If you can’t spot reduce, why lift weights?
This edition of Workout Wednesday is brought to you by my sister. “But if there’s no such thing as spot reduction, why do you lift weights? Why do you have arm days and leg days and ab days and not just gym days?”
The best way to explain this is to look at your body. Poke your stomach, your thighs, your calves. If you’re anything like me you have a lovely layer of protection over your stomach, thighs, butt, arms, etc. that keeps you warm and insulates your body and sometimes makes your clothes fit a little too tight. That’s fat. It’s important for survival, but sometimes we think it’s not very aesthetic. That’s fine, I understand. But dig deeper. Eventually you’ll hit something hard. Flex that area and try again. Feel that? That’s muscle.
Muscle covers bones (and sometimes peritoneum, but that’s besides the point) and fat covers muscle.
When people ask how to “Get rid of the fat on their stomach” they’re met with, “There’s no such thing as spot reducing!” That’s because to get rid of fat you have to burn fat. Fat does not magically become muscle. Fat is fat. It’s adipose tissue filled with fat cells. Muscle is an entirely different entity. With liposuction you suck out the fat and get rid of the cells. Otherwise you’re deflating them. Doing 1,000 crunches a day will not magically turn your fat into muscle. This is what people mean when they say, “There’s no such thing as spot reduction” because no matter how many crunches you do that fat will still be there.
So why lift weights? Because you’re building the muscle. Underneath that fat you have wonderful muscles that help you move and lift heavy things and function. People lift weight to get stronger, to make their muscles more prominent, or simply because they like to. But no matter how many squats you do or crunches or bicep curls the progress will be invisible to you unless you remove the layer of fat on top of it.
You can’t spot reduce fat, but you can spot increase strength. That’s a better way to put it, right?
Just remember this: fat is not muscle, muscle is not fat. By doing crunches you’re not turning that layer of fat INTO muscle. If you increase your heart rate into a cardiovascular zone that allows you to burn fat, then yes, you’re burning fat while doing crunches. But you’re burning fat all over your body. Think about where your heart is located – in your chest, right? If you increase your heart rate and you’re in the zone for fat loss, how does your heart know that you’re doing crunches? It doesn’t. It just knows it needs to beat faster to accommodate for the sudden increase in workload. That translates to removing energy from fat around your body based on genetics. Where you lose fat first is based almost entirely on genetics. Never fear, though, because eventually your body will have to go to that stubborn fat supply you’ve been lamenting over for a few months and get energy from there.
Then, after that fat has been reduced, you will be able to see those beautiful muscles you’ve worked so diligently for.
