Cellulite gives your skin a lumpy, cottage-cheese appearance. These fat deposits are most likely to develop on your thighs and abdomen, but they can also appear elsewhere on your body such as your arms. Because cellulite settles just under the surface of your skin, it can be more annoying and distracting than fat that settles deeper in your body, but at least it's not as dangerous. Certain exercises can help to reduce overall body fat and minimize the appearance of cellulite.
How Cellulite Develops
Cellulite isn't necessarily a symptom of being overweight; even thin women can have it. It occurs when collagen fibers that connect fat to your skin begin to break down and fat bulges through the openings, creating a dimpled effect. When collagen degrades, it also thins your skin out. Cellulite is more noticeable on thin skin than it is on thick skin.
Risk Factors
You're more susceptible to developing cellulite if you're a girl or woman and if it runs in your family. Your age, body fat mass and thickness of your skin also influence how cellulite develops and appears on your skin. Sagging skin makes cellulite more visible. In some cases, cellulite might not be very visible, but you can determine if you have it by squeezing the skin on your upper thigh.
Aerobic Exercises that Can Help
While expensive creams and spa treatments won't do much to reduce the appearance of cellulite, exercise and losing weight can be more effective. Aerobic exercises, such as running, rollerblading, cycling and skipping, burn more calories when you're doing them than strength-training exercises. Overall calorie burning from stored fat and carbohydrates will make a difference in reducing cellulite. Even moderate-intensity exercises done for 30 minutes five days a week can help to burn off fat and reduce cellulite. Moderate-intensity exercises include brisk walking, water aerobics and doubles tennis.
Importance of Strength Training
While you burn fewer calories during weight training, this form of exercise helps you to build muscle, which increases your metabolic rate. As a result, you burn more calories after you've finished exercising and when you're at rest. Also, muscles help to fill out or plump up your skin, so cellulite is less visible. Good body weight exercises include pushups, the plank, lunges, squats, wall squats and variations of these exercises. Working out with ankle weights, resistance bands or weight machines can also build muscle and help reduce the look of cellulite.
Try to do weight training two or three times a week. Complete two sets of eight to 12 repetitions for each exercise.
Evidence on Weight Loss
In a 2006 study in the journal "Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery," weight loss reduced the look of cellulite in 17 out of 29 women. However, cellulite looked worse in nine of the women after weight loss. Factors that influenced how weight loss affected cellulite included the amount of weight and thigh fat women lost; the more they lost, the more their skin's appearance improved. Women who did not have a lot of weight to lose did not experience significant improvements.
Although the study did not include exercise as part of the weight-loss plan, it does show the benefit of reducing weight and body fat on cellulite.
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