Is one more prone to injury at low BF? Does the body not heal as well? And why? If one is eating enough nutrients (ie all clean food at slightly above maint) then does it matter if you are below what dr.'s term “healthy” bf% and weight?
It’s not so much that being at a low bodyfat is unhealthy, rather it’s why.
Bodybuilders will cut down to say 3% bf, but of course that doesn’t mean they’re unhealthy. However, they had to do so though controlled dieting and exercise. Then after a contest, they return to their natural bf% of say 6-10%.
If you’re walking around with 2% bodyfat (guy), then one has to question as to why, since it is very unlikely that you’re walking around that low eating a well balanced diet. Are you undereating, do you have a health issue, extreme physical activity levels?
The issue is routinely brought up with female athletes and I think risk of injury is one of the health risks. Of course, many of these young athletes don’t know any better and the extremely low bf is usually the result of extreme exercise and undereating. It very well could be another case where people assume correlation is causation.
Someone else may be better able to talk about the actual health risks involved. The recommended weights and bodyfat percentages I’ve seen have been mildly conservative and usually aren’t that applicable to athletes. However, I would say that if you do have a low bf, you had better know very well why.
Well, I have a low BF from eating healthy foods but at a lower quantity than I would need to gain weight for many months. Hence does that make me injury prone?
Depends on the injury, you sound like you have a bet with someone and you are trying to win it by asking a vague question.
If you are assaulted in some way having a high BFP is considered an advantage. Roman gladiators use to over eat beans and barley to get rather fat. The layer of fat is something that can be rather mistreated in comparison to the muscle layer. If you have a layer of fat slice open or severely bruised you have a very minor injury compared to a muscle being sliced open or severely bruised.
What is your BFP?
Don’t know exactly - probably 10ish. I just have had nagging injuries for a year now and I am SO frustrated with them and why they are not healing. I am wondering if I just ate a bunch and gained a ton of weight if they would heal…
what sort of injuries are you getting? is it your diet? (maybe post it and let us have a look?) is it your technique in the gym or sport?
its prob got nothing to do with your BF level, but an external factor!
[quote]sarah1 wrote:
Don’t know exactly - probably 10ish. I just have had nagging injuries for a year now and I am SO frustrated with them and why they are not healing. I am wondering if I just ate a bunch and gained a ton of weight if they would heal…[/quote]
You need to eat more. Don’t worry about a ton of weight. Eat and gain a few and go from there.
[quote]sarah1 wrote:
Don’t know exactly - probably 10ish. I just have had nagging injuries for a year now and I am SO frustrated with them and why they are not healing. I am wondering if I just ate a bunch and gained a ton of weight if they would heal…[/quote]
Try mega doses of fish oil, and the ice for 20 minutes warm for 20 minutes tech. Are they joint injuries?
Iv also read the growth hormone will help heal nagging injuries.
Hmm…yes - its is tendons and joints - my knee, ankle, and high hamstring. My diet is perhaps too low in carbs and fat? I eat ~200g. protein, 80-100g. carbs (mostly from veggies but also 1-2 servings berries and 1 scoop Surge workout days - I’ve added an occassional sweet potatoe PWO too), and 40-50g. fat.
The original ham pull was from SDLS. BUT it’s been almost 1 year now - it SHOULD be healed!!!
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
You need to eat more. Don’t worry about a ton of weight. Eat and gain a few and go from there.[/quote]
Zap has a point. When I’m in a cal deficient state, I’m much more prone to injuries. I’ve had to bump up my cals while cutting just to give my body what it needs to heals up.
He’s some more good advise.
Take some time off from the gym. Say a week at the most. Come back and switch exercise or do what ever you need to work around the problem areas. Take it easy until they heal. No forced reps drop sets or whatever. I’ll use less weight too and go for reps. Say I bench 405 max, I’ll do 315 for reps.
I usually get tendentious in my forearms, biceps, and rear delts and I’ve been getting a strain in my left pec up by the shoulder. Following this protocol has never let me down. On the week off I do light stretching, Qigong, and some crap I got from Jane Fonda’s workout video. Stuff to keep the blood flowing.
[quote]Hagar wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
You need to eat more. Don’t worry about a ton of weight. Eat and gain a few and go from there.
Zap has a point. When I’m in a cal deficient state, I’m much more prone to injuries. I’ve had to bump up my cals while cutting just to give my body what it needs to heals up.
He’s some more good advise.
Take some time off from the gym. Say a week at the most. Come back and switch exercise or do what ever you need to work around the problem areas. Take it easy until they heal. No forced reps drop sets or whatever. I’ll use less weight too and go for reps. Say I bench 405 max, I’ll do 315 for reps.
I usually get tendentious in my forearms, biceps, and rear delts and I’ve been getting a strain in my left pec up by the shoulder. Following this protocol has never let me down. On the week off I do light stretching, Qigong, and some crap I got from Jane Fonda’s workout video. Stuff to keep the blood flowing. [/quote]
seems like a plan!
[quote]Hagar wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
You need to eat more. Don’t worry about a ton of weight. Eat and gain a few and go from there.
Zap has a point. When I’m in a cal deficient state, I’m much more prone to injuries. I’ve had to bump up my cals while cutting just to give my body what it needs to heals up.
He’s some more good advise.
Take some time off from the gym. Say a week at the most. Come back and switch exercise or do what ever you need to work around the problem areas. Take it easy until they heal. No forced reps drop sets or whatever. I’ll use less weight too and go for reps. Say I bench 405 max, I’ll do 315 for reps.
I usually get tendentious in my forearms, biceps, and rear delts and I’ve been getting a strain in my left pec up by the shoulder. Following this protocol has never let me down. On the week off I do light stretching, Qigong, and some crap I got from Jane Fonda’s workout video. Stuff to keep the blood flowing. [/quote]
Do you mean less weight on all exercises and not doing the ones that hurt at all? I was thinking of trying to do slow negatives on the deads maybe? Or should I just not do them at all?
Maybe start with passive streching your hamstrings, and then move on to active streching a couple days later to help realign the muscle fibers that have been damaged and then start doing fairly light weights and move on from there depending on how you feel. if its just a light injury, then id start with just doing SLDL’s using light weights and then increasing weight and adding other hamstring exercises as your hamstring starts to feel better.
I’ve read time and time again that 10-12% is optimum for health, test and injury resistance/repair in men.
Stop training legs directly and little as you can for a month.
Every morning when you wake up - roll on a tennis ball wherever the sore areas are. May need a foam roller/yoga mat/noodle for swimming for really sore areas you can’t deal with the pain.
Heat helps. I don’t think cold is useful beyond initial injury. Hot/Cold if anything.
Try your ass, quads, IT band, calves. I think Robertson or Boyle have articles on this. Both tennis ball and foam roller. I really recommend feeling pain. I never find massage very useful unless there is some pain. But experiment with it so you learn to discern the kind of pain you want from the kind you don’t. (If you don’t know already).
One more thing. I find from long term injuries, an absence of working out does not help recover on its own. NEED to massage. I recommend taking a month off, however, so you can work the painful areas that are busted up as opposed to recently painful areas from a workout, that will go away in 1-2 days anyway. Don’t need to be focusing on that new stuff. And when you get back to lifting with legs, give yourself a transition period of lower volume on the lower body. Body isn’t used to the lifts, for one… and the mechanics involved will be different.
Month off legs sounds bad, but injuries can be nagging and persistent. Better to let your figure go for a month (won’t go much at all) and get shit dealt with, than keep up your training and have the injury subtle over the next year (which would make two years total).
epitome.
Thanks. It did seem that the injuries do not get better with just time off. They just get stiff and worse. Passive stretching does not help - hurts if anything. Rolling has helped. How often? One time per day?
And icing is not a good idea? Just heat??
I agree with the others about eating a bit more food. Not necessarily enough to gain a ton of weight, but a few hundred calories of good low-GI carbs and healthy fats could help.
Regarding heat and ice: At one year, your injury is practically chronic. I don’t believe that ice would help much by itself. In conjunction with a roller/ART however, ice could be beneficial. You might, for instance, start with a heat pad to help bring blood into the area, use the foam roller, and then ice when finished to help reduce inflammation.
If the condition persists, I would recommend seeing an active release technique (ART) practitioner.
Good luck!
[quote]sarah1 wrote:
Thanks. It did seem that the injuries do not get better with just time off. They just get stiff and worse. Passive stretching does not help - hurts if anything. Rolling has helped. How often? One time per day?
And icing is not a good idea? Just heat??
[/quote]
the reason the muscles are getting stiff is that your not using them and the damaged muscle fibers aint realigning properly! not sure how ofen you should do the rolling, but do passive streching and active streching, use pain killers if needed, but you have to do the exercises and keep the muscle active.
If your bodyfat percentage is so low that your periods have become irregular, or have stopped, it will cause premature bone loss due to insufficient estrogen production. This bone loss also impacts tendons and muscle. It also causes microfractures, which radiate to the joints (usually your elbows and knees) which support the long bones in your body.
No amount of rest will help this. Lifting will make it worse. Gain enough bodyfat until you have regular periods for at least a year. Take 2000mg calcium and at least 1000IU of cholecalciferol, Vitamin D3 every day.
Extremely low bodyfat is not too unhealthy, but the severe dieting to get there is. If you’ve reached your goal weight or lower, you shouldn’t continue to diet. If you have injuries you should also eat above maintenence. Once you start though you will gain some weight, and it won’t be until after a period of time that your body starts to heal it’s self since you’ve been dieting for soooo long.