Visceral fat — the deep abdominal fat linked to heart disease and diabetes — is notoriously hard to target. A new study in female rats shows that 10 weeks of resistance exercise training (ladder climbing with added weight) significantly reduced visceral fat mass and lowered fasting blood glucose, even though total body weight didn't change. The researchers found that resistance training activated key fat-breakdown proteins — specifically ATGL and PKA — inside the visceral fat tissue itself. Visceral fat mass was strongly correlated with fasting blood sugar levels, suggesting that shrinking this fat depot directly improves metabolic health. These findings suggest resistance training works as a weight-neutral strategy to improve cardiometabolic health, particularly relevant for women.
