Spot Reduction May Very Well Exist...

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Shinra

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I've noticed pretty much everyone on these forums obsessed with the idea that you cannot spot reduce. However, my 4 years in biology and human anatomy tell me different. My reasons are clear:

1. We all have ATP (energy) stored in muscles and other areas all around your body. It's how we function.

2. ATP is released to aid the body, thus burning fat.

Example: Lets say you never work out, and you weigh 250lb, and you have really fat arms. If you do pushups, bicep curls, hammers, dips, pulldowns, etc, and everything in between for your arms, you would eventually get skinnier arms, and the rest of your body would remain fat. Why? Because ATP is being used in the arms, and is burning fat in that area. Why would the body release ATP from every area of your body for you to work your arms? It wouldn't, and it doesn't.

I've brought this philosophy to a few fitness gurus and they think the idea is plausible. Does anyone have anything I'm missing? And NO, you can't just say "fat is burned as a whole on the body" without any scientific evidence. ;)
 
First I want to say that by working your arms as you have suggested would not make them skinnier, it would cause the muscle to grow. This doesn't mean the fat would necessarily be burned off though just by lifting. If you look at powerlifters, I believe muscle mass wise they are superior to bodybuilders, however, they have a larger amount of fat mass covering them. And yes, powerlifters do work their triceps and biceps.

Second, unless I'm wrong, you cannot control how the ATP is released, so local concentrations of ATP aren't possible for just a specific bodypart.

Third, you'd have to block the alpha-2 receptors to keep from storing fat.

Fourth, just because a few fitness gurus might think it is plausible does not mean it is possible. If it was true, we'd all just do a thousand crunches a day and have beautiful abs. ;)
 
evolution said:
If it was true, we'd all just do a thousand crunches a day and have beautiful abs. ;)
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lmao, the only spot training there is, is cardio it spots trains your whole body. then again so does all excersise.
 
okay so lets get logical...

abs are just like any other muscle. if you do a weighted ab exercise for 12, 10, 8 reps.. and reach failure on each set, you will build muscle on your abs. muscle will inturn burn fat. so does that count as spot reduction?
 
it doesnt just burn any fat. think about it. why would building muscle in ur abs burn fat in the rest of ur body? it wouldnt. atp is taken from wherever storage may be in the torso, thus burning fat in the surrounding area.
 
maria_camille03 said:
That makes perfect sense, actually..
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So how come it doesn't work? :confused:

I mean (A) has anyone NOT tried spot reduction in their life and (B) has anyone had success? The (C) why don't I have a perfect 6-pack?

I have 24% body fat and do crunches like a m*****f*****. I can feel my perfect 6-pack beneath a layer of fat, which inexplicably, exists over my abs. :D
 
i have done it & i do have abs..

i have never done a crunch in my life, because i don't think they work.. i only do weighted ab exercises, low reps 12-15 and then reach failure.. i think that intensity has everything to do with buliding muscle (therefore reducing fat)

and i think spot reduction is limited by overall bodyfat, you can't have a 6 pack when you have 35 or 40 bf%.. you must lower your overall bf, and then focus on your abs.. but personally i know someone with prob around 18 or 19% bf and has really defined abs(he also hates crunches)
 
So how come it doesn't work?
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Just like all things, diet and cardio must also be apart of the regime (I do hope I spelt that right...), but it makes perfect sense that your arms will not grow more muscular when you do sit ups. You're not working the arm muscles, you're working the ab muscles, thus, your abs are the ones that get the benefits. But sit ups do not reduce fat, they strengthen abs, which is where the cardio and diet comes in handy.
 
I got my body fat measured by my doctor, and im 16% bf, and I can clearly see the outline of my abs starting to peek through my stomach, and i havent done cardio in over a month and my stomach has been getting flatter. ive been reaching failure and making sure i dont stop my abs til they burn like all hell. it works. the rest of my body still has fat wherever else it may be, but my stomach has been looking thinner and thinner. i think spot reduction, to an extent, does exist.
 
until a clinical trial is done it cannot be believed.

There are many external factors that may have an influence such as diet, psychological status, placebo effect, degree of muscle contraction.

If all of these could be controlled and several sunbects did abdominal muscle crunches and nothing else for a period of time we would see the end result if fat had bene burned off or not.

Ultimately I think local fat is burned when a muscle is used, but the amounts are so tiny you would never see a difference in reality, compared to excersises which burn off fat at a much higher rate such as anerobic cardio, squats etc etc
 
Shinra said:
1. We all have ATP (energy) stored in muscles and other areas all around your body. It's how we function.

2. ATP is released to aid the body, thus burning fat.
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I'm not a pro on bioenergetics, but I'm not sure you're really looking at the way this works properly.

Yes, your body burns fat using ATP - but it's different for body fat. It's a part of the Oxidative (Aerobic) system. But fat (bioavailable lipids) and body fat (energy stored in fat cells) are two very different things.

For starters, ATP storage in a particular muscle is extremely low. We generate additional ATP (as I'm sure you know) through several main processes in the body: the phosphagen system, fast/slow glycolysis, and the oxidative system. Each of these, in essence, recycles ATP by catabolizing key molecules (glycogen, glucose, phosphagen, oxygen, lipids, protein) and anabolizing into ATP to be broken down for energy.

So in the case of fats, you have body fat, and fat that's recently digested and already available in the bloodstream. In the second case, this doesn't matter because we're only concerned with stored fat. In the former case, we're talking about fat that needs to be liberated from fat cells.

You're arguing that your body will liberate fat from fat cells closest to the working muscle groups, and the rest of us are (or at least, I am) arguing that your body will liberate fat from fat cells based on hormonal response.

Now, consider these:
1. The usage of energy substrates, whether carbohydrates, lipids, or proteins is controlled directly or indirectly by hormonal stimulation.

2. Trigylcerides stored in fat cells (adipose cells) are released by hormone-sensitive lipase, an enzyme - this releases free fatty acids into the blood stream where they can be circulated to the muscle

3. Therefore, the determination of free fatty acid liberation is hormonal in nature

4. Muscles do not produce hormones - and therefore cannot have direct control over free fatty acid liberation for their energy

5. The control of these free fatty acid liberating hormones seems to be, first and foremost, genetic in nature. The term for this roadmap of fat release in the body is known as "fat patterning", a well accepted premise in clinical medicine.

6. Fat mobilization occurs in the entire body during an intense muscular workout (when necessary)

7. The oxidative system, the only main fat burning system, is activated primarily during endurance and cardio exercise - not during resistance exercise. Even during the oxidative system, carbohydrates are chosen as the primary substrate. The liberation of fat is such a chemically complex process (a process known as lipolysis - requiring cascading of a number of different enzymes, proteins, and hormones), it is difficult to use them for high intensity activity such as weighlifting -whereas in cardio, the primary limiting factor isn't muscular energy but oxygen capacity.

8. Even if fat could be freed from fat cells directly around muscles, there are no direct pathways between adipose cells and muscle cells.

9. Since the conversion from triglycerides (stored fat) to fat available for energy (free fatty acids) is so complex that the triglycerides

10. Another main cause of free fatty acid release from adipose tissue is increased blood levels of epinephrine (a hormone, aka: adrenaline) which is a stimulant for lipolysis initiation. This would lead one to believe that since blood levels are increasing, fat reduction would depend upon areas within the body that have more receptor sites in adipose tissue for epinephrine.

So, all things told, it's very unlikely that any form of spot reduction exists, except perhaps through dermal supplementation which stimulates lipolysis in certain adipose tissue.
 
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Just a quick note:
Why would the body release ATP from every area of your body for you to work your arms? It wouldn't, and it doesn't.
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Your body isn't releasing ATP from anywhere, it's releasing energy substrates that are used in the muscle to create/recycle ATP.
 
Fil,
a well thought-out post, with number 5 being, to me, the key point. The body is genetically pre-determined as to where the fat will "burn from" first. ATP does not burn fat, it produces energy, and there is such a limited amount of ATP available when lifting (enough for about 1 MAYBE 2 heavy reps), that it really is irrelevant.
Most sets take place in the 10-30 second range, thus using Glycolysis to create energy.
Fil, I do want to argue that a lot of research has been done about the aerobic benefits of high intensity resistance training due to EPOC.
Your thoughts?
Wes Norris, CSCS
 
I'm actually not familiar with the term "EPOC" :) I'm pretty okay at my research, but I'm only doing the NSCA studies right now (and that's to be a CPT, not become a CSCS) - so bear with me - what's EPOC?
 
I'm a former nursing student, we learned about EPOC in anatomy and actually had to measure O2 levels before and after using a stationary bike. Maybe this link will help.
 
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I actually did study about that, but I had forgotten. I'll have to look more into it before I can give you any serious discussion on the topic :)
 
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