Muscle Talk

Spot reduction is a myth, a fallacy, a make-believe construct. Spot reduction has gained a reputation for being more fiction than fact. Until recently, though, scientists weren’t able to prove in a lab that spot reduction didn’t work. Researchers in Chile have brought to light reasons why doing hundreds of reps per workout for your legs won’t make the fat on your thighs go away. In this study, test subjects lifted 10 to 30 percent of their one-rep max on the one-legged leg press 3 times per week for 12 weeks. Each workout consisted of one set of 960 to 1,200 reps of leg press, and took about 80 minutes to complete. Only one leg was trained; the other was left untrained. At the end of the 12 weeks, the fat mass of the trained leg was reduced by 20 grams and the amount lost on the untrained leg was 70 grams, which isn’t considered statistically significant. Moreover, subjects ended up losing more fat mass from their trunks than their legs! Doing 80 minutes of leg training three times a week, and it was subjects’ midsections got smaller? Take that, spot reduction!