The Ideal Body
Although there has been a large focus on being overweight, there are a small percentage of people that are athletes and keep their body in top performance and in “perfect” shape.
One way that athletes determine their sport performance is through body fat percentage. If athletes have excess fat, it may hinder their performance in their sport. This is true for many athletes, not just bodybuilders. Male athletes keep their body fat between 5-15% and women athletes have bodyfat percentages between 8-19% on average. The average population has higher body fat percentages, which are healthy for non-athletes. Here is a table showing the average body fat percentage of athletes and the general population.
Even if you’re not an athlete, you can learn from them by consistently tracking your body fat percent. You can also learn from athletes’ exercise, eating, and supplement habits. Many athletes use supplements for fat loss such as Akavar or Hydroxycut, and supplements for a strong, healthy body such as protein powder, creatine, and multivitamins. However, athletes know that you must first increase your exercise and fat burning through cardiovascular and strength building exercises, and then reduce your calorie intake to lose weight. The rest of the components, like supplements will give you a slight edge, but won’t do all the work for you.