Ideal Body Fat Percentage for Men: The Harsh Truth of 6% Body Fat

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I remember in high school i was at 6% body fat but i had all day to train and exercise, now that im 30 i wish i never stopped exercising for 10 years now im getting back into it and i feel the difference.

GO JESSEEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

Welcome to the world of genetics. Elite athletes have elite genetics. End of.

DONT TRY TO BE SCHWATZENEFER IF YOU ARE NOT HIM, IN SHORT, KNOW YOUR GENETICS

You don't often see a guy Jesse's size lifting that much weight. Just look at the girl in the background's expression at 6:35. She's like who the hell is this ding dong

6 percent in unnecessary and not worth it.

Woohoo for the shout-out for the AFL players!

Ive been in the 5% range and its not comfortable at all, wven at 6 or 7 wasnt. At 8-10% i look just as good actually brtter because my muscles look fuller and i dont get tord after 30 minutes of working out

What an odd discussion. The science point at the end I find most important. Yes there is a normal distribution when it comes to body fat too. There are genotypes that allow for a fulfilled life with low body fat and there are genotypes that have trouble even achieving "normal" levels of body fat. But there is a statistic mean too. And from what i read is that 5 % body fat is the lowest for most human beings where they still can be healthy ( please correct me if I'm wrong. Also I have these numbers from ncbi and some health insurance company's have those too on their website). The general medical recommendation is between 8-22% for men and 21-34% for woman. And I think the whole point of this video is that you should see there you fit in this frame. Some might exceed the recommended numbers and are still healthy and everything. But I guess for most of us this is the framework we are working with or even trying to get to in the first place.

When he told me I wasn't halfthor at 160 lbs after 2 years in the gym as a natural my heart broke.

Here's another HARSH TRUTH!

You have no reason to not be vegan without either contradicting yourself or denouncing universal human rights.
I suggest you go vegan.

When I was working full time as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor and eating maintenance calories on an intermittent fasting schedule, I was able to maintain mid 8% bf. I was always at the gym so it helped keep the metabolism super high. Now I'm not doing that full-time and I'm around 12% bf, but holding steady.

Look jeff I love your work mate but rugby is not afl 😂 two very different sports and afl is for puss!es

Love How he uses elite athletes to show that you can be at very low body fat and perform and then when talking about more body fat for strength he says that you cannot use elite athletes to compare yourself…

tl;dr Most people don't know their set point because they need to diet so long to get there. I'm sure a ton of people think 17%, or 13%, or 15% or 22% for that matter, is their baseline because every time they've gotten close to that they were in a 500+ calorie deficit. Get to 15%, then maintain it for a week or two. If you are comfortable, drop to 13%. Rinse and repeat. You will never be comfortable when cutting weight for an extended period of time regardless of how much you weight or your BF% unless you are losing 1/2lbs a week. I'm curious to find mine, lol, but getting there is sure uncomfortable as heck. 50 more lbs and I'll try to maintain. So lose the weight, then see where you stand, as like I said, you will never know while you are in a decent calorie deficit. Now on to the rant!

I think the main problem here is, well first, anyone who says 6% is normal to walk around at as a general rule of thumb should be dismissed and the viewer goes and finds a new channel. Saying you are good where you are (6%-9% or thereabouts) is perfectly fine. Tom Delauer is fine at 8% or wtv. That decathlete is obviously incredible at 8% and has some INCREDIBLE fat cell distribution. So like you said, what an athlete is training for along with that particular person's genetics is going to greatly affect where their optimal zone is. Now that O. Lineman might play great at 25% bodyfat. He might play his best there, but it probably isn't best for his life after football. So though it is great for him in the sport, it is not great for him if he stays at 325lbs until he's 50.

Now we run into problem #2. Most people NEVER find out what their set point is. If you were a thin kid then you might have an idea, but if you grew up and were always chubby/fat, you need to keep losing weight to find out where you're good at, and you will never actually know while you are actively dieting. I'll use myself as an example. You could see my abs from 4-7 and I was pretty darn thin. Not 6% thin, but under 10%. I have not been under 15% bodyfat since I was 8, and ballooned as high as 40% if I had to guess. The last time I was in exceptional (average college all-around athlete average teams coming off the bench) shape I was 185lbs (I'm 5'11"), was running a 4.7 40, could dunk a tennis ball, hit a baseball over 420' off a pitching machine throwing 90-95, do handsprings (front), backflips etc, benched 285, deadlifted 425, squatted 405 blah blah blah. I was still around 15% BF though and dieting. Lol, dieting sucks. I have been comfortable at 185 15% maintaining, and 179.5 maintaining (about the same bf though, I was just working more, less time at the gym/track/field/basketball court and eating less). I'm 99.9% sure I could be fine at 10%, but getting there to maintain is what is so uncomfortable for most people.

I can't speak for everyone, but when I diet, I diet hard. I stayed between 177 and 195 for 32 some odd years relatively easily. Now I did get fat during the lockdowns. I'm currently at 232 give or take (I have an infection atm and am retaining a ton of fluid so I'm not sure on my exact weight, but the day before I got this stupid staff from a bloody scrape I was at 232 down from 295) and I am going to throw a guess of 30% BF. my fat is distributed terribly. No ass, lean arms, face and legs, with almost everything around my waist, love handles for days and man tits. I can see striations in my shoulder, bi's, quads, tries and calves along with the top middle of my abs until it just balloons. I'm also dropping around 12lbs/m, with the majority of my cardio being walking (3-7 miles), and since I just started going back to the gym my workouts are half body every other day for about 90 minutes. Now I'd be ecstatic to get to 10%, where I think I would be comfortable and at my most healthy, but to do that I'd need to drop another 50lbs of fat. Even if by some trick of magic straight out of a Dungeon's and Dragons book I lost all that weight without losing ANY muscle (not possible imo. 232 to 180 with zero muscle loss losing over 10lbs/m? Not likely) I'd still have another 6 months of 1250+ calories restricted. Per day. I've only been at this for 3 months or so now (I had that first big month where I dumped like 10lbs of water on top of 10lbs of mass, as at 295 I was not concerned with muscle loss, I just wanted to be able to walk a mile without having to decompress my back 50 times) and it is already a pain in the ass. And I am good at tolerating bullshit 1000-2000 calorie per day deficits. I used to do it all the time before competitive strength camps to get under 180. Lol, but I was goign from 189, 191 to 179.x so it wasn't a long term thing.

If I am having a hard time getting there, I can imagine the average guy who is 200lbs, 25% bf with a 40 waist, 42" chest and 44" hips dropping 40lbs, 5 of which are muscle, to get to 10% to even get the opportunity to find out if they are cool maintaining there. They very well might be. Influencers talk all the time about how this one has great genetics and that one has great genetic but at 8%, or 9, maybe 10% their test is down in the low 200's…well that's not great genetics, that's someone who is fighting their genetics to get to a certain weight when they might be comfortable and ripped if they maintained right where they are. Or put on 1.75lbs and maintained 1% heavier.

The point is, you have to get to your ideal bf% and then try to maintain it for a few weeks. Walk around in every day life and see how you feel. See if it is interfering with the lifestyle you want. If it is, great. If not, then you might want to allow yourself a little leeway. Target your abs more so they will show through a little more body fat just like you would any other muscle. Ei don't do situps for 15 minutes on a decline bench, that's cardio at that point. Do standing cable crunches after your deadlifts with something you can only get 7-12 reps with for a few sets. Then add a little weight and see if you are comfortable there. 6% is crazy low though, unless you have NFL running back/Olympic Gymnast/Cruiserweight Boxer levels of muscle on you. For most active men, I'm guessing their set point is what they can maintain reasonably on a 2800-3000 calorie diet. If you need to eat below that too maintain your weight, then it probably is not the optimal weight for you as an athlete. And yes, an hour a day at the gym/exercising is behaving like an athlete. Maybe not an elite level athlete, but an athlete none-the-less.

Hi Jeff, I like this kind of content! Very good one! You talked in this video about specificity and scope with regards to achieve something: like atleticism, marathon, esthetics. Could youl please do a video on recommandation from your experience about the scope and the excercises a basketball player should take into consideration when it comes to athelticism in this sport? Like, let's say: how would you train LeBron as young professional, LeBron in his prime and LeBron now carreer sundown ?

Love these, notably the perspective about performance not necessarily being affected by low levels of body fat.