Form Versus Function

From comic artist Kelly Turnbull's tutorial on anatomical drawing:

[Click the image above to enlarge.]

More here.

Ready for Anything

What exactly is "fitness," and what does it look like?

Surprisingly, there's no universally agreed-upon definition of the word. Dictionaries are no help; most tautologically call it “being fit.” (Some dictionaries also define the term to mean “good health or physical condition,” but this doesn’t ring true to me; after all, “health” really only describes a state in which there’s an absence of illness or physical decline.)

In “Body by Science,” Doug McGuff and John Little use the word “fitness” to mean “the bodily state of being physiologically capable of handling challenges that exist above a resting threshold of activity.” Under this definition, fitness is the ability to engage in physical challenges -- a definition I can get behind.

CrossFit, of course, has its own definition, which incorporates three separate but related standards:

• Proficiency -- through training -- in each of ten general physical skills: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy;

• Competency in all three metabolic pathways for physical activity: phosphagenic, glycolytic, and oxidative.

• The ability to perform well -- compared to others -- at any and all physical tasks, including unfamiliar and unforeseen ones.

In sum, it's about the ability to tackle "work capacity across broad time, modal, and age domains."

What do these definitions share? An emphasis on one’s ability to use his or her body to DO STUFF.

They're silent, though, about what fitness looks like. And with good reason: We all know that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Just ‘cause someone looks the part doesn’t mean they can actually deliver the goods.

Still, as an article in today's edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer points out, “many of us wrongly associate fitness with a certain look or physical trait.”

"Many people look at [fitness] magazine covers and think that's what they're supposed to look like," says Heather Nettle, an exercise physiologist at the Cleveland Clinic's Sports Health Center.

Fitness models, however, often can’t do the very activities they’re hired to demonstrate. As Slate Magazine’s Josh Levin wrote:

Every booker has a story about a [fitness] model who looked the part but couldn't do a squat, or a guy who lied about his max bench press. It can be especially challenging to find women who can do pull-ups. In some cases, a trainer holds the model up, then runs away quickly so the photographer can snap a shot before she falls.

Contrast that with 26-year-old Jillian Neimeister of CrossFit Cleveland, who was profiled in the Plain Dealer article:

At 5 feet 5 inches and 170 pounds, the former rugby player doesn't have the lean, sculpted look of an athlete or a stereotypically "fit" physique. Her body mass index (BMI, a measurement of the relationship between weight and height) falls at the upper end of overweight, just a hairbreadth from obese.

But anyone who saw Neimeister in action would undoubtedly describe her as fit and athletic. At a recent CrossFit fitness competition, Neimeister blew away even the most ripped of competitors by dead-lifting 345 pounds and doing 27 pull-ups. Last year, she ably completed a half-marathon run with only minimal training.

"I don't feel obese," says Neimeister. "I feel fit. I do get jokes about having a big butt. I'm not a small girl. But I know I could probably beat anyone. I can go out and do whatever I need."

Fitness isn’t about being stick-thin -- it’s about being able to “perform a broad variety of tasks”:

To be fit, in other words, you don't need to be skinny or buff so much as healthy and able to perform a broad variety of tasks. You can also be more fit in one category than another.

Most professional football players, for instance, would fail the weight test instantly. No one questions their fitness, though, because they're so obviously athletic and muscular. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the trim person who never exercises and whose body composition is in fact highly fatty.

"There is such a thing as a skinny fat person," Nettle says. "Looks can be deceiving."

A while back, Krista Scott-Dixon of Stumptuous posted a link to awe-inspiring photographs of elite male and female athletes who look nothing like the fitness models in most magazines. The photos show a wide spectrum of sizes and shapes -- but the one constant is the confidence visible in their faces. As Scott-Dixon wrote: “These are folks who know their bodies have the power to do things -- which is what ‘fitness’ truly is.”

Hear, hear.

[Source]

DEXA Body Fat Scan

We all know that BMI (Body Mass Index) is altogether unreliable as an indicator of health. It's junk science, and it doesn't tell us anything about body composition. There are plenty of better ways to measure body composition, and in Tim Ferriss' "The 4-Hour Body," he discusses a bunch of 'em -- some of which are much less accurate than others. Calipers and measuring tape only get you so far. And do you accept as gospel truth what the bio-electrical impedance bodyfat scale in your bathroom tells you? 'Cause you shouldn't.

Ferriss examined nine different methods of body composition testing, and "[a]fter dozens of trials with multiple subjects, and taking into account both constancy and convenience (including cost), there were three clear winners." The first of the three: DEXA (dual energy X-ray absorptiometry) -- the "gold standard" of body composition testing. DEXA is a full-body scan typically used to measure bone density, but it's also capable of pinpointing body fat percentage and location. In a nutshell, you plop down on a table, fully-clothed, and a movable electronic scanner X-rays your body from head to toe. It takes less than ten minutes, and you get a keepsake photo of your lumpy silhouette (think airport security pornoscan shots) showing all the fleshy parts you'd prefer to conceal with Spanx and oversized football jerseys. Fun!

Bonus: The unassuming little medical office where Ferriss gets his DEXA scans is just a few freeway exits from my home.

So for kicks, both M and I decided to give this DEXA thing a shot. This afternoon, after shelling out $65 and filling out some simple paperwork, I found myself lying on some crinkly paper, staring at the ceiling while a softly-whirring mechanical arm performed low-dose X-ray scans of my body. It took no time at all. Before I left, the friendly technician spent a few minutes going over my DEXA measurements with me.

Check me out. (Nice lungs, right?)

I'd gained about ten pounds over the past six months, so I figured my body fat percentage had gone up, too. But I'm happy (and more than a little shocked) that my low body fat level puts me in the 1st percentile for my age, meaning I'm leaner than 99 percent of other men in their mid-thirties.

Despite switching to a Paleo diet and adopting a 3-days-a-week CrossFit schedule (i.e., eating loads of saturated fat and exercising less frequently), I've maintained a sub-10 percent body fat percentage. The weight gain, it seems, is largely muscle.

I don't know if it's due to eating Paleo, lifting heavy stuff and doing short metcons a few times a week, intermittent fasting, or a combination of the above, but something seems to be working.

Skinny-Fat?

Not surprisingly, even if your BMI's fine and you look skinny, you could be "normal weight obese." Mayo Clinic researchers report that "fat in your body can get you and your heart into trouble even if you don't look fat and if the scale tells you you're healthy."

In a study that looked at data from 6,171 Americans with normal body size, as measured by body mass index, those with a high percentage of body fat were at significantly greater risk of future heart problems than those with low amounts of fat. Their bodies "behave like they are obese, but they are not," Dr. Lopez-Jimenez says.

The natural reaction is to get one's body composition tested, despite the fact that "there isn't a consensus among medical experts about what percentage of body fat is 'normal' or what level indicates higher risk."

Some gyms have their own guidelines. At Equinox Fitness Club, trainers consider body composition and waist circumference—another indicator of body fat—more important in assessing fitness of many members than weight. The club's Ms. Coopersmith says that, based on data from the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Council on Exercise, Equinox considers body fat percentages between 25% and 31% for women, and 18% to 26% for men, as "acceptable." Women with body fat of 21% to 24%, and men with 14% to 17%, are "fit." People who reach even lower levels of body fat are considered "athletic," she says.

Still, the lesson's clear: Lose fat and gain lean muscle. And don't envy the skinny guy/gal in the next cubicle -- there's a good chance s/he's in worse shape than you.