Musclemass, Strength Gains, and Low Body Fat Percent
By vishwa on General
September 13, 2010
Allow me to share my insight on strength gain, muscle mass, and reducing body fat. This entry is a continuation of my previous emails where I had spoken about recurrent injuries.
Another major drawback when you start dieting to reduce bodyfat to extreme low levels is that your strength-levels down spiral to a great extent. In addition, reducing body fat through various others means will invariably bring down the strength levels of an andividual. Perhaps, this eventuality can only be affirmed about advanced athletes and may not apply to beginners. The best part about being a beginner is that they can build muscle, reduce body fat, and increase their strength levels at the same time. Whereas, an advanced athlete has to treat the above mentioned factors individually. It means that if an advanced athlete has to build muscle then he will at any point gain some fat too. Likewise, if he has to reduce fat then his muscle mass and strength levels will also comedown. The more advanced the athlete becomes it is extremely difficult for him to tweak his body from a strength and muscle gaining perspective. That is, gaining strength and muscle will turn out to be very laborious.
This is my rambling for the day. And I hope these recent emails of mine are not sending any confounding messages, for all these years I had been avidly advocating my clients to be lean and fit. I still feel that one should not carry extreme levels of fat to just increase their strength levels, but, at the same time, none should go gaga about flaunting extreme low levels of body fat. A body fat percentage anywhere between 10% and 15% may be ideal. These findings of mine will not apply to a bodybuilder who is competing, and a person who is into modeling, for they need to possess body fat percent which is in single digits. Likewise, a power-lifter or an Olympic weight-lifter may have body fat percent beyond the levels I have mentioned and it will not apply to him either because of various reasons.