The Consensus: Can You Target Fat Loss to Specific Body Parts? Science Says No

The Myth of Spot Reduction: Why Targeted Exercises Won’t Melt Away Fat

If you believe the advertisements, all it takes for the perfect six-pack is the latest piece of ‘ab blaster’ fitness equipment to melt away fat from your stomach to reveal the toned muscles underneath. It’s a seductive myth that you can target your butt, thighs, or gut with a tailored-made exercise. But a myth it still is.

Here’s one of the best illustrations of why ‘spot reduction’ is a myth. In a study involving professional tennis players, the fat and muscle areas of each arm were compared. Now, if there was any credence at all to ‘fat spot reduction’ then the tennis players’ dominant arm should have less fat. After all, that is years of targeted exercise of serving, power hitting and smashing with just one arm. Meanwhile, the opposite arm is mostly a passenger making an appearance mainly for less-powerful backhand shots. What did the research team find? To no surprise, the circumference of the dominant arm was larger and that was thanks to muscle development. Power up those guns. When it came to fat storage though, there was absolutely no difference in fat content between the two arms. This study explains nicely why you never see an overweight person with a visible six pack, no matter how many crunches they do.

To lose fat, no matter where it is stored, you can’t bypass the principle of needing to create an energy deficit. This then causes the body to start eating into energy reserves stored in fat. And the way it does this seems to follow the ‘last on, first off’ principle. Meaning fat will be used from the last place it was stored no matter where in the body it is. What exercise you do has little impact on this. Hormones, genetics, age and gender have the biggest say here.

As Professor Ben Hurley from the University of Minnesota pointed out, the biochemical processes responsible for fat breakdown (lipolysis) and fat loss (fatty acid oxidation) are based on energy deficits that release hormones that bind to fat tissue receptors throughout the body and are not based on the location of the specific muscle groups being exercised.

People who are overweight have a better chance of reducing fat if they increase their overall fitness levels. This can be done by both aerobic exercise and resistance training that focuses on gaining muscle mass in both large and small muscle groups. This increase in muscle mass will create a larger need for energy that comes from fat in stored fat cells.

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Visceral fat: the exception to the rule

There is one small exception to the spot reduction myth as Dr Gordon Fisher from the University of Alabama at Birmingham points out. When looking at specific fat depots, such as visceral fat versus subcutaneous fat, there is evidence that performing both aerobic and resistance exercise results in greater loss of visceral fat compared to diet alone. Visceral fat is a type of body fat that’s stored within the abdominal cavity. It’s located near several vital organs, including the liver, stomach, and intestines and too much of it is linked to metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Visceral fat though isn’t visible and is different from subcutaneous fat that you can see and grab on to. So although we technically cannot target fat loss in a specific part of the body, there are strategies that can be performed that impact specific fat depots in the body.

Targeted fat reduction by exercise is a myth. Performing thousands of sit-ups is great for firming up abdominal muscles but does little for losing fat around the middle. For that, you need to create an energy deficit by moving more and eating less rather than wasting your money on the latest fat-blasting exercise equipment.