#2022 Vitality Conference# When ordinary people mention professional athletes, no matter what kind of activities they are professionally practicing, they will reflexically associate very low sebum, clear abdominal muscle mass, and blue veins that burst at any time. This is not su

Category：fashion

2025-10-07

When an ordinary person mentions a professional athlete, no matter what kind of event he is practicing professionally, he will reflexically associate very low sebum, clear abdominal muscle mass, and blue veins that burst at any time. This is not surprising at all, because this stereotype is a stereotype deliberately created by the market and mass media. It seems that only with the above qualities can one be considered a competent athlete. Athletes with a little fat on the abdomen are easily labeled as undisciplined and unprofessional, regardless of whether the athletic performance level is high or low.

Nowadays, there are more and more ordinary people participating in physical exercise, and they are no longer satisfied with PUA athletes. "I want to increase pure muscle and strength, but I will never increase body fat" and "I swear to be an enemy of fat" and other declarations can be seen everywhere. It can be said that low body fat is a political correctness in the fitness circle, and both enthusiasts and athletes are eager to it.

So is body fat really the same as the public thinks, and is it incompatible with water and fire?

To discuss this issue, we must first look at a very popular view in recent years: that is, the insulin resistance theory. The view of this theory is that long-term bad eating habits and excessive body fat, especially high- carbohydrate diet, will frequently stimulate the pancreas to secrete insulin , resulting in excessive serum insulin levels. Therefore, foods consumed through diet will be stored by fat tissue, and muscle tissue will be in a state of lack of nutrition and energy for a long time. Many people believe in the theory of

, because it has achieved good results in explaining simple obesity and some chronic diseases. But please note that this article and the more than 100 articles I have written before are almost all professional athletes with certain training experience. It is almost impossible for a well-trained athlete to experience insulin resistance or insulin insensitivity. Another point is that anyone who has undergone professional sports training knows the irreplaceable role of carbohydrates in energy supply, so the carbohydrate-insulin-obesity hypothesis is almost inapplicable in athletes.

Secondly, when discussing athletes with high body fat, we generally talk about more than 15%. So is the muscle building effect of athletes with more than 15% of body fat must be inferior to athletes with less than 15% of body fat? Here are two empirical studies of . The first is a study of sumo athletes as early as 1999 by Japanese scientists. They studied four active sumo athletes with an average weight of 110.7kg and an average body fat rate of 27.4%. They found that these four sumo athletes will continue to gain weight throughout their careers, and the participation level will also be upgraded from small level to large level. However, no matter at any stage of their career, the body fat level of sumo athletes is relatively stable, but the fat-removing weight (that is, muscles) continue to increase throughout the process, and the training level is also constantly improving.

Another is a study of American football athletes. The study found that athletes with lower body fat (average body fat rate is 7%) and forward athletes with higher body fat (average body fat rate is 21%) have increased their lean body weight and reduced more body fat after a year-long training competition.

Although we cannot conclude that a high body fat rate will definitely increase more muscles, these two evidences at least show that for projects that focus on strength and explosiveness, the level of body fat rate has no negative impact on the later increase in weight and the improvement of training level.

For bodybuilders, many studies have shown that after eating a lot of food after the competition, the recovery rate of body fat is much faster than the recovery rate of lean body weight. This is not surprising. As an energy substance, fat will undergo excessive recovery during the large-scale eating process after long-term strict control (similar to the excessive recovery of glycogen ), while the recovery speed of protein , as a structural substance, will be slower.But this phenomenon seems to remind us that in order to achieve effective muscle growth, it seems that certain fat storage conditions must be met first.

Another important issue is that if you pay too much attention to body fat and weight exceeding the standard in non-seasons, it will involve a lot of unnecessary energy from athletes. Some people immediately do diet and aerobic control when they see their body fat exceeds their weight, resulting in wasting time and energy, which could have been used to improve training level and athletic performance. This is a waste.

Of course, due to media focus, fans' attention, and potential commercial interests, athletes need to pay attention to their image at all times. This is understandable. If your goal is to maintain your current state and maintain your perfect appearance as much as possible, then I think you should strictly control your body fat. On the contrary, if your goal is to improve your level and continuously achieve self-breakthroughs, non-season should do non-season things: most of your energy is to improve training, your diet needs to be sufficient and comprehensive, and body fat is not the primary issue that should be considered in a non-season.