The Myths of Spot Reduction

Mark and I spend the Fourth of July weekend 2009 at Point Pleasant Beach in New Jersey. I could go on an on about what we saw there, but I will try to keep this concise.  I would however, like to tell President Obama that it is not our health care system that is in trouble, it is our health!  As a Conservative Independent, I am not for Government intrusion on our lives, but it appears that many are not taking their own initiative to take care of themselves and take charge of their health. Many illnesses can be prevented with nutrition and physical activity. During a Town Hall Meeting, this summer held by President Obama, a woman stood up and stated that she had cancer, again. She was upset that she did not have health insurance to pay for the treatment. Of course, my heart goes out to her, and everyone else’s did who listened to her story. However, the woman was morbidly obese. My thoughts were, “what actions did she take, or not take, to improve her health to help prevent the cancer in the first place, and then to help to prevent it a second time?” Notice I said, “Help.” This is because we can only help prevent, or reduce our risk for disease. Often disease is genetic or environmental, and happens no matter what precautions we take. Lance Armstrong was a young healthy athlete who got cancer. However, it was probably his health that increased his chance of survival. However, we need to watch what goes into our mouths and keep active to take charge of our health to help prevent disease. I am not saying that everyone has to be a stick figure, or even look like me in order to be healthy. You can be “thick” and be healthy. It is taking responsibility for your health, no matter what size or shape that you are.

So anyways, I want to get to point of this newsletter, which came to mind as I was lying on the beach looking through the latest issues of Health Magazine. Now, some health and fitness magazines are more reputable than others are, but even a reputable magazine like Health, still promotes the lie that frustrates me. There is one huge lie in the fitness industry that is constantly perpetuated, from magazine ads to TV infomercials, and that is spot reduction. I have to inform every one of my clients, sometimes more than once, that it is impossible to reduce fat in one specific area from the body. I think the reason I have to do this, and keep reminding clients of this, is because they are bombarded with statements telling them otherwise, from magazine covers they see that the checkout counter to TV infomercials marketing exercise machines that promise spot reduction. The June issue of Health states on the cover, “Shrink Your Belly in Just 9 Minutes.” Yikes! So I go to turn to page 50, I did not even get there yet, because on page 47, there is an article that states, “Flatten Abs in Four Weeks.” Yikes! The July/August issue’s cover states, “#1 Belly Fat Secret: Blast Fat without Crunches.” Yikes! Of course, all of these articles simply have a women doing a bunch of abdominal exercises. Again, reinforcing spot reduction. This especially goes for those ridiculous ab machine products being marketed. I think the latest one is the Ab Circle Pro. Those fitness professionals that are paid to promote them should be ashamed of themselves…shame on you.

As Mark said perfectly:
“Let’s make it very clear; IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO BURN FAT FROM ONLY ONE PART OF YOUR BODY AT A TIME. You cannot beat the crap out of your midsection and expect the belly fat to magically disappear. Think of it this way: does a person gain fat in just one area, or is it spread out all over the body? I’m begging all of the companies that promote these ridiculous products to people promising immediate and easy results to find me a person with a six pack abdomen who only trains the abdomen and no other body parts. They could not find a single example of this is they searched the world over.”

Oh, but there are other areas that people are concerned about other than the abdomen…the hips/thighs. Again, the fitness industry knows that. On page 28 of the July/August issue of Health, is an article “Thinner Thighs in Three Weeks.” Come on, are you serious? Of course, it is a woman doing lateral leg raises from a side-lying position, or a hip abduction. Again, the industry jumps on that too, inventing spot training machines such as the Thigh Glider, which is supposed to “glide” your thighs away. Again, shame on you who promote this nonsense.

Let me make one thing clear as well, in addition to there being no such thing as spot reduction, there is such thing as spot training. These are not the same and are not interchangeable. In other words, we can work a specific area to tone, i.e. make larger. That is it. We can tone our abs (rectus abdominus/obliques), or the muscles in our thighs and buttocks. What is toning? It is building muscle. How do you tone or build muscle? By performing multiple sets of specific exercise that target that muscle, in a rep range of 15 repetitions or less (12 or fewer for the greatest amount of building). Moreover, I do not mean just doing 12 repetitions of an exercise and then stop. When you get to your 12th repetition, your muscles should feel fatigued to the point where you cannot, or are unsure if you can do another repetition in proper form. If you do 15 reps and feel as if you can go on for a while longer, then you need to add resistance such as weights or bands until you are fatigued at the 12th or 15th rep. The greater the weight or resistance and the lower the repetitions, the more you will tone or build. Therefore, you have control over how much you increase the size of the muscles. However, if you have layers of fat covering the muscle, you will not see your toning/building results unless you decrease your body fat. If you continue to tone/build muscle under the layer of fat, what you will end up with is larger thighs, not slimmer. So these magazine articles and TV infomercials are actually promoting spot training, and falsely advertising it as spot reduction. Also, the spot training they are promoting is not even effective in getting results. Again, if you are doing 100-300 repetitions (way more than 15), you are not toning, you are on your way to an overuse or repetitive stress injury.

Why do people want to spot reduce? Although fat is stored through out one’s body, it often is not spread out evenly, and will often accumulate in one area more so than another. One’s genetics largely determines where one will store excess fat, or unused calories. If you look at family members of the same gender, you will probably notice that others in your family will have a similar body type as you. People tend to store more fat in the hips, thighs and/or abdomen. It is in most cases, it is one or the other. Some store most of their fat in the abdomen, we call those individuals “apple-shaped.” Those who store most of their fat in the hips, thighs, buttocks are considered “pear-shaped.” Again, this is largely determined by genetics and we do not get to select where we store or lose our excess fat. One may begin a weight loss regimen, and get frustrated because even though they lost ten pounds, they slimmed down their back or chest, not their thighs. Unfortunately, the weight is going to come off wherever it comes off, keep at it, it will get to the thighs eventually.

So again, the best way to slim down is what Mark said:
“The best … is to eat a well balanced diet, 5-6 meals a day, every 2-3 hours supplying the body with the nutrients it needs to recover from your workouts. This needs to be combined with an ample amount of sleep every night. When you sleep, your body heals. If you do not sleep enough, you will not heal enough to see the gains you should be seeing. And the final part of the equation is the workout program. I prefer total body workouts performed in a circuit style, just the way I train my Small Group Boot Camp Series. Compound movements such as squats, lunges, chest and shoulder presses, rows, push-ups, pull-ups, dips, etc.”

Therefore, to loose body fat, from anywhere, it is important to work the entire body, not just specific areas.

Melanie Clark Mogavero, CSCS, RYT