On the standard BMI chart (body mass index) it says I am overweight at 6-3 210 but do bodybuilders or powerlifters go by this type of index chart as muscle would end up gaining us more weight correct and isn't muscle more healthy than fat of coarse it is.

So how do we as weight training individuals measure our body mass as healthy or unhealthy?

Anyway, want to weigh in on this.

LoneSilver

The reason you said, that muscle hypertrophy results in added weight, is just one reason why BMI is crap in general. Your BMI figure shows nothing about your body composition - you can be very underweight and be skinny-fat and unhealthy. Whereas on the other hand, you can be 250lbs at 11% bf and very healthy

Your body fat percentage is a more accurate measure of your body's condition, but again, that's not absolute either...You can obviously be 6% and be about to drop dead.

The BMI scale is very very rough. Do you feel healthy? Yup, good. Do you look good and healthy? Yup, awesome.

Anyway, want to weigh in on this.

Click to expand...

lol, no pun intended

-shaun

LoneSilver said:

On the standard BMI chart (body mass index) it says I am overweight at 6-3 210 but do bodybuilders or powerlifters go by this type of index chart as muscle would end up gaining us more weight correct and isn't muscle more healthy than fat of coarse it is.

So how do we as weight training individuals measure our body mass as healthy or unhealthy?

Anyway, want to weigh in on this.

LoneSilver

Click to expand...

Measure your bodyfat with a caliper. Anything above 18% for a man is because he is fat (not necessarly unhealthy) and anything below 10% is bad for long amounts of times, cause your hormones are shot to hell.

Measure your bodyfat with a caliper. Anything above 18% for a man is because he is fat (not necessarly unhealthy) and anything below 10% is bad for long amounts of times, cause your hormones are shot to hell.

Click to expand...

Well..I've never heard anyone say they felt their hormones were out of whack when they were at low body fat percentages, but perhaps..I was around 10%, but I've found that hard to maintain now that I've started training+eating, so it's probably gone up a bit. I definitely still felt horny etc when I was at <10% for quite a while..

Not meaning to hijack the thread completely, but does anyone else find it hard to keep <11% body fat when they're eating+training?

-shaun

Thanks for the posts.

I was thinking the same thing on these charts as they don't mention muscle or anything like that to offset any score when measuring a persons mass.

Makes all the sense in the world.

LoneSilver

LoneSilver said:

Thanks for the posts.

I was thinking the same thing on these charts as they don't mention muscle or anything like that to offset any score when measuring a persons mass.

Makes all the sense in the world.

LoneSilver

Click to expand...

Understand that the BMI was created to measure obesity. It wasn't geared toward athletes or people who were generally fit (better than average health wise).

Nobody should use the BMI to measure anything. Since it divides weight by height, and doesn't distinguish between muscle, bodyfat, and water, it's useless.

Bodyfat % is infinitely more important, but also very difficult to measure, hence the popularity of the (useless) BMI. It's part of the focus on "losing weight" which drives all sorts of unhealthy behaviors that would be better geared at building muscle & losing bodyfat in a sane way.

Buster Davis is 5'9 244lbs. He's extremely well built. His BMI is over 35. I wouldn't ever call him fat. He's an animal.


BMI means nothing to athletes.