Real Life Fitness Questions Answered

Thighs are us! Advice for a pear shape please?

Hi, I am completely pear shaped and have a slight phobia of cardio as I want to keep my boobs. If I work on my thighs, will all the hard graft ever be visible? Or will the muscle tone be surrounded by fat forever? Is there really any ways to spot reduce them and keep the boobs? Thanks

Our expert says...

Hi,

To adjust your described ‘pear shape’ you will have to target both muscletone (achieved through strength training) and fat reduction (through calorie burning and calorie deficit through nutrition) to balance up yourbody shape and reduce size around the hip/thigh area.

Obviously cardiovascular exercise is well-documented for its benefits in assisting weight loss through calorie burning and subsequent fat reduction but it isn’t the only way to achieve this, (though it is an easy and commonmethod). Your best approach is you are so determined to prevent body fat reduction from your chest area (though such control is not consciously controllable and the degree does vary with individual differences in chest size, genetics etc) would be to focus a lot of strength-endurance exercise on the lower body and core (i.e. bodyweight circuits for the legs e.g. squats, lunges) and a sensible, slow approach to weight loss with nutritional calorie control. 

Being realistic, it is a guarantee that as your body becomes more efficient at burning body fat for fuel, (from regular exercise participation), it will randomly choose the body stores it takes it from and this is not something science appears to be able to have a great influence on. So, you should be prepared to experience some reduction in size as your weight decreases. 

In terms of specifically ‘spot-reduction’, it was known to be 'fact' (until recently), that is was not possible to reduce fat from a specific place on the body though targeted strength training. However, recent studies from America have suggested this may not be entirely the case. In light of this growing amount of contradictory evidence there is a lot of controversy over what is the most accurate understanding. What is known is that targeting a muscle group provides improvements in strength and tone and this improves other metabolic functions in the area.It is physiologically understood that the better activation, (neural firing), a muscle has (achieved through effective strength and stabilization training) the better the fibres in that muscle are to utilise fuel (carbohydrate and fat stores) and therefore may be better able to utilise and burn those in the surrounding area.

I hope this helps,

Kelly