My First Fitness Blog

[Owen]

So, basically me and my friend have made a website where we will blog/post fitness related articles, usually dispelling some of the myths/fallacies that you hear/read in the gym or on the internet.

I wont link the website here because we aren't going to start posting properly until we have a bank of about 20 articles to release.

But here's a sneak preview:

Spot Reduction – Fact or Fiction

What is Spot Reduction?  Spot reduction is the 'belief' (I say belief and not theory), that training a particular area will burn fat from that area.  It's the reason you see countless people doing thousands of crunches trying to get that ever elusive six pack.
Speak to any slightly educated fitness professional, coach, or doctor and they will tell you it doesn't work.  The body is simply not programmed that way.

Look at it from the basis of all weight loss programs.  To lose weight you need to burn calories, if your 'Calories Out' (The calories you burn by living, breathing, exercising) is greater than your 'Calories In' (The calories consumed in food/drink) then you will lose weight.  It stands to reason then that to lose fat mass efficiently, you should do high calorie burning exercise with a low calorie/calorie controlled diet.

How many calories does a crunch burn you might ask?  According to livestrong.com a 160lb person doing 5 minutes of crunches will burn approximately 44 calories.

Let's take a look at the marmite of weightlifting, Barbell Squats (You either love them or hate them).  A 160lb person doing 160lb barbell squats burns around 100 calories in 5 minutes of total exercise.  (This might seem like an unattainable feat, but squatting bodyweight is achievable for almost anyone in a short amount of regular training).

See the difference?  Let's not even start to discuss the benefits of squatting over crunches to muscular development, especially in the abdomen/core and the metabolic effect of weight training, that's a whole new article.

Those numbers alone should tell you which you should be doing if you want to maximise weight loss.

Now let's talk fat storage/deposition and fat burning.  In women fat storage tends to occur mostly in the lower body, legs, thighs, bum.  In men it's the opposite, the upper body is the dump site for excess fat, in particular the gut, as well as the arms/chest.  This comes down to hormones and genetics controlling the adipose tissue (Where fat gets stored). 

Fat burning is controlled by the drop in the levels of blood insulin and the release of other hormones, as you might be aware insulin is produced in the pancreas, and circulates in the blood stream controlling your blood sugar level.  If insulin levels fall, blood sugars stop being used as energy, and stored fats start to be released to make up this deficit, this is what causes fat loss.  Insulin levels don't fall in specific areas; due to the nature of the human blood stream, it is fairly uniform across the entire body, as such one would expect an almost uniform increase in the use of stored fats across the entire body, not localised in one particular area.

Being now aware of how insulin controls fat burning across the entire body, and the calorific benefits of whole body/compound movements such as squats rather than isolation movements such as crunches, which would you rather do to reveal those abs of steel?

This is not to say that crunches are a wholly redundant exercise, but their use as a fat burner is very limited.  More to come on crunches/core work in the future.

[Colinwarrior]

Pretty good. I like it. I may be a regular reader of said blog.  ^.^

[Lord Himself]

What you say is very true

[Al]

that's great. i've always had it in mind to start something like this. one of my favorite blogs is this one - http://www.spartascience.blogspot.ca/2012/07/why-do-your-knees-hurt.html#more