Fat Mobilisations

When it comes to burning fat at a high rate blood flow is essential. More importantly highly increased blood flow to regions with bad blood supply is key… So without further due let’s dive into the science of this phenomenon.

THE SCIENCE

Training is fun, science is usually tedious, so let’s zoom through this.

•Blood flow is crucial for fat extraction. Poor blood flow to certain areas of the body – obliques and lower abs for example – equals poor fat loss from those areas. Researcher K. Frayne notes: “There is evidence that adipose tissue blood flow does not increase sufficiently to allow delivery of all the fatty acids released into the systemic circulation.” Luckily, we can manipulate that with the right training.

•Calorie balance does matter, of course, but research is supporting what the old-school guys used to do. Calorie-burning is part of the equation, but calories come from difference sources. Would you rather the calories you burn in a conditioning session come from the fat area around your navel or from the glycogen and triglycerides in your muscles?

•Increase blood flow and you can extract more fat from the troubled area. With techniques like microdialysis, you can actually see this occurring. Microdialysis involves sticking super tiny tubes into subcutaneous fatty areas like the lower stomach and measuring fat breakdown products, like glycerol and fatty acids, in the interstitial fluid. Increase the blood flow to that area and localised fat loss increases. “That’s spot reduction,” says Dr. Lowery.

•Blood flow and lipolysis are generally higher in subcutaneous adipose tissue adjacent to the contracting muscle. (Stallknecht, 2007) An acute bout of exercise can induce spot lipolysis and increased blood flow in adipose tissue adjacent to contracting skeletal muscle. That means if you train your abs the right way at the right time, the belly fat on the outside of the abs will “burn” preferentially.

•Another paper notes that there are well-documented regional variations in lipolysis: “The subcutaneous abdominal has an intermediate rate and the gluteal-femoral depots have relatively sluggish turnover.”

THE WORKOUTS

The premise is simple: Go back and forth between an ab exercise and a conditioning exercise.

Abdominal exercise: Any movement will work. The goal is just to direct blood flow toward that area. For maximum effect you want the ab set to last 45-60 seconds. Less than that and you won’t be getting as much blood flow to the region.

Conditioning exercise: Any demanding energy systems activity will work too. Sprints, hill sprints, Prowler pushing, battle ropes, tire flipping, etc. You want the whole session to be non-stop for 10-15 minutes. That’s the key if you want maximum fat loss.

You can also use regular, moderate intensity cardio , but it’s much less efficient than true conditioning work. You’d need to do at least 30 minutes of cardio, so three bouts of 10 minutes, with 3-6 sets of ab work between every bout. The results will be there, but each session is three times a long. If you don’t have the conditioning level to do 10-15 minutes of intense work like Prowler pushing or sprints, this is a good option.