Pull-Ups As a Measure of Bodyfat

A friend of mine is a bodybuilder and he uses pullups(palms facing away) as an indicator of bodyfat.He told me if a person can do 20 proper pullups from deadhang,chin clearing the bar, then he is in the 10-12 percentile of bodyfat, if he can do 30 he is in the 5-10 percentile, and 40 is what he always goes for come competition time.
he is 5’10 and competes at 175 pounds.

I think pullups are a good indicator of bodyfat(think about it when you do 30 pullups in a row, youll look good!), but i think some other factors come into play, like strength endurance and type of muscle fibres.

discuss

thats nothing more than anecdotal theory. i can do like 10 pullups if im fresh. doesnt matter. some people are just good at pullups and some people just suck at em.

ill be easy on you cause i know everyone else esp. PX is gonna have a field day with this shit. but dude definition and vascularity or lack thereof determines body fat nothing more, nothing less.

Wow.

A shoe is actually the best body fat test.

[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
thats nothing more than anecdotal theory. i can do like 10 pullups if im fresh. doesnt matter. some people are just good at pullups and some people just suck at em.

ill be easy on you cause i know everyone else esp. PX is gonna have a field day with this shit. but dude definition and vascularity or lack thereof determines body fat nothing more, nothing less.[/quote]

im not saying i support this theory, im just saying thats what he does, and ive heard it before from strength coaches, so its out there.
Sure. definition, and vascularity detirmine bodyfat.did u ever see a guy do 30-40 pullups and not be vascular or defined?

double wow

one has nothing to do with the other. and most of the guys i’ve seen who can do 30-40 pull ups as you’ve described them are not big. they may be lean, but have no business competing in bodybuilding.

This is one of THE stupidest things I’ve read on this site.

A rock climber with 10% bodyfat will do more pullups than a bodybuilder with 10% bodyfat. Skinny guys are more likely to be able to do more pullups than a bodybuilder.

I agree with DoubleDuce, a shoe is and will always be the best way to accurately measure bodyfat.

But wait… what if you’d do pullups WHILST HOLDING A SHOE?!

[quote]randman wrote:
This is one of THE stupidest things I’ve read on this site.[/quote]

even more stupid than putting creatine in your socks?

Anyone see the crossfit people do pullups? Man, it’s like their doing the worm to get their chin up there, they turn the pull-up into a leg-kick swing thing.

But, if you want to see a lot of pull-ups you can find them people on crossfit.

[quote]randman wrote:
This is one of THE stupidest things I’ve read on this site.[/quote]

why?

Does someone benching 300 pounds have more bodyfat then someone benching 600 pounds. Who the fuck knows, same thing with pull ups, they’re a measure of strength. If you can’t see that you’re retarded and I don’t know why I wasted my time explaining the obvious.

I’d like to see him get his ass up there 40 times if he ever competes at 220+. Using a lift as indicator of how lean you are is beyond silly… what’s wrong with the waist line and the mirror?

umm I don’t get how pullups are an indicator of your body comp. Its like that old wives tale, “Squats ruin your knees” Bullocks. The mirror is my indicator.

[quote]steel_12 wrote:
randman wrote:
This is one of THE stupidest things I’ve read on this site.

why?[/quote]

One person may have a high body fat percentage, but only train upper body while the other trains full body and has a slightly lower body fat percentage. The guy who doesn’t train legs with the higher BF% is probably going to do more pull ups.

[quote]steel_12 wrote:
A friend of mine is a bodybuilder and he uses pullups(palms facing away) as an indicator of bodyfat.He told me if a person can do 20 proper pullups from deadhang,chin clearing the bar, then he is in the 10-12 percentile of bodyfat, if he can do 30 he is in the 5-10 percentile, and 40 is what he always goes for come competition time.
he is 5’10 and competes at 175 pounds.

I think pullups are a good indicator of bodyfat(think about it when you do 30 pullups in a row, youll look good!), but i think some other factors come into play, like strength endurance and type of muscle fibres.

discuss[/quote]

Dude you do know that a percentile is different from a percent. A percentile is a statistical term used to show where you rank compared to the rest, a % is just x/100.

If 20 pullups put you at the 10-12 percentile, then you would prob have to do like 100 to get near the 95th percentile. I think that is ridiculously inaccurate. If anything 20 pullups would put him at the 90th or prob much higher.

On the other hand if what you really meant to say is that 20 straight pullups is a good indicator of a low bodyfat percentage than I would probably have to agree with you, but to think that your friend can actually measure bodyfat on people like saying “oh he can do 25 chins so hes around 7%” or “that guy can only do 3 straight pullups? he must be 20%” is rediculous too. What if that same guy is a skinny-fat chump?

You agree with your friend because “when you do 30 pullups in a row, youll look good!” That isn’t very good logic for explaining how your friend tells a 9%bf person from an 11% bodydat person from just watching them do chinups.

[quote]1morerep wrote:
double wow[/quote]

X3.

Your friend is a dipshit. I used to do around 15 pull-ups years ago when I was 160 lbs. Now, I’m lucky to pump out 10 pull-ups at 220 lbs. Hell, it’s a good day when I pull 8.

Funny how my deadlift has gone up over 200 lbs, my bench almost 130 lbs, and my squats 250 lbs.

I was starting to w0nder what was wrong with me. Hell, I must be fat…

I think I’m going to start supersetting pull-ups with more pull-ups. Maybe I’ll add a shoe for more weight after the 1st 4 weeks.

[quote]austin_bicep wrote:
Does someone benching 300 pounds have more bodyfat then someone benching 600 pounds. Who the fuck knows, same thing with pull ups, they’re a measure of strength. If you can’t see that you’re retarded and I don’t know why I wasted my time explaining the obvious.[/quote]

Thats not a good analogy. Pullups are a body weight exercise, so in THEORY the more pullups you can do the more muscle you have compared to fat. Its dumb as hell, but totally different then your bench press analogy.

[quote]dwall33 wrote:
austin_bicep wrote:
Does someone benching 300 pounds have more bodyfat then someone benching 600 pounds. Who the fuck knows, same thing with pull ups, they’re a measure of strength. If you can’t see that you’re retarded and I don’t know why I wasted my time explaining the obvious.

Thats not a good analogy. Pullups are a body weight exercise, so in THEORY the more pullups you can do the more muscle you have compared to fat. Its dumb as hell, but totally different then your bench press analogy.[/quote]

I realized that after I typed it sitting on my couch watching the bounty hunter. Granted many retarded threads have been going on and I guess my brain is clouded.