VIDEO | The Study | Abdominal Aerobic Endurance Exercise | The Workouts | Why Did This Work? | Takeaway

I am often asked how you lose excess fat in specific areas of the body, such as the belly, hips, thighs, and arms. 

If you’ve lost weight through improvements to your diet but still have trouble areas, it’s logical to target those areas with exercise. Unfortunately, there has been little scientific evidence to support the idea that working the muscles in problem areas burns the fat in those specific areas. 

With that said, I came across a well-done study from 2023 that got results spot reducing abdominal fat through abdominal aerobic endurance training. In this blog post, I share what it takes to spot reduce belly fat. 

You Can SPOT REDUCE BELLY FAT – But Here’s What It Takes [Video]

In this video, you’ll learn…

• The details of this study.
• How to perform the workouts yourself.
• The researcher’s speculation about why this worked.

The Study 

The study compared a group of overweight men who performed just treadmill workouts (control group) with a group that combined treadmill workouts with abdominal aerobic endurance training (treatment group) (1). 

After 10 weeks, both groups lost fat overall, but only the group that added abdominal exercises lost fat mass in their trunk (i.e., abdominal area, chest, and back).

What is abdominal aerobic endurance exercise? How can you do it at home, and exactly how good were these results? 

Abdominal Aerobic Endurance Exercise

We are all familiar with aerobic endurance workouts. Typical examples include heading outside for a jog or hopping on a stationary bike at the gym and moving at a pace that increases your breathing rate (aerobic) for an extended period (endurance).

When you exercise, you usually perform aerobic exercise or what is considered the opposite, resistance training, where you work out using free weights or gym equipment. However, the two forms of exercise can be combined. You can work against resistance, and as long as the resistance is not set too high, you can do many reps, getting the aerobic benefit. 

This is what was done in the research study. The participants in the treatment group utilized two pieces of abdominal exercise equipment: a torso rotation machine and a crunch machine. 

They set the resistance level at a point (30% to 40% of their maximal strength) that taxed their abdominal muscles but also allowed them to maintain a steady pace for four minutes at a time. They called that activity abdominal aerobic endurance exercise. 

The Workouts 

The study lasted 10 weeks, and the participants worked out four days a week (40 training sessions).

Each workout started with 27 minutes of running on a treadmill. The subjects then performed 57 minutes of endurance ab work utilizing a torso rotation machine and an ab crunch machine.

I am going to break down what those 57 minutes looked like. But to understand the time spent, you must realize that the rotation machine works one side of your torso at a time. You twist against resistance in one direction, and then the machine passively returns you to your starting point. This doubles the time spent on the machine because you have to actively exercise the left side of your body and then the right side of your body.  

With that in mind, once the subjects completed their 27-minute run, they proceeded to the torso rotation machine, where they performed four, four-minute intervals in both directions. 

After a brief rest, the subjects moved to the abdominal crunch machine, performing four, four-minute intervals at about 30% to 40% of their maximum ability. In other words, they lowered the resistance so they could actively perform crunches for four minutes.

Between sets, they did not stop and take complete breaks. Instead, they took three-minute active rest periods, meaning they lowered the resistance to 20% of their max and continued to do crunches. 

Their total exercise time was 84 minutes, and they did that four times a week for 10 weeks. 

Results

For their efforts, fat mass in the midsection of the treatment group participants decreased more (697g or about 1.5 lbs) than in the control group. That is an impressive loss from a localized area. Plainly stated, the participants spot reduced belly fat. 

Why did this work when, basically, all of the prior studies said exercise-induced spot reduction was impossible?

Why Did This Work? 

Any time a study gets a result that bucks the norm, the reason for the unusual result is hard to pinpoint. Obviously, these workouts were intense, and there are certainly some metabolic explanations that need further investigation. However, the investigators speculated that the endurance element and the fact that they were focused on the upper body rather than the lower body may have been key factors. 

Previous spot reduction studies have predominantly utilized strength training, which employs heavy weights and few reps, not aerobic endurance training. Both forms of exercise burn fat, but they do so in different ways due to the nature of each activity.

Aerobic endurance exercises tap into fat stores to sustain energy throughout the workout. Strength training focuses on short bursts of intense effort, often requiring more immediate energy from glycogen. Strength training will cause fat-burning later on. This is called the “afterburn” effect, but that fat energy is drawn from the whole body, not the fat over the muscle group. 

Also, in this study, the participants specifically exercised their abdominal muscles. Past research has shown that it is easier to mobilize fat from the upper body than it is from the lower body. 

As I said at the beginning of this post, typical aerobic endurance exercises include jogging and riding a bike. These activities work the lower body muscles and lead to fat loss throughout the body. Could performing aerobic endurance exercises on upper body muscles, like the abs, make spot reduction possible? That is the speculation and a question for a follow-up study. 

Takeaway

You can achieve exercise-induced spot reduction of belly fat if you exercise this way. 

Start your workout with a 27-minute run on a treadmill, then proceed to the abdominal aerobic endurance exercises. First, you’ll do four, four-minute intervals using a torso rotation machine. Do that on both sides before moving to the abdominal crunch machine, where you will do four, four-minute intervals interspersed with 3-minute active rest periods.  

Reference:

(1) Brobakken, Mathias Forsberg, et al. “Abdominal aerobic endurance exercise reveals spot reduction exists: A randomized controlled trial.” Physiological reports 11.22 (2023): e15853.

About the Author

Becky Gillaspy, DC, is the author of The Intermittent Fasting Guide and Cookbook and Zero Sugar / One Month. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with research honors from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1991.