

Here’s proof. The amount of fat was measured on both the arms of tennis players. It showed that there was no difference between the two. If spot reduction actually worked, then the playing arm of the tennis players would have much less fat on it than the other one.

After all, they use that arm to hold a racquet and swing it around 500 times or more a day!

Exercises Target The Muscles, Not The Fat.

So, for all those who are doing hundreds of crunches and other abdomen exercises, they are not reducing the fat. The exercises are serving to strengthen your abdominal muscles. The same is true for every other body part and muscle group. The only thing exercises actually target are muscles, not the fat covering those muscles.

So then, how do you lose that fat from the specific spot?

Simple. You create a caloric deficit through proper diet and exercise. As I explain to my clients, the only thing you need to do for fat loss is to consume less calories than you burn in a day.

This creates a deficit of calories, and that causes your body to burn your own stored body fat for energy.

So you should do a combination of strength training workouts for all the muscle groups and cardio workouts which increase your metabolic rate besides having calorie deficit goals on a daily basis till you see the fat reducing. In order to achieve this, you need to work on your diet, maximise exercise and non-exercise calorie expenditure.

This is the ONLY thing that will ever allow you to lose fat from the entire body as a whole, and this is the ONLY way the human body is actually capable of losing fat.

The order in which specific body parts begin to lose fat depends on the body type which is predetermined by your genetics and it is impossible to change that pattern. Most men typically lose fat from their lower abs last (and gain it there first), just like most women typically lose fat from their thighs and hips last (and gain it there first).

If you stick to a workout routine and an appropriate diet, then at some point the fat will eventually start to come off from the specific body part you were targeting.

This might not be what you hoped to hear, but it’s the truth – No pain, No gain.

Bhaskar is a fitness professional. Read more about fitness on his website www.60minuteworkouts.com

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