Waist Size

[Hardartery]

This may belong in Stupid Questions, but I'm putting it here. Nick's Strength and Power pops up in my Youtube suggestions so I watch some of them, and I actually like Jay Cutler as a competitor. Weird because I don't pay much attention to BBing, but sometimes it is mildly interesting. In this video, around 1:48 there's a pic up of current Cutler posing next to some social media guy that I've never heard of. Cutler is by no means fat, but he has a significantly larger waist than the other guy. It stands out as being out of ratio versus the other body parts, I think there's more of the posing later in the video that demonstrates that. I don't know what their waist sizes are, but that is a substantial differemce and Cutler appears to be even a little leaner than the thinner waisted guy.


Cutler is ripped, no question. He's also a retired Pro bodybuilder, which requires a small frame build, like thin joints and narrow waist, even in the Heavyweigth Open category. One would assume he is not likely to be doing the drugs that cause Bubble Gut at this point. I feel that this is a fairly clear demonstration of basic physiological differences of waist size, with no bearing on finess or fatness.

[DanCR]

These aren’t absolutes. Yes, different folks are born with different waists. Also yes, a waist size in a particular range generally correlates to bad shit. That’s not the same thing as saying that the second that any person crosses a specific diameter, they’re fucked.

Really enjoyed watching the video. I both think professional bodybuilding is ridiculous and also enjoy talking it, 99% due to nostalgia for the magazine days.

[Hardartery]

These aren’t absolutes. Yes, different folks are born with different waists. Also yes, a waist size in a particular range generally correlates to bad shit. That’s not the same thing as saying that the second that any person crosses a specific diameter, they’re fucked.

Really enjoyed watching the video. I both think professional bodybuilding is ridiculous and also enjoy talking it, 99% due to nostalgia for the magazine days.

This goes to a previous discussion in a different part of the forum. No one would call Cutler fat, yet he has a noiceably thicker waist in spite of being from a sport that penalizes thick waists. Absolute waist size is arbitrary and arguably irrelevent.

[DanCR]

I recalled it. If the majority of folks whose waists exceed x have associated bad shit, the fact that there are exceptions - even many exceptions - doesn’t make x arbitrary. It just means that x isn’t an absolute.

[220Eric]

I saw an interview or something with Jordan from bbm saying over a 37 inch waist was unhealthy for men. Here is a thread with him discussing the same thing. https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/forum ... in-my-case

[dw]

Waist size has a rough (surprisingly rough when I looked into it) correlation with bf%. I would guess bf% is the hidden variable when it comes to health correlations with waist size, and waist size is just the easily measured manifestation. But idk.

I'm sure skeletal size has something to do with this. Just as some people have broader shoulders than others of the same height, others have narrower waists.

[mgil]

Waist size has a rough (surprisingly rough when I looked into it) correlation with bf%. I would guess bf% is the hidden variable when it comes to health correlations with waist size, and waist size is just the easily measured manifestation. But idk.

I'm sure skeletal size has something to do with this. Just as some people have broader shoulders than others of the same height, others have narrower waists.

Variations certainly exist.

I think the waist size thing is a decent proxy, but has to be taken in context with other health metrics.

[Hardartery]

Waist size has a rough (surprisingly rough when I looked into it) correlation with bf%. I would guess bf% is the hidden variable when it comes to health correlations with waist size, and waist size is just the easily measured manifestation. But idk.

I'm sure skeletal size has something to do with this. Just as some people have broader shoulders than others of the same height, others have narrower waists.

I know that a 37" waist looks quite small on me. A legit 37" waist, not a 37 waist pants fit me waist. I am wondering how much of the size difference on the vieo is down to training? Does Cutler have some sort of massive ab hypertrophy? I think a better proxy than absolute waist size would be waist to hip ratio, which is something I vaguely recall being a thing when I was a teenager back the Stone Age.

[MarkKO]

I have to admit I get confused with the waist measurement vs pants size. I'm a 38 waist in trousers, which is a comfortable fit. I can out a 36 on if it clears my backside but it won't be comfortable. My actual waist, which I understand to be around the navel, is not 38. It's a 40.

I'm not lean now, but I would say I'm not fat either. I have been relatively lean once, and at that stage my pants size was 36 IIRC, and I could have squeezed into a 34. My waist at navel at that stage was 38 I think.

I'm not sure how relevant any of this is to the discussion TBH.

One thing I will venture is that a claim like the one apparently made by Jordan is probably at least partly BS. There's likely no way in hell that a single waist measurement will cover ALL dudes. I can virtually guarantee there are men whose build would make a 35 inch waist unhealthy, and men whose build would make a 38 inch waist absolutely fine (as an example).

I recall reading something Dave Tate wrote years ago about when he dieted down. He got assessed by a highly reputable nutrition guy (whose name I forget), who said his body fat measurement didn't necessarily cover visceral fat, which was the dangerous one. That would, I imagine, feed into this matter as well

[cole]

in the military they had a chart where they could take height vs weight to see if you were a fat boy. of course every time we had a PT test and weigh ins I was selected to go to the fat boy line bc i was 5'11 215 which according to them is fat. but then once in the fat boy line they would take your waist vs neck measurement and some how determine that even though you weighed too much for your height, you were either ok or really a fat boy based on that ratio. it was always funny bc in the line was two types of boys. really pear bodied fat boys who would be given a chance to correct their physics before being discharged, and then the weightlifters that obviously had a lot of muscle which weighed alot and therefor put them in the line with the fat boys. it was comical bc you could tell who was going to be given a waiver just based on looks, but the waist to neck ration was suprisingly a good indicator of body compostion

[MarkKO]

in the military they had a chart where they could take height vs weight to see if you were a fat boy. of course every time we had a PT test and weigh ins I was selected to go to the fat boy line bc i was 5'11 215 which according to them is fat. but then once in the fat boy line they would take your waist vs neck measurement and some how determine that even though you weighed too much for your height, you were either ok or really a fat boy based on that ratio. it was always funny bc in the line was two types of boys. really pear bodied fat boys who would be given a chance to correct their physics before being discharged, and then the weightlifters that obviously had a lot of muscle which weighed alot and therefor put them in the line with the fat boys. it was comical bc you could tell who was going to be given a waiver just based on looks, but the waist to neck ration was suprisingly a good indicator of body compostion

I just had another look at some calculators, and the Navy method puts me anywhere between 33% bodyfat (I'm fairly sure I'm not) and 25% (which I could grudgingly see being fairly on the nose).

Admittedly the main problem I have using them that I only know that I am somewhere between 173 and 179 cm tall. I don't actually know what I measure.

[Philbert]

Waist size is intended as a proxy for visceral fat, not total body fat. As such it is in some ways superior to skin pinch measurements, which measure only subcutaneous fat and extrapolate visceral fat based on age and sex. It is also superior to BMI, because it is not as sensitive to variations in muscle mass. It does suffer from inability to account for height or frame size. IN that regard, either a waist/height ratio (corrects for height) or a waist/hip ratio (corrects for height and frame size) can be superior. Waist hip ratio breaks down for individuals who carry so much fat on their hips that it lowers waist/hip despite excess visceral fat. This mostly applies to some women, and although their body fat levels are excessive for peak physical performance in activities which depend primarily on moving ones own body weight (they perform poorly in running events), the health consequences of excess fat in this distribution are minimal barring very high levels of fat. Consequently, w/hip is probably the most accurate metric short of CT volumetric analysis. Ultimately, none of these metrics are definitive at an individual level, except as a way to track changes over time. They can be useful as screening tools.
Re: Cutler. Men can have a high volume of visceral fat with low subcu fat, but more likely in his case it is abdominal, lumbar erector, and psoas muscle mass.

[MarkKO]

Waist size is intended as a proxy for visceral fat, not total body fat. As such it is in some ways superior to skin pinch measurements, which measure only subcutaneous fat and extrapolate visceral fat based on age and sex. It is also superior to BMI, because it is not as sensitive to variations in muscle mass. It does suffer from inability to account for height or frame size. IN that regard, either a waist/height ratio (corrects for height) or a waist/hip ratio (corrects for height and frame size) can be superior. Waist hip ratio breaks down for individuals who carry so much fat on their hips that it lowers waist/hip despite excess visceral fat. This mostly applies to some women, and although their body fat levels are excessive for peak physical performance in activities which depend primarily on moving ones own body weight (they perform poorly in running events), the health consequences of excess fat in this distribution are minimal barring very high levels of fat. Consequently, w/hip is probably the most accurate metric short of CT volumetric analysis. Ultimately, none of these metrics are definitive at an individual level, except as a way to track changes over time. They can be useful as screening tools.
Re: Cutler. Men can have a high volume of visceral fat with low subcu fat, but more likely in his case it is abdominal, lumbar erector, and psoas muscle mass.

I would very much like to have this excuse

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

in the military they had a chart where they could take height vs weight to see if you were a fat boy. of course every time we had a PT test and weigh ins I was selected to go to the fat boy line bc i was 5'11 215 which according to them is fat. but then once in the fat boy line they would take your waist vs neck measurement and some how determine that even though you weighed too much for your height, you were either ok or really a fat boy based on that ratio. it was always funny bc in the line was two types of boys. really pear bodied fat boys who would be given a chance to correct their physics before being discharged, and then the weightlifters that obviously had a lot of muscle which weighed alot and therefor put them in the line with the fat boys. it was comical bc you could tell who was going to be given a waiver just based on looks, but the waist to neck ration was suprisingly a good indicator of body compostion

Is that the so called "Navy formula" or is it another formula ? It's pretty decent for an inexpensive measurement. Puts me around 15% which seems about right. It's actually quite interesting that the neck measurement plays such a big role in the formula. I would be interested in knowing how the formula works on people with giant necks like George Fischer ...

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

One thing that I was wondering when seeing Jordan recommend to keep the waist size below X inches (be it 40 inches or 37 inches or whatever number) for good health, was how that can be affected by muscularity in the torso.

The point being that, as far as I understand, those recommendations are based on studies done for the general population, however its not completely obvious that it can be extrapolated to people who are very muscular. I would imagine that people who have very thick erectors, abs and obliques would somehow be able to get away with a slightly larger waist size. People in the general population have little muscularity in the torso for the most part.

But then again nobody's going to do study on a bunch of bodybuilders and strongmen to correlate their waist size and their health. I would imagine that the overwhelming majority of them are not healthy anyways so it does not make a lot of sense.

[5hout]

My understanding (epistemic status: fairly sure) is that natural waist size is functionally a proxy for "how much bigger is your gut then your ribcage". If your gut is larger than your ribcage, you've got a visceral fat issue regardless of other factors (tiny exceptions for legit silly amounts of extra muscle). The measurement is a powerful one b/c it's 1 fairly easy # that is widely reliable. The neck measurement used in some other methods is unreliable b/c of wide variance in healthy neck measurements. Measuring rib cage (+ some small factor for muscles) has high measurement error b/c of body type variance. I think somewhere there is a study kicking around where they used millimeter wave or similar tech to run a rib cage vs gut measurement but I remember no other details and couldn't find with brief google.

This is also (imo) the easiest thing in the world to lie to yourself about. A million excuses for why your gut doesn't exist or is ok. I spent most of the last week making these excuses. Excess visceral fat/fat organ core organs = bad. You have a beer gut = you have excess visceral fat = time to cut. Now let me proceed to ignore this advice for (checks notes) 2.9 solid years.

[cole]

in the military they had a chart where they could take height vs weight to see if you were a fat boy. of course every time we had a PT test and weigh ins I was selected to go to the fat boy line bc i was 5'11 215 which according to them is fat. but then once in the fat boy line they would take your waist vs neck measurement and some how determine that even though you weighed too much for your height, you were either ok or really a fat boy based on that ratio. it was always funny bc in the line was two types of boys. really pear bodied fat boys who would be given a chance to correct their physics before being discharged, and then the weightlifters that obviously had a lot of muscle which weighed alot and therefor put them in the line with the fat boys. it was comical bc you could tell who was going to be given a waiver just based on looks, but the waist to neck ration was suprisingly a good indicator of body compostion

Is that the so called "Navy formula" or is it another formula ? It's pretty decent for an inexpensive measurement. Puts me around 15% which seems about right. It's actually quite interesting that the neck measurement plays such a big role in the formula. I would be interested in knowing how the formula works on people with giant necks like George Fischer ...

yes that was Navy

[MarkKO]

My understanding (epistemic status: fairly sure) is that natural waist size is functionally a proxy for "how much bigger is your gut then your ribcage". If your gut is larger than your ribcage, you've got a visceral fat issue regardless of other factors (tiny exceptions for legit silly amounts of extra muscle). The measurement is a powerful one b/c it's 1 fairly easy # that is widely reliable. The neck measurement used in some other methods is unreliable b/c of wide variance in healthy neck measurements. Measuring rib cage (+ some small factor for muscles) has high measurement error b/c of body type variance. I think somewhere there is a study kicking around where they used millimeter wave or similar tech to run a rib cage vs gut measurement but I remember no other details and couldn't find with brief google.

This is also (imo) the easiest thing in the world to lie to yourself about. A million excuses for why your gut doesn't exist or is ok. I spent most of the last week making these excuses. Excess visceral fat/fat organ core organs = bad. You have a beer gut = you have excess visceral fat = time to cut. Now let me proceed to ignore this advice for (checks notes) 2.9 solid years.

I hadn't heard of gut vs ribcage before, but it makes sense. It's nicely obvious without measuring.

[JohnHelton]

The guy Cutler was standing with looks like a Men's Physique competitor. They go for the uber thin waist look, which means staying away from loading the core or it will get too thick. If you squat and deadlift heavy weights, you will have a thicker waist, even if you are showing abs. I'm getting pretty close to abs at 34", which isn't that small. Probably still have to lose another 1.5" to get bottom abs. Tops are there. And I'm pretty short at 5'8" / 173 cm. I'm kind of the opinion that these measurements are BS. If you can grab a bunch of fat on your stomach, then you have your answer. If you can only pinch a bit, then you are pretty lean.

[quikky]

I think waist sizes and lifters are a lot like BMI and lifters - lots of lifters think these measurements are irrelevant because they're just too jacked. At my worst Texas Method/SS days, I also ignored how much fat I put on, and because I could still see my upper abs with a 38"+ waist, I thought all those recommendations were non-sense. I was a lifter, I was eating a lot, I could sort of see my abs still, who cares. Well, my cholesterol was also at a PR, and my blood pressure was always a bit elevated at the doctor's office, which I thought was just White Coat Syndrome. Interestingly enough, when I stopped the TM/SS non-sense, lost ~20lbs and about 6 inches off my waist, my LDL dropped by 60 points, and my blood pressure was perfectly normal even at the doctor's office. In fact, my doctor's literal words were "your cholesterol is amazing". All I did was stop pretending body fat doesn't apply as much to me because something-something I lift weights for fun.

Truth is, a lot of lifters (applies much more so to the strength/powerlifting crowd) are a bit too fat, and instead of getting less fat they try to justify why they might be an outlier. Outliers exist but I would bet 95% of people who think they are one, are just looking for an excuse to think they do not need to lose weight.