With so many people trying to burn extra calories, lose weight, or burn fat, there are always new diets, training plans, and fads being advertised that can allegedly help you reach your fitness goals.
Most of these don’t actually work and are more about making money rather than trying to help people stay fit and healthy.
Sometimes, the solution to your fitness goals is an old-school, traditional exercise that’s often far better and effective than any fad plan you can find online.
We’re talking about push-ups!
Push-ups are a great exercise for so many different things, and in this article, we discuss whether they can help burn your back fat too.
We look at the keys to burning back fat, different variations of push-ups and how they could help, as well as the frequency and intensity that you need to achieve to help burn back fat with push-ups.
Do Push-Ups Burn Back Fat?
It’s crucial to point out right from the start that you can’t spot-reduce fat from any specific location of your body.
You can certainly have a nutrition and exercise plan that aims to burn fat, but you can’t pinpoint exactly where the fat will be burned from.
As long as you understand this, then it’s easier to also understand that push-ups can help as part of a fat-burning program.
Push-ups help build muscle in various parts of your body.
The more muscle mass you have, the more calories and fat you can burn.
This is exactly how push-ups can help reduce back fat.
They can’t target the fat on your back directly, but they can help get your body into prime fat-burning condition.
Once you’re burning high levels of fat, it will eventually be burned from your back too resulting in a loss of back fat.
In very basic terms, push-ups can be very useful when it comes to reducing back fat. However, they won’t directly target the fat on your back.
Instead, they’ll help build muscle in your body which can lead to increased fat-burning potential.
The Key To Losing Back Fat
Probably the most important aspect of burning fat is to ensure you’re in a calorie deficit at the end of each day.
What this means is that you have burned more calories than you’ve consumed.
Once you’re in a calorie deficit, your fat-burning potential increases quite drastically.
Losing back fat also comes down to the muscles in your back. It sounds a bit silly, but the more muscle mass you have in your back, the greater your chances of burning back fat.
This can be why some people struggle to lose back fat, as many fat-burning programs focus their attention on the front of your body, with particular attention placed on your abs and core.
By developing your back muscles, you might be able to increase your chances of losing back fat.
Can Wall Push-Ups Reduce Back Fat?
Wall push-ups can be helpful in reducing back fat.
They are a variation of regular push-ups where you’re standing in front of a wall and perform the push-up movement against the wall rather than down on the floor.
Wall push-ups work pretty much the same muscles as regular push-ups and do cause activation in your back muscles.
This means that they certainly can help reduce back fat.
Like with regular push-ups, wall push-ups won’t specifically target back fat but they can certainly help as part of a larger fat-birning program.
How Many Push-Ups Should You Do To Burn Back Fat?
This will usually depend on your current fitness levels and how many push-ups you can already do.
As a rough guide though, you’ll want to be working at a relatively high rep range, so doing 3 – 5 sets of more than 20 push-ups can be helpful in a fat burning program.
That being said, if you aren’t able to do that many push-ups, do as many as you can to challenge your working muscles over a longer period of time than a normal quick set of push-ups.
Push-ups get easier over time, so stick with it and you’ll be able to do the recommended number in no time!
How Often Should You Do Push-Ups To Burn Back Fat?
This will also depend on your current push-up abilities but doing push-ups around 3 times a week can be useful for fat burning.
However, you’ll need to take into account any other exercise you’re doing and adjust the frequency of your push-ups accordingly.
Conclusion
In summary:
- While push-ups won’t directly burn back fat, they can help you lose weight as part of a exercise program.
- You cannot choose where fat will be burned from your body.
That’s all for this article, but do push ups work traps? Or perhaps you’re interested in Hindu push ups vs normal push ups?
Hope this helped!
Sources
I’ve been in the fitness and strength training industry for nearly a decade. In that time, I’ve gained 30 pounds of muscle, written hundreds of articles, and reviewed dozens of fitness supplements. As for my educational background, I’m a currently studying for my Active IQ Level 3 Diploma in Personal Training.