By Adam Freeman
This is a question I get asked most weeks by clients, ‘can I just lose weight around my belly?’ My answer, although simplified down, is to the same extent ‘no’. If a person trains well and eats in a calorie deficit they will lose weight, most people will lose weight around their arms, face and legs etc first before stubborn areas like the belly. This is due to numerous factors such as age, gender, weight, hormonal status etc. So you could perform 100’s of abdominal crunches per day but this will not cause you to lose weight around your belly…. Or so I thought.
After digging through endless research papers, I’ve come across all sorts of funny experiments that researchers have tried to get to the bottom of this question. One study had participants do over 5000 sit-ups in 27 days, which honestly might be more than the rest of us have done in our entire lives. Another one had participants do 12 weeks of high-intensity leg pressing … on one leg. All to answer the question: can you choose where you burn fat? But neither study found a notable difference in fat loss.
And because of this, most researchers, including myself, were skeptical about the idea of spot reduction. However, as it turns out, there was one thing that pretty much all of these studies overlooked. You need to first mobilise fat cells before you can burn it off. All these previous studies have just focussed on mobilising the fat cells by doing the 5000 sit ups etc but they fail to perform the burning it off part.
New studies looking at whether it is possible to target fat loss are showing some promising results by utilising these two parts to the fat loss process, mobilisation and burning the fat cell.
A study from Brobakken et al published in 2023 divided 16 overweight men into two groups:
1. Spot reduction focussed group
2. Control group
Both followed a 4-day workout plan for 10 weeks. The control group did 45-minutes on the treadmill each session. Meanwhile, the spot reduction group had a shorter, 27-minute treadmill workout, followed by two ab exercises: torso rotations and machine crunches. This study is unique in that they had both groups burn the same amount of calories in their workouts. So, what happened? Well after the 10 weeks, both groups lost a relatively similar amount of body fat. But what was surprising was that the spot reduction group lost almost 2.5x more fat from around their belly (1,171 grams [2.6lbs] vs 470 grams [1lbs]) compared to the control group.
This research is backed up by a similar study published in 2017 which had one group perform an upper body workout, then follow it with 30 minutes of cardio, and another group do a lower body workout, followed by the same 30 minutes of cardio. Both groups performed the same number of exercises, sets, and reps; and they both did this 3 times per week. After 12 weeks, both groups lost a near identical amount of total body fat. But again, what was interesting was that the upper body group lost more fat in their upper body, and the lower body workout group lost more fat in their lower body.
What is the best method to use then to target fat loss?
If it is the belly that you are targeting for fat loss then I would recommend performing high intensity cardio for 20-30 mins and then performing abdominal exercises like crunches, russian twists etc after this for 12-20 reps of 3-5 sets. This workout will allow for the mobilisation and burning of fat cells allowing for an increased likelihood to burn fat around the belly. However I cannot emphasise enough that all this would not be possible without a good nutritional plan in place and if you are not in a calorie deficit then it is unlikely you will achieve this fat loss regardless of the amount of training you do.
Closing thoughts
I’ll be honest though, I’m still not 100% convinced. These latest studies have definitely opened my mind to spot reduction being possible, and it seems like future research could be promising. But it’s definitely not enough for me to go about planning spot-reduction into most people’s routines. That said, on my recovery days I have been using those 2 ab exercises and slapping on some cardio either before or after. Who knows, maybe this is giving me the ‘spot reducing’ effect for my belly fat.
But even if it’s not, I still highly recommend that you regularly train your abs, and with weight as well.
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