Lets say person X weighs 225 pounds at 20% body fat and bench presses 300 pounds. If he worked out for a year and his max bench press went up to 375 pounds (and all other exercises went up to some degree as well), is it still possible he would be at 20% body fat?
If so, does this just mean his muscles became “better” or more efficient at the lifting movements? Would his physique look different?
I realize size and strength are related, so it would seem that with the increase in strength, there would be more muscle mass and thus, considering he is at the same weight, less fat…
I ask because I was curious as to whether increasing your 1RM at your same body weight is a way to judge whether you are losing fat…just curious, thanks for any help!
Using a 1RM is not a good way to judge bodyfat for the reasons you listed. You can improve neuromuscular coordination which means you use the muscles that you have better and that has no effect on bodyfat. Indeed, actually gaining fat often improves ones max, particularly in a lift like the bench press.
So the bottomline is there is a poor correlation between bodyfat and your max and many other methods are better to try to figure out your bodyfat then using a 1RM on an exercise.
[quote]sportzphan wrote:
Lets say person X weighs 225 pounds at 20% body fat and bench presses 300 pounds. If he worked out for a year and his max bench press went up to 375 pounds (and all other exercises went up to some degree as well), is it still possible he would be at 20% body fat?
If so, does this just mean his muscles became “better” or more efficient at the lifting movements? Would his physique look different?
I realize size and strength are related, so it would seem that with the increase in strength, there would be more muscle mass and thus, considering he is at the same weight, less fat…
I ask because I was curious as to whether increasing your 1RM at your same body weight is a way to judge whether you are losing fat…just curious, thanks for any help![/quote]
Here is a simple equation to determine your BF as a function of BP max
BF% = .7368 * (Height x Weight)/(BP Max x BP 5 rep Max)
Height in inches
All weights in pounds
according to that I have a 21.5% body fat… and I show my top 4 abs.
[quote]HunterKiller wrote:
according to that I have a 21.5% body fat… and I show my top 4 abs.[/quote]
I am pretty sure he was just F’in with you with that formula.
[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
HunterKiller wrote:
according to that I have a 21.5% body fat… and I show my top 4 abs.
I am pretty sure he was just F’in with you with that formula.[/quote]
Oh I forgot to add that this formula’s accuracy is +/- 10%
I think it gives you a good ballpark estimate to validate against other measurement techniques