Ideal Body Fat Percentage - What Level Is Right for You?

Many people want to know what their ideal body fat percentage is.  The problem with trying to answer this question is that that there is no straight answer that applies to every individual person.  The ideal body fat percentage can vary quite a bit in between various individuals depending on body type, heredity, age, eating habits, gender, and normal activity levels.  All of these can effect what a healthy body fat percentage, as 6% might be healthy for one individual, but 15% is healthy for someone else.  However as a general rule of thumb, once you get up to 25%, that’s unhealthy for anybody.

The ideal body fat percentage also varies greatly depending on gender.  For example, most males who have 5% body fat are considered in excellent health because that’s the safe lower limit for most men.  Women, on the other hand, have a minimum of 12% to be at safe levels.  A woman aiming for 5% body fat is not only being unrealistic, but is probably aiming for a goal that would actually make her unhealthy.

Active people tend to have lower body fat, while individuals with a more sedentary life style are obviously more likely to have a high level of body fat.  In addition to this, age has a lot to do it.  For example, males who are 20 are often considered to have too little body fat if they are below 8% (obviously there are exceptions, like hard core athletes).  But at 70, you would have to be below 13% to have too little body fat.  The healthy range for a 30 year old male is 8-19%, while for an 80 year old it is 13-25%.

Figuring out your ideal body fat percentage and working to keep it in that range is a very important part of staying healthy and is a better indication of overall health than the body mass index (BMI).  Going to a doctor for a test can be a good idea, and there are body fat monitors that help you to monitor your progress as you diet and exercise your way to an ideal body fat percentage.

This is one of the most important things you can do to in order to stay in good health.  Your ideal body fat percentage should be one of your main goals in working out and becoming healthy.  Taking another measurement every three weeks to steadily keep track of your progress towards your ideal body fat percentage can help you to stay motivated and stay with a workout and diet program.

There are actually a wide array of body fat monitors available, giving consumers multiple choices.  Aiming for the body fat reduction can be encouraging, as sometimes you may be staying at the same weight but gaining muscle while losing fat, or you might be losing weight but your body takes longer to show it.  By keeping track of your progress, you will get healthier and may find it easier to reach your ideal body fat percentage.

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Creatine Kinase - A More Modern Form of Creatine

While creatine monohydrate is one of the most common forms of creatine that is found in the body and used as a supplement for bodybuilders and any individual looking for a little extra boost for their workouts.  Creatine Kinase, sometimes abbreviated CK, and also known as Creatine Phosphokinase (CPK), is a type of creatine that is found in the body and is an enzyme that is naturally absorbed by muscles, but unlike creatine monohydrate creatine kinase is not the same thing, and should not be mistaken for the creatine that is found in supplement form.

Creatine kinase is found in the body naturally, and is all right as long as it is found in small amounts.  It can appear in the body in higher amounts after an intense workouts, since creatine kinase often times occurs when muscles are torn or damaged, as they will be after a major weight lifting work out as the muscles work to recover.

The problem with creatine kinase is that in higher amounts it can be a sign of damage to the muscular system or the brain.  Because of this, often times blood tests are taken searching for creatine kinase because CK can be an indication of potential heart attack, muscle diseases, or potential stroke.  The same is true with neuromuscular disorders.  Elevated levels of CK can be a dead give away to something being seriously wrong.  In normal circumstances, CK helps to heal the muscles after a workout, but when the CK levels remain elevated when they shouldn’t that’s potentially a dead giveaway.

CK tests are often used to evaluate different types of neuromuscular diseases, and there are five different ways in which they can be used:

1.    To confirm a specific muscle problem that is suspected before more obvious symptoms confirm the diagnosis.
2.    To see if muscle weakness is caused by a muscle or nerve problem as opposed to regular soreness.
3.    To tell the difference between potential disorders that have similar symptoms but different CK readings
4.    To try to detect possible “carriers” of neuromuscular disorders.
5.    To try to keep close tabs on a disease that is known to fluctuate or shift throughout different phases.

Creatine kinase (CK) is not the same as creatine monohydrate, and the two should not be confused.  Monohydrate is the base of the popular supplement that has helped dieters and bodybuilders maximize their workout effect.  CK is a natural enzyme, but it is one that often times is used to indicate possible bad news.  Knowing the difference between these two “creatines” can make a huge difference in understanding the importance of each in any given conversation.

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Body Mass Index - A Way to Measure Weight & Height

The body mass index, more commonly known as the BMI, is a way of measuring a person’s weight in proportion with their height, assigning a statistical number that represents both.  While the BMI in general can be a good way to estimate the average healthy body weight for a person’s height, this is not an exact science and one common misconception is that the BMI is a measurement of body fat, which is not true.  While the BMI is an estimate of healthy body weight for height, it’s not exact at all.  The BMI of a professional bodybuilder, for example, could be high in the “extremely unhealthy” range because of all the extra weight from muscle, but that would not be an accurate description of the bodybuilder’s actual health.

The body mass index is often used in lieu of actual body fat measurements because it is easy to measure and figure out, making it more popular.  The body mass index was first used between 1830 and 1850.  The BMI is figured out by taking the person’s body weight and dividing it by the square of the height.  For weight use kilograms, not pounds, and for height use meters.  So to get the right BMI number you want to take kg/m2.  That measurement will let you figure out your BMI.

The body mass index isn’t perfect, but for average individuals it is often a relatively reliable estimate of where your weight sits health wise.  The BMI measurement became most popular in the 1950s and 1960s when obesity first started to become a serious and common problem in developed Western societies.  The Body Mass Index has come under fire recently, mostly because of its misuse.  While the BMI is a good estimate, it was never intended to be used as iron clad figures, or to be used by doctors for medical diagnosis of health.  A more accurate use of BMI’s purpose is to have it used as a simple easy to estimate means of seeing how physically active or inactive the average individual is as measured by weight in relation to height.

There are several factors that can really through off the accuracy of a BMI report.  Two of the obvious are heavy weight lifting, like bodybuilding, and extreme height.  Because of the simplicity of the math, the taller a person, the more likely the BMI is to be off.  There are several “ranges” that BMI scores fall into.  It’s generally accepted that:

BMI Categories within the healthy range:
Low 18.5-19.8
Med-Lo 19.9-21.1
Medium 21.2-22.4
Med-Hi 22.5-23.7
High 23.8-25.0

Scores under 18 are dangerously underweight, while scores over 25 indicate obesity, and go all the way up to morbidly obese.  These are once again, just general measurements that compare the weight and heights of average individuals, but it’s still a good way to get at least a general idea of how you’re doing in regards to weight and health.

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Mark Wahlberg Workout - Mark Wahlberg Workout Routine

Mark Wahlberg has come a long way in his life. The former musician and big time movie star hardly started out life with a silver spoon. Wahlberg may have shot to fame as the younger brother of Donnie Wahlberg, starting out as one of the original members of the band “New Kids on the Block,” and then on his own as rapper Marky Mark. Later he starred in several hit movies like “Renaissance Man,” “The Basketball Diaries,” “Fear,” and “Three Kings.”

Mark has always been well known for his outstanding physique, and he used that to his advantage in both his music and movie career. How he got that physique had a lot to do with the one place that helped keep him off the streets where he had found trouble before, and out of prison: the gym. Living in a rough neighborhood in Boston, it didn’t take much effort at all to find trouble, and so he used the gym as a sort of “watchful parole officer.”

Instead of hanging at the corner he would go to the gym, and the Mark Wahlberg workout formed from day after day spent at the gym by him in order to avoid the trouble that claimed so many youth in his neighborhood growing up. Mark spent time in prison for assault, and after working out in the prison gym he used that and his experience as motivation to stay out of trouble, and continued to work out.

The Mark Wahlberg workout remains heavy on weight lifting and not much else. He hates cardio, and has often stated a complete aversion to running on a treadmill or spending an hour sitting in one place on an exercise bike. Despite having six pack abs, he doesn’t do crunches, either.

The Mark Wahlberg workout basically means hitting the weights for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, hitting two or three body parts a day hard and fast. That’s the key: there are no long breaks to catch your breath or “easy days.” If you’re pumping iron that day you need to go all out and perform all the weight lifting exercises on that muscle group at full intensity.

The only times Mark’s workout changes is when there is a movie coming out that adds an extra dimension to his workout. For example, in the movie “Four Brothers” his character was an avid hockey player, so in addition to the weight lifting Mark also played two hours of hockey a day for months at a time while filming the movie. Otherwise once he’s back in between jobs it’s back to the weight lifting over and over again.

Sometimes diet and exercise programs overcomplicate the basics too much. Sometimes just doing a great set of exercises right and consistently is enough, and the Mark Wahlberg exercise program might be the epitome example of that situation.

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Blank Weight Lifting Chart

Using a blank weight lifting chart is a great way for you to keep track of your progress and to keep yourself accountable. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re doing well in your workout even when you’re slacking, but the straight numbers don’t lie. Keeping blank weight lifting charts around allows you to chart your progress and are great because you can track everything from the gradual increases in your overall work out, or you can have a chart to record your progress with each individual exercise.

In the same way that using a food log will keep you more honest and help increase the success of any weight loss diet, having a good supply of blank weight lifting charts designed to record the progress of your specific weight lifting goals is going to keep you honest and help to increase and improve your results.

No matter how honestly you access your own workout schedule and progress, and no matter how hard you try to push yourself, you can’t keep track of your progress better with your memory than you can with written records. Besides for the obvious, which is the near impossibility of remembering weeks or months of workouts correctly, there’s the added benefit from weight lifting charts that with the numbers right there you will be able to recognize a plateau effect quite possibly before you sense it or notice it with your body.

If your goals are to build muscle or enjoy some great gains in weight training, then having an optimal workout is critical to getting the results that you want. Most people are visual, and being able to have the solid numbers there in front of them, as opposed to some abstract notion of “how I’m doing,” makes it much easier to adjust workouts accordingly in order to strengthen weak areas or to optimize and revise your weight lifting program based on the early results that you’re seeing.

Every professional bodybuilder tracks their progress using blank weight lifting charts, and this common practice occurs because it’s so effective. If this is the right move for professionals, then why wouldn’t you take advantage of this knowledge and mimic it to help your own progress?

Blank weight lifting charts are not hard to find. There are many places even online that have a wide variety of different options that can be printed off straight from the site. If you’re looking for general blank weight lifting charts, these are easy to find, while even specifically focused weight lifting charts that concentrate on everything from legs to chest to arms to back to even one type of weight lifting exercise are all available, as well.

By now the point of this article should be obvious: if you want to improve your results then take a few minutes a day to use blank weight lifting charts to record your progress. You’ll be glad you did!

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