Best Machine To Lose Belly Fat — Go Straight to This One in the Gym

Table of Contents

• Best Machine To Lose Belly Fat & Alternatives
• Do These Machines Spot-Target Belly Fat?
• Do You Need Exercises to Lose Belly Fat?
• Bottom Line

In the gym, the best machine to lose belly fat could help you tone your stomach muscles and encourage fat loss. 

Sculpting midsection definition combines two key processes: building core muscle and losing belly fat that hides those muscles, revealing the hard work underneath.

But sadly, it’s a myth that ab workouts done in isolation are enough to burn calories and cinch your waistline. 

That said, some equipment to lose belly fat could be helpful. 

Here’s why we rate these machines and how they could help you. 

Best Machine To Lose Belly Fat & Alternatives

Combining full-body cardio workouts with ab exercises is the best way to achieve fat loss while building ab strength.

But here’s the thing: it doesn’t guarantee definition. 

Sleep, stress, lifestyle, diet, activity levels, and biological factors like sex and weight all matter and determine your metabolism, body shape, and how likely you are to cling to excess abdominal fat.

The treadmill is the best exercise equipment to lose belly fat and provides opportunities for weight loss training sessions, but here’s a full rundown of our top choices. 

Treadmill

You can walk, power walk, and run on a treadmill while targeting every major muscle group in the body and engaging your abs. 

Inclines emphasize the posterior chain muscles that run down the back of your body, like your glutes and hamstrings, while declining front load the quads.

Treadmills hit your core muscles, glutes, quads, hamstrings, hip flexors, and calf muscles, building lower body strength and power. 

The benefits of walking on a treadmill are plenty, and during treadmill workouts, you can ramp up calorie expenditure using interval training to help you burn fat. But how many calories could you burn? 

Factors like sex, weight, and speed will impact calorie burn. 

According to our treadmill calorie calculator, someone weighing 60kg running at an average speed of 6km/h on a 1% incline (on a treadmill, 1% mimics natural outdoor terrain), could expect to burn 215kcal in 30 minutes.

Let’s change it up to miles per hour (mph). In that case, someone weighing 60kg running at a moderate 6mph pace for 30 minutes could burn roughly 294kcal. 

Calorie counters use MET values based on the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities, but remember — it’s just an estimate.

Elliptical Trainer

Ellipticals, known as cross trainers, are a low-impact way to mimic running. 

Again, they target pretty much every major muscle group but can work your upper body muscles much harder than treadmills when you grip the handles or isolate the lower body without the handles. 

You could hit your chest, back, shoulders, arms, core, hip flexors, glutes and legs during a session on the elliptical, strengthening muscles while burning fat. 

Using the same metrics above, you could expect to burn roughly 154kcal in 30 minutes at a moderate intensity or 180kcal at a vigorous intensity. 

Bike

Exercise bikes are having a moment as one of the best machines for fat loss. 

Spin studios are one of the most popular HIIT workout methods for burning calories, hitting the lower body and core muscles hard during sessions. 

And 30 minutes of stationary cycling could burn roughly 158kcal while strengthening your legs, lower back, and core muscles. 

You could increase calories burned by cycling outdoors through uneven terrain. For example, cycling between 12-13.9 mph at a moderate effort could burn 252kcal in just 30 minutes. Again, terrain, intensity, and speed all matter.

Stairmaster

The stairstepper might look ominous, but if you’re wondering what equipment to use at the gym to lose belly fat, this is one to consider. 

As the name suggests, stair masters mimic climbing the stairs, hitting your glutes, hip flexors, quads, hamstrings, and calf muscles, and engaging your core. 

Just 30 minutes on the gym machine could burn 126kcal at a slow pace, and using a moderate pace, 277kcal. 

Do These Machines Spot-Target Belly Fat?

As with any other exercise equipment, you can’t spot-reduce fat, meaning you can’t choose where to lose fat from (boo!). 

Instead, you can decrease fat percentage across the whole body using gym machines to lose belly fat.

Remember, fat loss derives from burning more calories than you consume, also known as a calorie deficit. 

Although exercising has many benefits, including building strength and muscle and burning calories, workouts account for just 20% of your today daily energy expenditure (TDEE).

We recommend topping up using NEAT — Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, alongside workouts. 

That means standing and moving more throughout the day to keep your metabolism revved and support fat loss. 

Do You Need Exercises to Lose Belly Fat?

You don’t need resistance training to lose fat, but here’s the crux:

Targeted ab exercises will strengthen core muscles, including your abs, helping to build tone and definition. 

Building muscle alongside fat loss could help you sculpt your stomach.

The following exercises are effective for the abs and the core. Here’s why. 

Planks and Variations

Planks are great at building a stronger core while targeting every major muscle group. 

Try plank variations like moving planks, high and forearm planks, or lifting one arm or leg away from the ground to make the core exercise harder.

Dead Bug

The ab exercise targets the deeper core muscles like the lower abs, engaging your arms, shoulders, hip flexors and legs. 

Slow the move down and coordinate opposite arms and legs with control to get the most from your dead bugs.

Russian Twist

Russian twists strengthen the obliques using rotation. 

The ab exercise engages 360-degree core activation and further challenges your legs if you lift them away from the ground. 

Sit-Ups

The traditional core exercise hits your abs, and you can isolate them even more by adopting butterfly sit-ups, which involve placing the soles of your feet together and opening your knees wide, eliminating your hip flexors. 

Remember to sit up fully so that your arms reach beyond your knees to achieve a full range of motion.

Criss-Cross

The crisscross combines leg raises and the bicycle crunch into one ab-torching exercise. 

The twisting motion targets your obliques while also keeping your upper body engaged using the prisoner arm position (hands behind the head). 

You’ll also hit your abs, hip flexors, upper back and legs, making it a full-body exercise. 

Bottom Line

• The best machines to lose belly fat include cardio-focused exercises like running, stair climbing, cycling and cross training.
• You can’t spot-reduce belly fat, but you can lower your overall body percentage by remaining in a small calorie deficit (consuming less calories than you expend).
• Compound exercises that target multiple muscle groups and increase your heart rate are best at burning calories, building muscle and supporting weight loss.
• Isolation exercises like crunches are useful for building core strength, but couple them with high-intensity exercises to help burn belly fat.
• The best workout machine for belly fat is the treadmill, as you can add intensity using incline, decline and speed.
• We recommend adding these 8 ab exercises that don’t hurt your lower back to your exercise routine alongside gym machines and the bodyweight core exercises above.