What is the recommended bodyfat level for male gymnasts?

[Jon Douglas]

Without a weigh-in, who cares? 

(I'm being facetious, I know it's interesting to a lot of people but in practical terms it's pretty much just a curiosity/trivia).

I pretty much see this getting sorted out in the selection years. Ability to carry lower % bf and retain strength results in a better str:weight ratio giving them an edge, however slight, in selection /competition. By the time you hit elites in this sport your pool of potentials has spent years in dauntingly low single digits and still performing world-class strength elements- our nationals at AIS are training 4-6 hrs a day of what amounts to total-body sprints; difficult to out eat and hard to budge. Elite gymnasts are freaks, man, and one of the many self-selecting factors that comes together to make a world champion is an inclination to tolerate that kind of volume. Thrive, i should say, not just tolerate.

What I'm saying is that the road to elite sorts this kind of thing out and makes it not a useful progress marker. The % and its effects on weight and relative strength are contributing factors to performance,  and might be tweaked based on that, but there is no '4% required for Azarian rolls' or similar.

[Michel Hendrickson]

On 21-7-2017 at 8:55 AM, Julian Aldag said:

I dont particularly enjoy this guys youtube persona, but watch this video for a comparison of measured bodyfat% and how they look different on people. (Hint: 'one persons 6% and another's 6% can look vastly different).

 

Edit: Here's another great one

 

Thank you for this.

@Coach Sommer , @Darin Phoenix, @Paul Wallbridge, @Luke Searra

Some of the people who posted here seem to pretend that your body-fat doesn't matter or that it's not important or whatever. It certainly matters, and not as an exact number, mostly because of the inaccuracy of measurement methods, but it certainly matters what range you are in.

You can't pretend that your training will automatically give you the perfect body, like some answers have suggested. The reason is that diet matters (shocking surprise?), and you can be a different body-fat with the exact same workout schedule, depending on what your diet looks like.

Although body-fat affects your aesthetics, the question was about what the recommended range is for training, and competition respectively (performance as a gymnast).

The reason why I am asking this is because on the low end of body-fat spectrum, you will feel weak and fatigued, or even close to dying:

On the high end of the body-fat spectrum your strength to weight ratio will be too low to perform difficult gymnastics routines. (Picture a sumo wrestler trying to do an iron cross):

So there must clearly be an optimum somewhere in between. The purpose of the original question is to try and narrow down that range.

Edited July 23, 2017 by Michel Hendrickson

[Julian Aldag]

Why do you need to know a % Range? (Even though Coach Sommer did give you one...). Why is it so important to you?

And I dont think people here are not saying that a low bf% isn't important, I just think its likely a byproduct of how much training they do and there isn't a set "required bf%".  

 

[Antonio Alías Montoya]

Ok, from 1% to 25% bf.

[Suzanna McGee]

7 hours ago, Michel Hendrickson said:

The purpose of the original question is to try and narrow down that range.

You got your original question answered over and over and over, and from many different angles…  Here you have a range, 3–12%, be happy  :-) 

[Michel Hendrickson]

8 hours ago, Suzanna McGee said:

You got your original question answered over and over and over, and from many different angles…  Here you have a range, 3–12%, be happy  :-) 

See, we're getting somewhere. I"m just getting sick of these kind of comments:

11 hours ago, Julian Aldag said:

 I just think its likely a byproduct of how much training they do and there isn't a set "required bf%".  

 

As I tried to clarify:

16 hours ago, Michel Hendrickson said:

You can't pretend that your training will automatically give you the perfect body, like some answers have suggested. The reason is that diet matters (shocking surprise?), and you can be a different body-fat with the exact same workout schedule, depending on what your diet looks like.

@Julian Aldag

Do you really think that diet doesn't matter or what?

[Leo Trinidad]

Hi @Michel Hendrickson,

From experience, diet really did not matter for me when I started GST back in 2013. What I found out was the volume of training really affected my overall body fat percentage. In my own personal conclusion when relating diet and training volume, I need to adjust my food intake depending on how consistent I can train. (not consistent = I need to watch out what I eat; serious training/high volume = I can eat whatever I want)

from experience, its training > diet (this is my opinion)

[Julian Aldag]

On 7/24/2017 at 1:45 AM, Michel Hendrickson said:

Do you really think that diet doesn't matter or what?

Sure it does matter, but it really depends on why you are asking the question.

If you are talking about competitive gymnasts with a high amount of training volume, excess food intake is going to matter less as they can eat more shit and burn it off ( I think I remember a story about Coach trying to get his kids of Soda for health reasons...), but if you are an adult with a broken metabolism from years of abuse ( over eating bad foods, sedentary, yo-yo diet etc) training 3x per week,  then you would most likely need to focus more monitoring your diet. 

And the fact is, some people CAN out-train a shitty diet.  I knew a kid at circus school who was an ex-gymnast. That guy looked like Michaelangelo's David, and I would frequently see eating ice cream for lunch.   

So again, why is this question so important to you? 

[Jonas Winback]

Here is a recent study of anthropometric data (body fat, etc) on gymnasts. "The study sample consisted of 150 world-class national and international gymnasts, as well as the Spanish AG Team that had participated in numerous international competitions". Although it's acrobatic gymnastics, it might still have some relevance or interest to this topic.