Is it best to target areas of fat or to try to reduce total fat?
Contrary to popular opinion, there is no exercise that will effectively target a specific area of fat. The scientific reason for this is that you don’t have any control over which adipocytes (fat cells) release fat. Hormones in our bodies stimulate these cells to release fat, but they do not discriminate. We all have patterns of weight loss and gain, which is mostly determined by gender and genetics, (some of us put on fat in our hips first, some notice it in our faces) but this has nothing to do with the specific exercises we do. For example, 1000 crunches a day will not reduce fat over your abs. You will gain muscle underneath, but the fat covering those amazing abs will still be there until you reduce your body fat percentage. The only way to lost fat is diet manipulation (consuming less calories than you expend) and cardiovascular exercise. This is not to say that exercises such as weight lifting and calisthenics are not useful, because they are. Any type of exercise will burn calo
