Do you believe in spot-reduction?...

[homonunculus]

This is inspired by KR's post entitled "glute day."

http://www.intensemuscle.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=950

Just wondering - I'll leave my opinion out of this for now: do you believe in spot-reduction?...

This is the notion that training a muscle (group) will preferentially draw from the subcutaneous fat stores overlying the exercised muscle itself, leading to better muscle definition.

As a second notion - this would pertain to the idea of getting "striations" in the glutes, for instance - do you believe you can shape a muscle, or change the contours of its fascia (epimysium) so that it appears "striated?" (I use striations parenthetically b/c scientifically in the context of muscle histology, the term refers to the banding pattern greated by regularity of actin-myosin overlap in striated muscle which is not visible with the naked eye.)

-Randy

[crankin'stein]

I do not believe for a second that by working a certain muscle preferentially, you would be able to reduce the fat stores specifically from that area......

To lose fat your body must burn it off as fuel..... While doing this your body is not preferential to certain areas, and would not be preferential just because of the type of training given to that area..... That is why if you go back to Kr's post, you will see my opinion was that he will need to get his BF% lower to see his glutes better.....


I do believe that by using different exercises a muscle can be shaped a different way..... For instance, concentration curls can produce a better peak.... I don't however believe there is too many exercises that can actually focus on shaping the muscles a certain way.....

Theres my thoughts...

[Junkyard Dog]

The same way you can't choose where the fat is stored, you can't choose where the fat comes off.

The first place men store fat is in the abdominal region and women store it in their hips first. Then it spreads throughout the body as BF % increases.

The only way to spot reduce it to use liposuction or fat melting injectables (not even sure these work - I have not heard good things).

As far as muscle shaping goes. It is a difficult to say. I think you can style your routine to target one area of the muscle fiber more than another but I feel the growth is more univeral. I think targeting different areas of the muscle helps get past plateaus but it adds mass consistsantly over the muscle, not just the fibers that are being invoked.

[BiggerStronger]

JMO - I think that spot-reduction is possible to a very small degree. Overall though you are not going to see a huge benifit in excercising one certain muscle group to lose fat. It may make the muscle bigger....thus appearing that there is much less fat...but the difference probably isn't too much.

Anyways, fat is going to be burned off more quickly around those muscles because they're used more. Kinda like muscle memory...but the other way around.

[BiggerStronger]

On the second notion of shaping....I don't think that is true...I think that you can make them bigger...(I.E. Bigger peak on Bi's) but changing the shape of your muscles....no....it's genetics or synthol...lol

[jaywooly]

I agree completely with BS. Took the words right out of my mouth.