![]() This is my preferred method of guesstimating body-fat percentage. Still, they’re affordable, you can use them from the comfort of your home, and they can work well if you’re willing to practice. Your first few months of using them may not be all that fruitful. There’s an art to getting precise measurements. But they can tell you how much fat is clouding your muscle definition.Ĭallipers are also difficult to master. They can’t probe beneath your muscles, so they can’t tell you how much visceral fat you’re storing. Skinfold callipers are the opposite of the Navy Method, good for aesthetics but not health. The Bodybuilder Method (Skinfold Calipers) If your waist circumference is over 40 inches, we recommend cutting.If your waist circumference is over 36 inches, consider cutting.If your waist circumference is 36 inches, it’s time to stop bulking.If your waist circumference is under 36 inches, you’re cleared to bulk.It won’t tell you what your body-fat percentage is, but it will tell you when it’s time to stop bulking and when you need to consider losing weight. As mentioned above, our waist circumference affects our general health ( study, study, study). I was so frustrated that I got rid of the scale and bought a simpler, cheaper one that wouldn’t try to measure my body-fat percentage. Instead of 20% body fat, it measured me at 8%. My BIA scale decided I had an “athletic” body composition, so it switched to a different algorithm. Something strange happened when I made it up to 185 pounds. My waist circumference wasn’t exploding, either. That made me anxious, but my abs looked the same as they always did. When I was bulking up from 130 to 170 pounds, my BIA scale started at 10% and climbed all the way to 20%. They’re for tracking fat loss in overweight people, not muscle gain in skinny guys. Again, they’re just not something designed for guys like us. Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA scales)Īre bioelectrical impedance analysis scales (BIA) an accurate way of measuring body-fat percentage? No, BIA scalres are cheap and convenient-most modern bathroom scales have this feature-but they’re even less accurate than DEXA and BodPod. Let’s go over some of the other common methods. We’ve already covered why DEXA scans and BodPods won’t work properly until you’ve already bulked up to a solid weight. For more, we’ve got a full article for skinny-fat guys. You could also start by staying at the same body weight (body recomposition) or with a lean bulk. So, if you’re skinny-fat, you don’t necessarily need to start by getting lean. We’ve written a full article breaking down that research. It seems that the fatter someone is, the more easily they tend to lose fat, and the more leanly they tend to build muscle. There’s a myth among bodybuilders that getting too fat impairs muscle growth. The final concern is how body fat affects muscle growth. If you’re muscular, you might be able to pull off a body-fat percentage closer to 20%. In that case, most guys look their best at around 10–15% body fat ( reference). Most skinny are afraid of gaining fat because of how it looks, though. If you want to play it totally safe, you can keep your waist circumference under 36 inches. The National Institutes of Health recommend keeping your waist circumference under 40 inches ( reference). The fat around our organs (visceral fat) has a bigger impact on our health than the fat right underneath our skin (subcutaneous fat).įortunately, if we measure our waist circumference, we can get a good idea of how much fat’s accumulating around our organs. It depends on what type of fat we’re storing. People throw around is 20% as the cut-off point, but it’s a bit more nuanced. ![]() There’s some debate about when fat starts to pose a risk to our health. That’s why most guys look better when they’re above 8–12% body fat. We get the “death face.” Our necks often start looking thin, too. Muscles look good at very low body-fat percentages, but it often makes our face look gaunt. Maybe it’s at 12%.įortunately, unless you’re a bodybuilder, you never need to get that lean. When his body is happy with his body-fat percentage, he can start building muscle again. His body needs fat more than it needs muscle. When a bodybuilder steps off the stage and starts eating a normal amount of food again, he’ll often gain 10–20 pounds of pure fat. This gets increasingly extreme as our body-fat percentage drops lower. ![]() That makes it harder to build muscle and easier to gain fat. ![]() When you get leaner than your body wants to be, your fat cells get hungry, cortisol levels rise, and testosterone drops ( study). The body-fat percentage range starts at around 8–12%, depending on the person ( study). How to Visually Estimate Your Body-Fat Percentage.The Bodybuilder Method (Skinfold Calipers).Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA scales). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |