Body composition is a way to define what your body is made up of. Sometimes you might see this referred to in terms of lean tissue and body fat. Your body is composed of a skeleton (we hope, anyway, unless you’re a literate jellyfish), a bunch of organs and tissues, water, muscle, and fat. Body fat can be stored all over your body, and is important to hormone production, energy, and vitamin storage.
Body Composition is a Measurement, not a Value Judgment
A few notes before we go further into discussion about body composition:
- Having a lot of body fat doesn’t make you a good or bad person, doesn’t change your value or worth, and doesn’t mean that you can’t lift.
- You don’t need to have specific goals about your body comp to have fitness goals. You can have goals to work on improving your ability to do day-to-day activities, and we don’t necessarily need to focus on body composition to get there.
- Working towards body comp changes may or may not change your health. Keeping up a movement routine is demonstrated to improve your health irrespective of body comp changes.
Body Diversity is Real
Bodies come in many different shapes and sizes, and body comp is just one part of this. You can be strong, athletic, and healthy with the body composition that works for you. Your genetics determine a large component of how much body fat you store and where your body tends to hold it.
We’ve talked about “toning” before (see here), and typically when people talk about looking “toned” they mean a body comp with a little bit of visible muscle under a relatively low amount of body fat.
Thoughtful Approaches to Progress Measurement
We don’t usually measure bodyweight or percent of body fat here at PPG. Focusing on these metrics is not the most useful, and at worst, can be harmful for some people. I’ve had really embarrassing experiences with having my percentage of body fat measured in gyms, and most common ways of measuring body composition are notoriously inaccurate. Simple measurements of your waist, legs, and arms with a tape measure can be worth trying if you feel like you need some body focused measurements. If you don’t want to focus on body measurements at all, we fully support that, and we can concentrate on the weight on the bar, improvements in mobility, daily functioning, or other regular activities.
Strength Training is Likely to Lead to Body Comp Changes
It won’t happen overnight, but lifting weights will increase your muscle size and will likely change your body composition. You aren’t going to “turn fat into muscle” – that’s not how it works. But lifting will build your muscle.
You don’t have to have body composition goals at all, and we love partnering with people on quality of life goals! If you want to learn more about how you can pursue your fitness goals without having to focus on body comp or subject yourself to body fat assessments, hit us up and book a free no-sweat intro. We’ll talk about your goals and how we can partner with you to reach them!
