Lesa Turnquist | Copy Co-Editor

It is common to believe that exercising a specific muscle in your body will help you lose fat in that targeted area. You want to lose arm fat; you work your arms. You want to have abs; you work your abs. This belief is called spot reduction.

Spot reduction reminds of me of that scene in the movie Mean Girls where they stand in front of the mirror and talk about specific areas of their body they don’t like. Click on this link to the scene if you can’t remember it. Karen says her hips are huge; Gretchen hates her calves; and Regina claims she has “man shoulders” so she can’t wear halters. At some point, we probably have all been guilty of wanting to lose fat in a specific area of our body.

Spot reduction is a BUST. This has been proven to be a myth for a while, but there are still things out there that make you want to believe it. I see posts on Pinterest all the time that make spot reduction claims. For example: “Lose belly fat and get six pack abs”, “Fabulous moves for fabulous flab-less arms”, “Say goodbye to back fat”, and “7 day leg jiggle challenge”. Let’s all take a minute to laugh at the things we take so seriously.

Exercising a specific muscle will not selectively reduce fat from that area. The only way you can reduce fat in a certain area is to reduce overall fat. Everyone’s body deposits fat differently no matter what muscles are being worked. For example, men’s bodies tend to deposit fat in the upper body, while women’s bodies tend to deposit fat in the hips and thighs. In the same way, everyone’s body takes fat from more places than others no matter what muscles are being worked. I found an interesting article from the website About Health that brought up a good example of this: “Just think about it, if localized fat removal were really possible, wouldn’t your fingers be really skinny from all that texting and typing you do all day?…”

So why do we do exercises such as bicep curls and calf raises that work those specific areas of our body? Underneath the fat is muscle. You CANNOT spot reduce fat, but you CAN spot train your muscles. This is possible because your muscles adapt to the demands you put on them. If you are doing bicep curls with weights, your biceps will tone themselves to be able to lift those weights.

If your goal is to lose fat in a certain area, you need to work your entire body and lose overall fat instead of trying to use spot reduction. Overall fat can be lost as long as you’re burning calories, which can be done through any type of exercise including cardio or strength training. Specific exercises can be use to spot train the muscles underneath the fat for a toned look once your overall fat is at a healthy level.

Graphic by Justice Gage