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00:00Everyone wants to lose that stubborn belly fat. Problem is, you can't choose where your body
00:05burns fat from every time you work out. Or at least, I didn't think you could. According to
00:10a new study, targeting belly fat may not only be possible, but also much easier than we all thought.
00:16In this video, I'll share exactly what researchers have found and how you can apply it to your own
00:21training. Now my belly has always been the hardest area to lose fat from. Even when I lose weight,
00:26it seemed like the fat there just wouldn't budge. But this got me wondering,
00:30why is belly fat so stubborn in the first place? Well, I looked into it and I'm glad that I did,
00:35because once you understand this, all the new research makes a lot more sense.
00:39You see, to burn fat, your body first needs to release it from the fat cell,
00:44a process known as mobilization. Once you've mobilized the fat, it can then be burned off
00:49for energy. But how exactly do you go about mobilizing it? Well, when you strength train,
00:54you don't just strengthen your muscles, you also increase blood flow to the fat that surrounds the
00:59muscle you're working. And this is one theory why belly fat can be so hard to get rid of.
01:04Compared to the fat in other areas of your body, it tends to receive very little blood flow.
01:09Not to venture, we also tend to train our abs less frequently than other muscles.
01:13Think about it. Your quads and hamstrings are used all the time. Running, squatting, walking,
01:18you name it. They're some of the largest muscles in your body and so they receive a large increase in
01:23blood flow when you're working out. But your belly? Well, not so much. So this got researchers
01:28thinking, if you can boost blood flow to your abs, could you then specifically target belly fat during
01:34exercise? And if you could target your belly, why stop there? Theoretically, by increasing blood flow
01:39to the right spot, you could reduce fat in any area that you chose. Theoretically. To find out,
01:46I reached out to my good friend, Dr. Bill Campbell, who runs a lab dedicated to fat loss out of the
01:52University of South Florida. I've been asked a lot, can you spot reduce? And my answer has always been
01:57no. The research that exists is not very strong. And most of the research that's been done on this
02:04has suggested or reported that it's not possible. After digging through endless research papers,
02:09I've come across all sorts of funny and in some cases, just plain out weird experiments researchers
02:14have tried to get to the bottom of this question. One study had participants do over 5,000 sit-ups in 27 days.
02:22Which honestly might be more than the rest of us have done in our entire lives. Another one had
02:27participants do 12 weeks of high intensity leg pressing on one leg. All to answer the question,
02:33can you choose where you burn fat? But neither study found a notable difference in fat loss.
02:39And because of this, most researchers, including Bill, were skeptical about the idea of spa reduction.
02:45People would, let's say, do hundreds and hundreds of crunches. And they would say,
02:50well, now I'm going to have a defined midsection. And my response would be, well, that's not really
02:55how it works. However, as it turns out, there was one thing that pretty much all of these studies
03:01overlooked. Remember how I said you need to mobilize fat before it can be burned off? Well, there's two
03:06parts to this process. First, mobilizing it, and then burn it at all. The issue with the past studies,
03:13such as the 5,000 sit-ups one, is that while they may have mobilized belly fat, this doesn't
03:18necessarily lean to burn it at all. But this is where a 2023 study comes into the picture.
03:25They wanted to test a routine that could do both.
03:27Yeah, so the results did surprise me. Just relying on my past knowledge, my thoughts were, I don't
03:34expect any type of spa reduction outcome to be reported. But that's exactly what was reported,
03:41and the design was good. Basically, researchers divided 16 overweight men into two groups.
03:48One focused on spa reduction and the other, the control group. Both followed a four-day workout
03:54plan for 10 weeks. The control group did 45 minutes on the treadmill each session. Meanwhile,
03:59the spa reduction group had a shorter, 27-minute treadmill workout, followed by two ab exercises,
04:05torso rotations and machine crunches. Now, this study was unique because it was also the first of its kind
04:11to make sure that the same amounts of calories were burned in both workout groups. And this is a big
04:16problem with a lot of prior research. If you don't equate the calories being burned, you don't have much
04:22faith in whatever body fat outcomes are being reported because it could be that they just
04:27burn more calories and, of course, they're going to lose more fat. So, what happened?
04:32Well, after the 10 weeks, both groups lost a relatively similar amount of total body fat.
04:37But what was surprising was that the spa reduction group lost two and a half times more fat from around
04:43their belly compared to the control group. What's also interesting is that the treadmill-only group
04:48also lost more fat from their legs than the spa reduction group. And if the spa reduction theory
04:53holds true, well, then this result makes sense since they did more right. But, of course, this
04:58study doesn't come without its limitations. One of the criticisms of the study was, well,
05:03they had more fat to start with, which they did, but they still lost like 3% more total fat in the
05:10trunk areas, like 7% versus 4%. So, even when you account for the fact that this spa reduction group
05:18had more fat to start with, they still lost significantly more fat, even accounting for
05:23baseline levels. And although the workouts were tightly controlled, the nutrition wasn't.
05:28Personally, I don't think this is too big of a concern given that both groups lost a relatively
05:32similar amount of overall fat, but it is something that would have made the study a lot stronger.
05:37But hey, it's not just this study. Other recent studies on spa reduction have also shown promising
05:43results. In 2017, there was a similar experiment. Researchers had one group perform an upper body
05:48workout, then followed up with 30 minutes of cardio. And another group did a lower body workout,
05:53followed by the same 30 minutes of cardio. Now, both groups performed the same number of exercises,
05:58sets, and reps, and they did this 3 times per week. After 12 weeks, both groups lost a near
06:05identical amount of total body fat. But again, what was interesting was that the upper body group
06:10lost more fat in their upper body, and the lower body workout group lost more fat in their lower body.
06:16And more recently, in 2021, another study found something similar. Just like the 2023 study,
06:23their idea was to use abs exercises to mobilize belly fat, and then combine it with cardio to burn
06:28the fattest fuel. And they too found promising results mainly in the upper belly area. Again, the studies do have
06:34their limitations. All studies do. But this research is still exciting to see, and I'm sure a lot more
06:40will be done in this area. And what's nice is that the results of these studies still offer some
06:44practical takeaways, which you can immediately start using in your workouts. Before I get to them,
06:49though, let me say this. If losing belly fat is your goal, then you need to be in a calorie deficit
06:54to get the best results. It's highly unlikely you're going to be able to gain weight while simultaneously
06:59spot reducing fat in your belly. What the studies do suggest, though, is that if you're doing ab work,
07:05you should probably combine it with some form of cardio either shortly before or after to get the
07:10most bang for your buck. Yeah, yeah, there's that. It has to be of such an intensity and or duration
07:18that it actually causes an increase in what we call oxidation, where you're actually burning the fat.
07:25As an example, you couldn't perform these studies and go for a three minute walk and come back and
07:31think, oh, I should have spot reduction. The other thing is that if spot reduction does work,
07:35then it seems like some abs exercises are better than others. I don't see planks as targeting the
07:42abdominal region, the abdominal muscles as much as crunches and abdominal torso rotation. I would suggest,
07:51and again, being a scientist, rely on the data that we have both use crunches and one use crunches
07:58and abdominal torso rotation rotation. So I would think, yes, that the the abdominal exercise does
08:06matter. So if I was designing a routine to better target belly fat, I'd use direct weighted abs exercises
08:12combined with low to moderate intensity cardio, which could look something like this. I'll be honest,
08:17though. I'm still not 100% convinced and neither was Bill when I spoke to him. These latest studies
08:22have definitely opened my mind to spot reduction being possible, and it seems like future research
08:27could be promising. But it's definitely not enough for me to go about planning spot reduction into most
08:32people's routines. That said, on my recovery days, I have been using those two abs exercises and slapping
08:38on some cardio either before or after. Who knows, maybe this is giving me the spot reduction effect,
08:43maybe it's thought. But even if it's not, I still highly recommend that you regularly train your abs,
08:49and with weight. Once I started training them consistently, they seemed to appear more visible
08:54even during bulks where my body fat was increasing. And after all, they're just like any other muscle
08:59group, and growing them can help with definition. But guys, just remember that most of your results
09:04will still come from the basics, and losing belly fat heavily depends on your diet. In fact, most people
09:10completely underestimate just how many calories are in their usual food choices. And this is why
09:16even people who eat clean and work hard still struggle to shed their belly fat. To help with
09:21this, I worked with our lead dietitian, Kelly, to show you how you can eat twice as much food while
09:26keeping the calories the same. And you can check out that video here. And for those who want more step-by-step
09:31guidance with both their training and nutrition, just head on over to builtwithscience.com to take our
09:37quiz to discover what approach is best for you and your body. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you next time.