So we cut away the fat until we’re back down to 20%, and then we try bulking up again, and again we just get fatter. When we gain weight, it seems to be mostly fat. This may be why so many skinny-fat guys are unable to bulk leanly. Even so, this effect gets more pronounced as our body-fat percentages get higher, so bulking at 17% is certainly a lot easier than bulking at 30% ( study). So it could be that these changes don’t really start to manifest at 15%. However, most research looking into the hormonal effects of various body-fat percentages only detects an effect when guys get over 20% body fat ( study, study). If that’s true, then even a great weightlifting routine wouldn’t be able to get our muscle fibres quite as insulin sensitive, and even a good muscle-building diet wouldn’t be able to spark quite as much muscle-protein synthesis. When we’re over 15% body fat, some experts believe that our inflated fat cells can start to interfere with your overall insulin sensitivity. As a result, for the sake of our performance, general health, appearance, and ability to build muscle, it’s usually a good idea to let our body-fat percentage drift to 10% or higher. Muscles look good when we’re lean, but we don’t have many muscles on our face, so at low body-fat percentages, our faces can start to look quite gaunt. Then, as he gets closer to 10% body fat, he can start building muscle properly again.Īlso keep in mind that if we cut down much further than 10%, it’s not only worse for our health, it can also make us look less healthy. He isn’t gaining fat because he’s doing anything wrong, it’s simply that his body needs fat more than it needs muscle. That’s why the healthy body-fat percentage range starts at around 8–12%, depending on the person ( study).įor example, when a bodybuilder steps off the stage and gets back to eating a regular amount, he’ll often gain 10–20 pounds of pure fat. This gets more and more extreme as our body-fat percentage gets lower, so building muscle at 9% is a lot easier than building muscle at 5%. And so if we focus on trying to stay at very low body-fat percentages, we’ll build muscle very slowly. When we’re under 10% body fat, our deflated fat cells are hungry, our levels of cortisol rise, and our testosterone plummets ( study), making it harder to build muscle, let alone build muscle leanly.
#BIGGER LEANER STRONGER BODY FAT HOW TO#
How to Estimate Your Body-Fat Percentage.15% Body Fat Marks a Turning Point-Sort Of.So in this article, we cover why your body-fat percentage matters even as a so-called “ ectomorph,” how to measure it properly, and then we’ll run through some real-life examples (with pictures) so that you have a better idea of how to judge your leanness at a glance. For guys who are underweight, DEXA and BodPod can be off by up to 13%. You’ve spent a few hundred dollars and an entire day getting two of the most accurate body-fat percentage tests in the world, and you can’t even tell if you should be bulking or cutting.
And so you might want to start with a cut before bulking. Huh? 22%? That’s not the end of the world, but you’re slightly outside of the healthy body-fat percentage range.
#BIGGER LEANER STRONGER BODY FAT PROFESSIONAL#
Amazing! Not only are you lean enough to bulk aggressively, but you’re also leaner than most professional athletes. He’s overweight either way, and he could stand to lose some fat. Now it’s DEXA that’s estimating high, but the discrepancy is still just 2%. Moreover, both of those body-fat percentages have the same implication for his health and appearance: he’s a decently healthy guy who looks a bit out of shape. A bit of a discrepancy, but he can be reasonably confident that he’s between 20–22%. Then he goes to sit in the BodPod, which puts him at 22%. He goes to get a DEXA scan, and he’s told that he has a body-fat percentage of 20%.
Here’s why: let’s take a totally average guy in this study. As a skinny guy, it can be hard to figure out what your body-fat percentage is.
0 kommentar(er)
