Spot Training for Fat Loss is a Myth

"Blast away that lower belly fat with this exercise!"

"Follow these steps to lose the jiggle on your arms!"

"Do these moves to slim down your thighs."

You've probably seen similar claims. They are a dime a dozen in the fitness industry, all promising the seductive goal of picking and choosing where the body loses fat. Unfortunately, that's not how the body works at all. 

What is "Spot Training?"

Spot training, or spot reducing, is the idea that you can lose fat in one area without affecting other parts of the body. It's the idea that doing targeted exercises will burn fat from specific areas of the body. Crunches and planks will burn away belly fat, tricep dips and pushups will burn away tricep fat, lunges and squats will burn away thigh fat... or so the narrative goes. 

This myth is one of the longest standing in the fitness industry, mostly because we'd all love it to be true. 

Why Doesn't It Work?

When we gain weight, it is because we have an excess of energy (read: calories) in the body that gets stored as fat, or energy reserves. When losing fat through exercise and nutrition, the body doesn't pick where it takes fat, or energy, from. For example, when you do a set of crunches, the fat cells in your stomach don't start to burn up. Instead, the body notices you're in need of more energy and sends enzymes and hormones throughout your entire body to provide it. This results in total fat loss rather than isolated fat loss. 

Simply put, you can't pick and choose where you lose fat. When you gained weight, you didn't choose where the fat went first. Similarly, when losing weight you can't choose where the fat comes from first. The body stores and loses fat pretty evenly throughout the body, and our specific genetic makeup has a role in influencing whether we store/lose fat most easily in the face, stomach, arms, or thighs.

What is the Answer?

While you can't spot train for fat loss, you can target where you see muscle growth and definition through strength training (Don't be afraid of the word "growth"-- remember, there is no such thing as toning your muscles.) Doing targeted exercises for specific muscles will only affect those specific muscles, even as the body burns fat from everywhere. 

In strength training, the principle of specificity describes how strength gains are specific to the type of training we perform. For example, bicep curls will target your biceps, without influencing your thighs. Squats will target your glutes and legs, without influencing the arms. Specific training will cause specific results in your muscles.

The Importance of Calorie Deficit

If you are strength training consistently and still not seeing the definition you'd like, you most likely need to adjust something in your nutrition.

Remember, weight gain comes from an excess of energy, or calories, in the body. Put simply, weight gain happens when we are consuming more calories than we're burning, leading the body to store that excess energy as fat. To lose weight, it's necessary to reverse this process by burning more calories than we're consuming. This is called being in calorie deficit. 

Calorie deficit can be achieved by burning more calories through exercise, or consuming less calories in your diet. The best route is usually a combination of both. When you are in calorie deficit, the body uses your fat stores for the necessary energy it needs to function throughout the day. This results in fat loss. 

You can strength train all day, but you won't see the results you want in terms of fat loss if you aren't in calorie deficit. Once you are in calorie deficit, you will lose fat, allowing the specific results and muscular definition from your strength training to show through.

Conclusion

While you can't influence where the body loses fat, you can influence where you see muscular definition through strength training. Being in calorie deficit will allow your body to lose fat from everywhere, while specific strength training will allow you to determine the definition of your muscles.

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Fire + Voice coaches people on-the-go on how to overcome busy days, yo-yo diets, and unsustainable fitness fads in order to stay fit from anywhere in the world-- and live a life of freedom rather than restrictions-- through online personal training, yoga, life coaching, and global retreats. We show our clients how to be fit and free. Most importantly, we give each client the tools they need to reclaim their body and life.