Q & A: You Can't Spot Reduce

Q: I want to get rid of this excess fat around my midsection. Should I be doing more abdominal work with exercises like sit-ups, crunches, and twists?

A: No. It is impossible to spot reduce. You burn fat off from your entire body. Unfortunately for most people the fat in your abdomen is the last place you will lose it and usually the first place to gain it. In order to reduce your abdominal fat you need to first make sure that you are working out intensely 3-5 days per week. If you are already doing this the next step is to exclusively use multi-joint exercises like squats, deadlifts, push-ups, and lunges. These exercises will burn many more calories than isolation exercises. Resulting in more fat calories burned. The next area to look at is your nutrition. If you are not eating properly you are not going to lose abdominal fat. You must be eating a healthy well balanced diet and create a calorie deficit. However, most people who create a calorie deficit create too big of a deficit. You only need to decrease your daily calories by 200-500 calories. If you decrease more than this your body is going to fight your efforts to lose fat. This is because when you decrease your calories to much you slow your metabolism, your body does not have the energy requirements needed so it will turn to muscle tissue for energy, which again decreases metabolism, and your body begins to store everything you eat rather than burn it.

One last point: You ask about doing more abdominal exercises. The problem with this is that by doing the abdominal only exercises you are going to build up those muscles, but not being doing anything to burn off the fat covering them. This will ultimately result in increasing your midsection. Yes, you do need to do some abdominal work, but not as much as most people do.


Until Next Time Keep Training Hard,

Josh