Myth 1: Spot Reduction
Let’s start off with the theory of burning fat or toning a certain area of the body. Toning involves two constituents: adipose tissue (the subcutaneous body fat) and muscle tissue. In order to appear more toned, a reduction in body fat and increase in muscle mass will have to occur.
The human body does not allow spot reducing, which would include losing fat exclusively in the abdominal area. If you were to lose weight, it would occur all over your entire body. Unfortunately, body fat is not necessarily reduced evenly.
People often have trouble areas where the fat is last to go. Women especially find this to be their stomach, legs or arms. There is not much that can be done about this aside from continuing to lean out.
A reduction in body fat occurs when a person is in a caloric deficit. This occurs with two variables: decreasing the amount of calories you consume, increasing the amount of exercise you participate in, or doing both. Resistance training is used to help build and maintain muscle tissue, while cardiovascular training is a tool used to help achieve a caloric deficit.
Here is a statement that many of you probably do not want to believe: There is no exercise out there that is going to burn fat off of your body in a specific area! No resistance training exercise will help tone or reduce fat on top of any muscle in your body. It is a reduction of calories and an increase in exercise that will take care of that.
There is a very big misconception regarding that “burn” you feel after performing many repetitions during an exercise. Some people actually believe that is the fat melting off the body right before our very eyes! That burn is actually caused by lactic acid, which is used by your muscles to form adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for immediate energy.
I often see a female lying on the ground at the gym performing sets of 100crunches. She probably assumes that burning sensation is actually helping her “toning her stomach”. If you are performing a set of 100 repetitions on any exercise, don’t you think it is time to
move on to something a little harder?
From an awesome Bodybuilding.com article I often sent my friends to to read about women & weight training myths!
