Linford was measured at 4.5 % according to a fitness magazine and I read and i haven’t seen another 100m sprinter look lower fat than Linford. Mind you, I wonder what bodyfat hurdler colin jackson had.
Desmond O’Brien was measured at 2% bodyfat at the Olympic Dunk tank (water emersion) body fat tester in Ontario Canada (Toronto I think). He won a few records for that. It was right after a body building competition, and he had to be lifted in and out of the tank. NOT HEALTHY AT ALL!!!
Shouldnt ideal body fat level also be a function of how much muscle and bone weight one has? For example, if Shannon Sharpe has a 5% body fat at 240lbs (just estimates folks) then he has 12lbs total fat. If Allan Iverson has the same % at 155 then he has only 7.6lbs. Is it a given that Sharpe’s 12lbs and Iverson’s 7.6lbs offer the same level of sufficiency for their respective frames?
sorry about that
Help,
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Herb
So what is the best method of testing bodyfat? And is there an optimal range to be within to be at your best?
The most accurate method is hydrostatic weighing
no the most accurate way is cutting the person up and weighing all the bits :eek:
very true… ok ok … hydrostatic weighing is the most accurate “legal” (non mafia) way of measuring body fat
I see! this is interesting
Actually, a DEXA scan is the most accurate. It breaks the body into sections such as head, upper arm, lower arm etc an accumulates the results. The machine is a million dollar contraption so not every institution has one here in Australia and New Zealand. May be different in the US? I’m sure if you were that keen you could pay for a scan if a uni had one.
As someone else said don’t rely on that, I think they are only useful if you’re above 15%. I’m 8.4 via caliper and electrolysis and my scale says 15% 
Yes, because they require DIETARY fat for absorption. Nothing to do with bodyfat levels.
Lyle
Dude, knock it off, you do NOT know what you are talking about.
At 5% bodyfat and eucaloric intake (i.e. not dieting), leptin levels will not vary drastically between individuals, if at all.
What will vary is the brain’s sensitivity to leptin.
As well, programming in the hypothalamus that ‘tells’ the brain that a given level of leptin is normal. individuals who maintain leanness easily have brains that think a low level of leptin is ‘normal’ (this is mediated by a bunch of different neurochemicals such as NPY, CRH, CART, alpha-MSH and others).
Lyle
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Ok. Other than leptin vs leptin sensitivity what else did I say that you disagree with? And if absolute leptin levels don’t make any difference, then why do leptin injections progress those who’ve stalled on a diet?
Have you seen research comparing leptin levels of the naturally lean vs those who have to starve themselves to get there? If anything I would think leptin sensitivity would be greater the leaner and leaner one gets but of course I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Maaaaaaaaan i cant believe tht Carl’s body fat was 3%…look 4 is the broadline between proper body fat and starvation and sure one like Carl wont run and jump with the records he made and he was starving…the word fat must nt be associated with the idea of being fat…u must know tht fat (lipids)are the main component of hormones and sure u know dude tht hormones is wht builds everything in us.the optimum body fat fr sprinters ranges between 5 to 10.Review ur sources man,u ll get the whole site starving 
I mentioned that the folks were no longer dieting. For a fixed amount of bodyfat, assuming caloric intake is not restricted, leptin levels should be identical. So at 180 lbs/5% bodyfat, if yo’ure not dieting, leptin production will/should be more or less identical.
The reason leptin injections work is still a brain issue, fat people’s brains WANT to see more leptin (more accurately: more downstream neurochemicals) to feel normal. There are additional peripheral issues (leptin affecting muscle, liver and fat metabolism as well) but there is also going to be a tie in with leptin s ensitivity at those tissues.
That’s what setpoint is, it’s not an issue of leptin levels per se (leptin is simply the incoming signal, along with several others) but rather how the brain PERCEIVES leptin levels (again, more accurately: various neurochemicals).
So an individual who is genetically lean has a brain that thinks a leptin level of 1 ng/dl (or less) is ‘normal’. Neurochemistry is normal, metabolism is normal, etc.
A fat individual has a brain that needs to see, say, 10 ng/dl (or whatever) to feel normal. So when you diet that individual and leptin drops to 5 ng/dl or less, their brain responds. Take them even lower to 1 ng/dl and their bodies think they are starving to death. Inject leptin back to pre-diet levels, and their brain chemistry normalizes.
Lyle
At least one thing to keep in mind regarding bodyfat estimation is that there are an absolute ton of estimations going into the equations, assumptions about bone density, tissue density, etc. It’s not unheard of to get negative bodyfat percentages with hydrostatic weighing because of this. Blacks have denser bones on average than whites (who have denser bones, on average then asians) and training affects bone density as well. This will tend to give unrealistically low bodyfat estimates. So take all the 2.5-3% claims with a huge grain of salt, it’s most likely an issue of equation/estimation problems.
Lyle
Thanks man. I was about to starve my self to dying. I thought I sucked with 10.4% bodyfat. I think I’d just need to tone my self and not worry much about the esstimation errors, instead of trying to head for a totally non-accurate 3-5% body fat level!
I also think that athletes (and coaches) need to get away from the whole idea of BF% (especially with the problems inherent in the estimation equatinos). The Candian Sporting Association moved to just tracking skinfolds (I bleieve tehy have normative data for many different sportss). More importantly is where the athlete performs best.
If it takes severe caloric rsetriction or what have you to obtain some arbitrary BF% and that hurts performance, I don’t consider that a good strategy from a performance standpoint. Sporting performance isn’t about who looks the best (except bodybuilding) or who is the leanest: it’s about who performs the best. Athletes and coaches should be concerned with that.
Lyle