3 Ways to Measure Muscle Gain & Fat Loss Effectively
Mar 11th, 2008 by Mehdi Tags: Build Muscle, Lose Fat
| New to StrongLifts.com? |
| Here are a few posts the other readers recommend you check out. |
Image credit: minivan cooley
Strength training builds muscle, which can make you gain weight. More muscle is more calories burned, meaning fat loss. Your body-weight can stay the same while your muscle mass increases and body fat decreases.
The weight scale can demotivate you as it doesn’t show improvements in body composition. Worse, water retention and stomach/bowel content fluctuate your body-weight. You must measure muscle gain & fat loss. Here’s how.
1. Track Strength Gains. When you can Squat 1.5x your body-weight, you’ll have bigger legs, bigger arms and your waist will be smaller. More strength is more muscle. More muscle is more calories burned.
Your 1st goal: body-weight Squat. Your 2nd goal: 1.5x body-weight Squat. You can achieve both within 6 months when doing StrongLifts 5×5. Keep a training journal. Keep a log in the forum. Add weight slowly, but systematically.
2. Track Body Fat. Get a fat caliper by Accumeasure. Measure skinfolds weekly. If you want your abs to show: aim for 10-12% (women 15-17%). Get stronger meanwhile. Low body fat is useless if you don’t have muscles to show.
3. Take Pictures. If you’re making progress after years being out of shape, you might still consider yourself out of shape when looking in the mirror. Much of this is about self-perception and self-acceptance.
Strength gains, body fat improvements & before-after pictures don’t lie. These are objective measurements of your progress. Check out John Stone’s weekly progress pictures for an example of this.
Pay also attention to how your clothes fit and to what people say. Especially people you don’t see a lot. They’ll notice your muscle gain & fat loss and will ask you questions about it.
Tired of the way you look? You want to build muscle & lose fat while getting stronger? Click here to download my 52 pages 100% FREE eBook.
Articles You Might Also Like:
Subscribe with RSS
Good Post, keeping track of these things really make the difference when you feel you haven’t made any progress or start stalling on exercises. The last part is especially true, it really hit home to me when some friends I hadn’t seen in a year noticed right off the bat the increase in my size and weight (145lb to 175lb), unlike some friends and family.
On another note, I’ve been using this to track my body fat %. http://www.healthcentral.com/cholesterol/home-body-fat-test-2774-143.html
Would be curious if someone who tracks their bodyfat % with calipers could check how accurate it is.
@Yardbird
Congraz on the weight gain. There used to be a site where you entered body part measurements, body-weight, height, etc, and it calculated your body fat. It was fairly accurate. Can’t remember the site anymore. It was similar to what you posted, but offered login & tracking options (like fitday).
This site works pretty well, too. Not sure if it’s the site you were talking about, though, Medhi.
http://www.linear-software.com/online.html
Hey,
is there really such strong a correlation between muscle gain and strenght? I’ve been exercising hard for a little bit more than a month now. I can squat 95kg for 5 reps and I weigh about 72-73 kilos. My strenght is increasing slowly, but I see absolutely no improvements in my body constitution. I’m still the skinny-fat kind of guy. I have a very small frame and some extra fat around the waistline. Do I need more time? John Stone seemed to get leaner and more muscular VERY fast. Just one week and he looks like a totally different person! My diet is ok, I think. I eat A LOT on the days when I work out and slightly less on non-workout days. I consume about 2g1/kg body mass. Any ideas? Thanks in advance! Great website, btw
@Chad
Looks cool, but it’s not that one. Thanks for sharing.
@xzebrasx
Free weight, lower than parallel Squats for 5×5 with 95kg, 3 times per week? Or are you using a smith and doing half squats?
WOW
How long did it take John to get in to that shape from having that big gut?
And what is his diet? Was he doing 5×5?
I’m using free weights, go parallel (not lower) and Squat 2 times a week. Will squat 3 times a week from tomorrow. No smith or other machines. All I’ve got is a barbell and some weights.
very interesting… I’ve been on the 5×5 program now for over 8 weeks and I have noticed some changes but not many physically speaking. I eat 6 times a day body weight x 18 cal and my weight fluctuates like crazy [212 lbs - 227lbs]. I know I shouldn’t go by the scale, but its just easier to jump on and jump off in the morning. I eat the same thing every day with the exception of dinner. all in all pretty much clean. Strength wise I’ve increased… front squat [ 135 lbs to currently 270 lbs] seated overhead press [95 lbs to currently 150lbs] bench press [135 lbs to currently 235 lbs] ect. The only places that I’ve noticed slight changes are my shoulders chest and back. Legs have not changed [i posted about this issue sometime back] my belly fat is stuck its not coming off… I wasn’t doing any cardio and hate doing cardio. I walk for 45 min to an hour and just recently started doing this. Is this typical…? I guess I shouldn’t be too worried since I’m eating like a horse and I still fit into my size 40 waist pants, but I sure would like for this strength training muscle growth to kick in that way I wouldn’t have to do any cardio and my waist would shrink like the article states.
@Gee
Check out his site, you’ll find answers.
@xzebrasx & eden1169
This applies to both of you. Some bodies can be “stubborn”. Just keep lifting, it will give in. Sometimes it takes longer, but there’s no way you can stay skinny doing 5×5 squats 3x/week. There’s also no way your body fat doesn’t decrease if you’re doing 5×5 3x/week. Especially once you start squatting weights close to 1.5x your body-weight.
The forum has several examples of people of different body types doing the routine since several month. You’ll find inspiration there.
Huh, that’s pretty sweet then. I’ve been squatting my body weight for quite a while, and I got pretty close to 1.5x my body weight for a few weeks. That was until I decided to seriously decrease the weight because my form was suffering, now I’m back up to my bodyweight (185). I’ve only been on this program for three weeks, but before that I was on the Starting Strength workout, so the transition wasn’t too hard.
What about bench presses? I’m currently at 165 at the normal 5×5, and I may stall out at 170 or 180 and may have to deload. What’s an ideal goal for benches?
To me tracking progress is huge. It shows where I’ve come from, because although I recognize that I’m the most out of shape I’ve ever been . . . I don’t really feel all that different than five years ago.
Step by step to get it back, keeping track of your gains is incredibly motivating.
@Binal Patel
A body-weight Bench Press is a good start.
I think John Stone is an exceptional case, and his primary motive was to lose fat.
If you look at his diet logs, in the first six months (where he lost an insane amount of fat) he was eating ~1300 calories per day. I’m amazed his body could surivive on that, as well as handle his intense lifting and cardio regime.
People don’t get fat overnight, and conversely don’t lose fat overnight. The best way to do it is set goals, measure periodically and be very careful about your diet.