The Problem With Only Focusing on Body Composition
The body composition trap
Over the past 3+ years, I’ve been on an intentional and focused journey of improving my lean body composition.
Less body fat and more lean muscle.
When my schedule was busier, I had to make this happen with 3×45 minute workouts per week.
I honestly didn’t think the results would come quick only working out that much.
But 4 months after dialing in my diet, I reached single digit body fat while only working out for about 2.5 hours and doing 12 exercises total per week.
It was cool to get that lean, but I’ll admit, I wasn’t happy with how much size I lost along the way.
At 178 lbs, I was the lightest I had been since I was a (pudgy) sophomore in high school.
And that’s one of the problems with only chasing body composition improvements.
Body Composition Problem #1: most men don’t realize how much fat they have to lose and how much muscle they have to gain to look the way they want
Body composition is a fleeting goal.
Almost as soon as I got lean, a lifelong goal of mine, I missed being bigger and stronger.
So I upped my calories, increased my training volume by adding in more sessions throughout the week, and I saw some more good improvements.
I added muscle back onto to my shoulders and arms.
But more muscle usually comes with more fat.
As I added muscle to my arms and shoulders, I started to gain some belly fat back.
Being my first ‘bulk’ following a very successful cut, I learned some lessons of what worked well (and what didn’t).
Long story short: I panicked when some fat gain started and jumped back into a cut too soon.
After the fact, I realized that this is exactly what keeps men stuck in body composition ‘no man’s land’ for way too long.
- If you haven’t spent enough time building muscle, you wont love the way you look when you get really lean (too skinny or too small)
- If you start trying to add muscle too fast or with too much body fat, you’ll gain way too much fat along the way (too fat or too soft)
- You find yourself in this yo-yo cycle of being unhappy with having too much fat on your body or unhappy being skinnier/smaller than you want to be. So you hit panic (like I did) and switch up things too soon
Body Composition Problem #2: body fat is objective…but subjective too
Yes you can get a Dexa or InBody scan.
But even these tests have a high degree of variance, especially if you’re not really strict on testing under the same conditions (ex: time of day, clothing, hydration/carb intake, etc)
That doesn’t mean that body composition testing is useless, but it can certainly be misleading.
So unless you’re really dialed in on which data you’re tracking, and how strict you’re tracking it, they’re is going to be some variance.
This is why progress photos or using the mirror (‘look test’) can be beneficial…but only if you have a healthy and unbiased view of how you look.
It’s so easy to compare yourself to someone else (on social media…who’s probably also taking TRT or steroids), or even compare yourself to how you looked at a different time of your life.
And this can lead to a lot of discontentment when you’re carrying around a little extra fat or a little less muscle.
Body Composition Problem #3: chasing physique often ignores performance
I prefer goals that allow for you to see continued progress.
While I’ve seen some incredible transformations in my body over the past few years, there are plenty of times when it’s been way too slow to notice.
I’m a patient guy, so I can handle slow and steady progress, but there were plenty of times I questioned if it was even working.
You really have to trust the process to know if the 5 lbs you gained in the past 3 months is muscle, fat, or normal weight fluctuations.
For how much work it is to drop fat and build muscle, that can be incredibly discouraging.
Not too mention the potential costs of ignoring your overall physical and athletic performance for the pursuit of looking better.
Performance on the other hand allows for a much quicker feedback loop.
After a few weeks of following a good percentage based lifting program, you can see significant improvements in the weights you’re moving on the bar.
After a few weeks of following a good conditioning program, you can see improvements in your running times, heart rate, and distance.
You just feel different when you’re chasing performance.
You feel like an athlete again.
So after 3+ years of pursuing body more muscle and less fat, the athlete inside of me is craving more performance.
My body composition goals aren’t going anywhere. I think it’s a great goal to pursue getting leaner and adding muscle. It will help your performance and your overall confidence.
It’s just not the only goal for me right now. And I have a good feeling I’ll see even more progress in how I look as I pursue more performance.
Maybe I’m just bad at choosing one or the other.
I believe a better body and better performance is possible.
And I’m going to keep pushing myself to do both.
If you’ve ever struggled with choosing between fitness goals, you’re not alone.
More to come right here on my results and experimentation.
Dave
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