![]() ![]() 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). ![]()
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