SHORT PEOPLE

Just wondering if short guys also have short di*k.
I’m 5’5 with 4.5 to 5"

Everyone?

Okay Timbo, the message is finally getting through my thick skull. The BMI is a good way to make apples to apples comparisions between two people of vastly different heights and weights. What I did not like was how it was touted in the mass media as a new, better way to determine obesity. Without taking bodyfat percentages into account, it was no improvement. Michael Jordan’s BMI has been estimated at 26–overweight by the mainstream standard of 25 being the cutoff point. A quick look at his lean, striated physique shows how silly it is to ignore the bodyfat factor.

Kyle, there actually was some (non-rigorous)
research done on the question of correlation
of height and other things, for example foot
size, with penis length.

The results were that there was very low
correlation between size of other body
parts used as predictors and penis length,
but there was a reasonable correlation
between height and penis length. However,
not so strong a correlation as to prevent
a very tall man from having a very short
penis, or vice versa.

Penis length seems much less “conserved”
(that is to say, consistent) than height.
Out of 100 men, a couple or several will have a penis
length 33% shorter than average, and a couple or several
will have a length 33% longer than average;
but if you were comparing heights, the
range is not nearly so great. Probably
all but a few of 100 men would fit into
a height range of no more than a foot
(say, between 5’4" and 6’4") and so the
variation is only about 8%, not the 33%
seen with penis size.

I just thought I would share that with you.

And Timbo, I didn’t invent BMI, but I’m the
only one I know who advocates using it in
a positive way.

I would agree with Rafael, Bill’s numbers are just not realistic. Perhaps they are for those with poor genetics for bodybuilding.

Mike, no disrespect intended but in your
comment below, you don’t know what the
fuck you’re talking about. Look at winners
of national-level, natural contests and
show me these guys – these aren’t guys with
average genetics now, but superior genetics –
that are coming in with mass indexes much
higher than I said, in contest condition.

Perhaps you missed the concept that having
a high body mass index WHEN FAT is not at
all the same thing as having that index when
ripped.

You may think the average guy can be very lean
and at a BMI above 28, without steroids, but
you are wrong. Yeah, I know I’m being rude here, but you ought to stop and think and
check facts and reasoning before saying that
someone else, who does know what he’s talking
about and has spent some time on it, is wrong.

(reply to Rafeal) Get your bodyfat checked
by someone who knows how to do it, and if
you really are BMI 30.5 and 5% bodyfat, and
natural, you need to enter some natural
contests because you are far superior to
almost all the natural competitors out there.

My bet however is that you will find that
you are not as lean as you think, would
have to drop 15-20 pounds of bodyweight to
get to say 5% without using drugs, and your
BMI would then be 27 or 28.

Mike and Rafael’s posts got me to thinking,
there’s actually a quite general problem
of guys having quite unrealistic ideas of
their bodyfat. For example, “I can see my
abs” does not necessarily mean being lean.
When I was at a measured 19% bf you could
still see my abs pretty well. Ditto for leg
cuts… not in my case, but there are other
men who have leg cuts at bodyfat percentages
even above 20%.

And, I don’t call 8% lean. Eight percent is
something that most guys can do very easily.
The six percent range and below is what I
call lean. There’s a lot of difference
between being say, 200 lb at 10%, and 200
lb at 6%. Besides the visual factor which
is dramatic, it’s not just a case of the
leaner guy having eight pounds more muscle
and eight pounds less fat. The fatter guy
would quite likely lose 8 pounds of muscle
as well as the 8 pounds of fat in the
process of dropping to 6%. So the muscularity
difference between these two individuals
is about 16 pounds. These guys are not close
to each other at all.

And a lot of guys who call themselves pretty
lean, in pretty good shape, etc. are well
over 10%.

Hence, perhaps, some errors in perception.

Bill, at 5’ 10", Skip La Cour’s competition weight ranges from 218 to 230 pounds. He is a lifetime natural and often comes in second place or lower in natural bodybuilding competitions. According to your BMI theory, this is not possible. Also, I have been training for a little over a year, and at the end of my last cutting cycle I was measured to be 186 lbs at 6.1% bodyfat, at a height of 6’. This already exceeds your 25 BMI figure. Perhaps I am naive but I think I can easily make it to a ripped 30 BMI (206 lbs) with a few years of solid training, without using steroids (well, nothing illegal, anyway). And even with 20 lbs more muscle, I know I would not be the biggest natural in my gym.

i know all about being short :slight_smile:

Im about 5"6…i weigh in at 172 at 7-8 percent bf…i think i calculated my bmi at like 27-29 cant remember exactly, all i remember is that to hit 30 i have to become 180 which wont be a problem, when employing help…
as for tips for training short…im not sure its any different…i think the main determinent is what type of muscle you have, and genetics…personally i can eat tonnes and tonnes of food and only gain lean mass…as for training i train each body part once a week and work out like 4-5 times a week…use good intensity and lift heavy, being sure to go light on days you dont feel 100 percent…dont have 2 much more to say about htat

Bill, I’m not saying that I have 5% bodyfat or that I am close to contest ready. But even if had to drop 15 or 20 pounds to reach 5%, since I’m in my early 20s, I just think that some day, some how, without using steroids, I could get to 200 and be as lean as I would be at 175. If not, why would I keep training? What would I have left to accomplish?

Well, Rafael, you know, it isn’t possible
to say, make a net gain of 5 or 10 lb of muscle
every year, year in year out, decade in decade
out… if it were, a guy who’s been training
for 20 years would have added 100-200 lb of
muscle.

First, I agree, it’s very unlikely that you’ve
already gotten as far as you can go, you have
room for improvement, but if your bodyfat
is not too bad at your current weight, say
it’s 9 or 10%, so that your BMI if you got
down to lean condition would be 27 or 28,
then it’s unreasonable to expect that you
have another 20 lb LBM gain coming to you
from natural training. You would still enjoy
the benefits of maintaining your condition
and probably refinining it as well, and
making fairly small improvements. But if
you can get to say BMI 30 in natural-contest-
condition (which is not quite as lean of
course as steroid-user-contest-condition)
then you really need to compete because
you’re one in 10,000 or something like that.

Mike, Skip LaCour is a poor example for
two reasons. First, the claimed contest
weights are not real. Second, there is a lot
of dispute about whether Skip LaCour is
even currently natural let alone lifetime.
There are guys out there competing and doing
well in natural contests who really are
natural, but there are also quite a few
steroid users in the bunch and too many
people have said they have personal knowledge
of LaCour’s use.

Bill, as soon as I point to examples that violate your theory, you discard them and tell me those people are steroid users. This means your theory cannot be falsified, and is therefore dogma rather than science.


Personally, I think it is unlikely Skip is a steroid user, as photos indicate he developed his physique gradually over the course of many years, and when he competes, he is never as ripped as the pros. Further, he has always tested negative for steroids and is is very insistent that he is a lifetime natural. And even if he does exaggerate his competition weight, there is no doubt he is over a BMI of 30.

I just think your BMI scale is too focused on the lower end of the spectrum. You might say that naturals with a BMI of over 30 are rare, but to say they are steroid users for sure is simply wrong.

No, Mike, the people saying that they knew
Skip back in the old days as being a steroid
user are not saying so because his body mass
index is over 28 in contest condition. If
you want to believe he is a lifetime natural
go right ahead but that’s one dubious horse
to be betting on.

And Skip Lacour having an alleged contest
weight of 230 lb, at a height about the
same as Dorian Yates? The guy is that
close in muscularity to Dorian? R-i-g-h-t.

The fact that LaCour may “adamantly” claim
to be lifetime natural is zero evidence
really. That’s typical of steroid users
who compete in the natural ranks, being
unable to win in the pro ranks. It’s typical
of all kinds of people. For example, we
had the Miriam Powers interview where she
adamantly claimed not to have breast implants, but
then the same article had a photo absolutely
proving she does. (No woman at such low
bodyfat has DD tits, nor does she have
this dead-giveaway artificial flat gap between the breasts
which then, past the gap, suddenly jump out like globes.

Some people lie, maybe not
out of any evil, but maybe out of not even
wanting to admit to themselves that they
owe anything to what they are doing, which
they disapprove of but do anyway because
they need it. Or they lie because they think
it is their business not yours. That’s how
I look at the breast implant thing. When it
comes to competing in natural shows, though,
it’s cheating and is reprehensible. At any
rate, no I don’t believe LaCour is 230 lb
in contest condition or ever has been, I don’t believe he’s a lifetime natural, and I doubt that he’s gone without for very long recently either. It’s my personal opinion, based on
what I’ve been told by several people and
several testimonies I’ve read on the Net over the years, and you’re entitled to a different opinion if you like.

My belief regarding LaCour has NOTHING to
do with some pathetic attempt to prop up
the statement I made that natural athletes
are generally not going to get past about
28 in contest condition, and that if you
see someone higher, it’s a great bet that
he’s a steroid user. If much higher, it’s
not just a great bet, it’s absolutely for sure.

Bill, you won me over. I do have one question though. Does the BMI follow the height curve as good as one could expect. From something I recall earlier… The older charts had weight and height plotted in a linear relationship. The BMI uses height squared. Would it be more accurate to cube the height since we are looking at volume rather than surface area? Since mass is three dimensional right? Just wondered on your thoughts about this… It’s another reason why someone shorter can have better relative strength than someone taller.

Brian, I absolutely agree that logically
one (or at least I) would expect that the
relationship between mass and height should
be to the cube of height – since that’s
certainly true for geometrical objects
of the same proportions – but in terms of
how the eye sees things, and also apparently
in terms of what’s normal within a species,
it’s to the square.

If it were to the cube, then, say, to appear
to have a similar kind of a build (just taller
but proportionally so) to a man who was 5’6"
and 190 lb in contest condition, a man who
was 6’1" would have to weigh 256 if it were
to the cube. Not so: at that weight the taller
man will also appear to be heavier-built.
Whereas at 232 lb (the value from the square)
he does seem to have the same kind of build.

Also, if BMI were computed by the cube, children would have extremely high values,
instead of the same sorts of values that
adults have (and to our eye children do
not look more massively-built than adults.)

E.g., a 3 year old girl might be 36" tall
and weigh 35 lb. This, by the square, would
be a BMI of 19. By the cube, the number
would be 21.

At age 16, let’s say she’s 5’6" and 120 lb.
This is a BMI of 19 (and I didn’t go back
and pick a weight that would give this.)
By the cube however the number would be
less than 12.

So if the cube were used, the indication would
be that the mass index decreased with increased
height, both for the same individual as he or
she matures, or between two individuals which
the eye judges to have similar builds but different heights.