Strength Based Body Fat Estimation

Here’s the abstract for the body fat study. The full paper is coming soon.

Abstract

Objective: To develop a method of body fat estimation specific to the population of experienced weight lifters as a function of age, gender, height, weight, and performance in the classic powerlifting exercises.

Design: A cross-sectional study in which anonymised, self-reported data were collected from a mobile fitness application and then cross-validated with self-reported data collected through a web application.

Subjects: A total of 5278 apparently healthy adults from a mixed non-randomly selected weight lifting population (4766 men and 512 women), varying in age from 18 to 63 y, 1.32-2.03 m height, 47-158 kg weight, 5-60% fat, 23-243 kg bench press 1RM, 25-359 kg squat 1RM, and 25-346 kg deadlift 1RM.

Results: Six variables (age, gender, height, weight, bench press 1RM and squat 1RM) were significantly associated with body fat via univariate analysis. Using these variables, a feed-forward multilayer perceptron (MLP) trained by back-propagation predicted body fat in strong agreement with reported DEXA values (r=0.84).

Conclusions: Body fat estimation requiring no special instrumentation could be of practical value for the population of experienced weight lifters using the classic powerlifting exercises.

Robert Frederick

Robert is a bit old school in that he's really not into self-promotion. If you really badger him about it, he'll reluctantly tell you that he attended UC Berkeley on a full scholarship after getting one of the highest scores in the country on the American Chemical Society exam. While there, he worked on modifying K+ channels to become photoswitchable. Fast forward a few years and he took up weight training (guys who spend 16 hours a day in the lab usually look like they don't get out much). Always the scientist, he approached weight training from the perspective of making observations, testing, and eliminating training theories that didn't hold up. Rapid progress followed and despite a car accident that impeded lower body lifts, he milked respectable gains as a Bench Bro (175kg at 76kg BW). After working with famed powerlifting coach Boris Sheiko for a few years, he took up the challenge of doing strength training for a national sprint cycling team. That quickly lead to eight national records broken, 4 gold medals, and 2 bronze medals at international competitions. That success has paved the way for their entry into the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. See you there!