Low body fat %?

Congrats my dream is to one day be clinically obese.

Quote from: Mister Misanthrope on July 13, 2010, 06:17:46 PM

I'm not sure what my body fat percentage is. Certainly below average. I'm not sure how to measure that.

The only accurate way requires doctors... it's crazy. Some electronic scales will do it (inaccurate), and calipers work well - measure 3 or 5 or 7 points on your body, average, look it up on a chart.

Some high-end fitness clubs might have bodypod or underwater scales - those will very accurately measure your bf%. The charts never worked for me personally, especially when I was at my heaviest competitive weight of 380lbs - calipers would say 35% bf, underwater would say 32% bf, but most charts said I was 65% bf!

In my own estimation, if you are a strong fat guy (as I was) you will start to see faint abdominal definition (top two abdominals as well as obliques) at or near 20% bodyfat... of course this is dependent upon abdominal hypertrophy - considering my sport and the amount of stabilization work I do as part of my normal training - I probably had a larger/thicker abdominal wall than most.

I don't know what mine is at, I posted very recent pics in the progress picture thread.

It feels like I could go even leaner though

Congrats on your bearmode, that sounds beastly.

This vid was at around 320lbs, and about 2 months following a shoulder surgery. I didn't have top abs in this, but obliques were showing. Bottom end of the gut, as you can imagine after 100lbs of weightloss, still makes you look like you have a gut. I am not looking forward to surgery after I've reached my target weight.

It was beastly, and I'm envious of what I was back then. I got roped into thinking I needed to lift and eat everything in sight to get primed for nationals... and the next thing I know, I'm back to 380lbs, strong as a roided ox, but waking up with numb fingers every morning and a face that looked like a red beach ball.

Dang. See, you have the kind of strength/build I aspire to. If you have speed, mobility and endurance to match your raw strength, that's ridiculous. I am lucky enough to have a long family history of strength, but I wouldn't want to develop into anything unsustainable. How, out of curiosity, did you get yourself into strength athletics?

Back when I was sedentary and 440lbs someone approached me at a Highland Games and said I should train for them because I was "big enough". That put a bug in my ear so I started working out. Got on some weightlifting forums (Power and Bulk, The Anvil) and from there found a local strongman training group. Went paleo shortly after and went from 440lbs to 330lbs, then dropped paleo (due to budget) for about 6 years and fluctuated anywhere from 320 to 380lbs. After shoulder surgery and a pretty strong weight drop I decided to attempt to learn olympic lifting.

Fast forward to now, just olympic lifting with some "powerbuildng" thrown in.