6% bodyfat, let's gooooooooo. Who's with me? Important Edit: at 2:54 and again later I used a pic of Dwayne Wade by accident instead of Serge Ibaka, as he showed up in the image search. Never edit videos after 11pm after working all day! However, overall point still stands. Suffice to say, if you image search Serge, he's not 6%. Anyway, books, below, useful, buy them, support my future caffeine addiction etc, etc, etc Book 1: SWEAT (beginner/intermediate) www.verityfit.com/product-page/sweat Book 2: Ring Training For Hypertrophy www.verityfit.com/product-page/ring-training-for-hypertrophy Book 3: Resurrecting Your Gains (intermediate/advanced) www.verityfit.com/product-page/resurrecting-your-gains-finding-your-muscle-growth-formula
@@Yebacheck had to chop out an edit at the very end because it got dinged for copyright. I don't run ads on the channel still so it wouldn't hurt me financially, but didn't want them to show up and bother the viewer for like 5 seconds of footage. Thanks to everyone who has gotten the books, it's actually a big help!
It's actually painful to watch. Most people have realistic goal physiques that they could reach with 1-2 years of lifting. But they absolutely refuse to put on ANY fat because their goal physique is lean ... and then a few years later they hop on gear WHILE STILL NOT EATING :(
You ever wonder what he truly does know? It's not body fat percentage. It's not strength. It's not exercise form. It's not exercise selection. It's certainly not mass building. The only thing I am certain of is that Jeff knows how to stay lean and that could, perhaps, be more of a mental tick or ED than anything. Speculation. No judgment. Not erectile dysfunction.
That’s a great point: what does he actually know? And, yes, I don’t think you stay that lean, that consistently, at that age without it being some sort of fixation. I remember a while back saying he only cheats once a year on his birthday with carrot cake, as if that was something to brag about SMH
Just a note, when Jeff was talking about “Rugby Players” he was showing footage from Australia’s Football Leauge (AFL). It’s an entirely different sport to rugby and the optimal body type for Australian Football compared to rugby is very very different. AFL players are often very tall and lean (still very muscular) and need incredible cardiovascular endurance as they run on average 15-16km a game (10 miles). Rugby players on the contrary do tend to hold a much higher body fat percentage however athletes from either sport would never come anywhere near 6% BF.
@@insertuniqueusernamehere At the time? he still does to this day. He sold his Brownlow medal to buy meth, and Jeff thinks he's a good example for his message
Most AFL players would be up around 15% body fat, with only the midfielders being 10ish %. Ben Cousins only looked that ripped because he was taking every drug known to mankind and somehow managed to avoid getting pinged for it. He is lucky to still be alive, a couple of his teammates were killed by their drug habits.
Man the athlete low bodyfat thing just won't go away. These guys who are supposedly 4-6% are like 12%+. 6% is striated glute territory, period. HackleanX, at it again. 3-5% is minimum to be alive. Most pro bodybuilders aren't below 4-5% in peak condition. 3% is Münzer level.
@Surtur Raven Spoilers, but there's little chance that Cavaliere is natty himself, so doubt he'd ever call out drug use. He's had no degradation in his physique despite being well into his 40s, he's on TRT at minimum. MMA fighters, NFL players, NBA players are most of his examples. Maybe the 3 mostly likely popular sports to be enhanced. NBA drug testing is apparently a joke (as is the NFL's), there's no incentive to have guys be natty. NBA plays 82 games (and then the playoffs), I'm sure a lot of guys are on compounds for recovery and body composition at minimum. LeBron has surely dabbled with more than that (esp back in his early Cleveland days when he was playing at 270 lb). NFL and MMA are power and explosiveness based, yet there are hardly any positive tests. Very curious. A lot of lean pro athletes are in the 12-15% range. People don't understand how lean 12% is, you have a visible 6-pack all the time with ab veins, it's the fitness cover model look. This is typically the level most regular people consider to be "super lean" or "shredded", people who don't know anything about bodybuilding. 8-10% can be stage ready for natural men's physique. Under 8% is close to striated glutes, and def under 7%. Very few people ever get under 4%, and if they do it's not for long, and they're not natty if they have any semblance of muscle mass at that leanness (excluding people starving to death).
I maintained 8-10% BF for about 8 years. I was running 40-50+ miles per week and training for marathons, only occasionally doing bodyweight exercises. I was 155 at 6'0" at that time. I was often tired and irritable. Now I'm about 180 probably 13-15% and feel much better emotionally.
Oh god, it's that Liver King approach to marketing, where they recommend something absurdly unrealistic, making people think their systems make unrealistic things realistic. Meanwhile, it makes people preaching more realistic approaches seem like they don't know how to get proper results.
there was a popular korean fitness challenge show called physical 100 recently, where 100 of the best athletes in south korea competed at various challenges to see who would come out on top and have the best body. the challenges were pretty creative (hang for time, pushing big rocks up and down hills, pulling giant ships, building a bridge to transport sand, fighting over a ball, flipping as many tiles as you can for time, etc., all kinds of tests of strength, speed, agility, and endurance). it's notable that of the top 5, not a single one had visible abs.
@@cronikvialo5463 some of the events actually were inspired by crossfit. you should watch it, it's pretty good. it's on netflix. there were a lot of crossfitters that did well in it. the crossfitters did better than the powerlifters and strongmen actually. the crossfitters weren't very lean either though.
But like many people dont care about this shit i just wanna look good naked and have my wife thank god every morning for the beautiful man she sleeps with every morning.
@@yakudza2773 i'm sure she'd prefer you live longer too. like if aesthetics are your only goal, and not longevity, is it really better to look great for 50 years and then die than to look almost as great for 80 years?
That would be ignoring all the rest of his nocebo bullshit, stupid exercises, lack of basic programming knowledge, lack of basic technique knowledge, etc. He is a flat out hack. In the medical circles, he would be known as a quack. He's built his brand on preying on noobies and disguising his lack of practical knowledge with anatomy demonstrations. He bases all his trivial fitness knowledge on anatomy, somehow; for example, his marker demos and "follow the fiber" crap.
@@DCJayhawk57 that is absolutely true. But you’re ignoring that he is selling a brand. Leanness equals athleticism, according to Jeff. And everything he does caters to that brand. I agree he’s a charlatan. I shy away from quack, because I think he’s worse. He knows what works and deliberately gives people in the public a different message and advice. Seriously doubt that he gave that same advice to Jesse in private.
@Jonathan Link I'm saying that he's given plenty of bad advice that has nothing to do with leanness, so it's possible he's a true believer. It's really hard for a charlatan to be so wrong about so many things all the time consistently for years,.
I don’t think that’s a hot take. That’s his entire business. He puts out false information people want to hear. That’s why he’s such a big channel - all he does is pander.
after losing 100lbs through mainly cardio and diet, i started taking my weight training more seriously. a year in, my newbie gains progress stalled hard. my problem was i was still eating in a “lose weight” mindset. lifted for literally another year without much progression until i stumbled across good content explaining the importance of maintaining a small surplus. the result one year after that: small fat gain and a lot of muscle gain.
The funniest part to me was when he used professional athletes as examples of people with a low body fat % to show it can be done... Then said you're *not* a professional powerlifter to argue against the necessity of bulking to get strong.
The people Jeff Cavalier showed weren’t even Rugby players, they were Aussie Rules players lol. You were spot on, Rugby players are generally not lean.
No idea what he was talking about. He was showing Aussie Rules, not any code of Rugby. Also, as a forward, if you are not at least 20% BF-35%, you simply do not have the mass, or the padding, to prevent repeated and continuous contact that you receive.
I watched a few videos of Jeff Cavaliere back when I was in high school, I am 33 now and Jeff Cavaliere still looks the same as back then,which tells a lot how much muscle you can build when you are obsessed with your abs.
Jeff is 50, extremely lean, and actually pretty fucking ripped. The only issue I have with his physique is that he's lying that he's not juicing. Otherwise, a lot of people don't want to get big in the first place.
One crucial thing everyone is overlooking in this topic is that most (if not all) professional athletes are on some sort of PEDs, it's basically necessary to continue being competitive.
Depends on the sport. We have a lot of Olympic weightlifters in the USA who don't win internationally because our anti-doping regime is like the East German Stasi. The "American record" in olympic weightlifting is kind of a thing at least for me because it gives you a realistic upper limit on performance. We still have people popped every now and again, just no state-run doping program like everybody else does. My guess for Jeff is just HRT (possibly even legit doses) and dialed in nutrition. I am not defending him here, because a lot of this content is obviously ridiculous, but the attacks on his strength levels I think are unfair due to his priority on being shredded and athletic. If he were to bulk up and actually focus on strength training instead of all these weird variation exercises, he'd probably be bigger and stronger than most of you. I bulk up in the winter and lean down in the warm months. I look totally different but my muscles don't really go anywhere. I just look much smaller and more athletic. Overall strength is down maybe 10% tops when I get down below what I suspect is around 12%. Athleticism goes WAY up -- just not for any kind of strength sport. I am not sure exactly how to get as lean as Jeff and still have that look he has, and I really suspect it's a higher dose of test than he is supposed to take. My natural test is very high so I don't need HRT and don't really know the ins and outs of it, though. The only thing I can say here is that there exist drugs that will VASTLY make this process easier for you. I am a disabled veteran and the VA puts me on PTSD medications that make eating mostly optional. So it's easier for me than probably for you, though definitely not easy to get below 10% without both losing muscle and feeling like crap. That's where I think his HRT comes in. I would guess he uses a drug similar to mine since he's been doing this for awhile.
He really does. Huh, bro how do you get to be a fitness youtuber with a 295lb bench. *looks at Geoffrey* aha, I mean. uh... an 80kg tricep extension* :)
Not surprised at all by Jeff's scam. Preventing noobs from eating more will keep them noob for longer. Which is the majority of Athlean X's audience (and by extension potential buyers of programs and/or supplements) The novice purgatory guardians are powerful indeed.
It also reminds me of G-Shred & his maingaining. Last time I saw him talking about Max Euceda & how he could have built muscle maintaining 140lb(shredded) at 5'8. But I think with Greg he's just that dumb...
Jeff has the perfect combination of scam artist and true believer, just like all the best snake oil salesmen. I had so many conversations with a younger guy at my old gym about AthleanX. Poor guy had paid for one of his programs. I tried to be nice and give him resources of good natural lifters, but the poor guy was just fully bought in. Despite being 150ish lb and skinny fat, he was doing 40 min of stair climber before lifting weights, and his program was 90% isolation movements done with no intensity or goal. He would say to me "I just want to get big like you" and when I told him to eat more, stop doing so much cardio, get good at compound movements, and push his isolation movements close to failure you could see the glaze come over his eyes. Honestly, learning to lift with intent and intensity are the most important factors for any newer lifters. You have to learn your limits and learn how to train uncomfortable. This guy was in the nocebo category of overly hesitant lifter without a sports background. Then there are the people who have played sports extensively and ego lift at every occasion. That was me. This is the common thing I see high school kids doing, work up to a max bench or 1/4 leg press every day then the rest of the workout is a bunch of fluff. I know it seems humiliating to not be able to do 135x10 on bench press, but you've got to start somewhere. I'm way more impressed when I see people who know how to train in the sweet spot with good technique than I am with ego lifters.
I started consuming fitness youtube with Jeff Cavaliere. I think he has a lot of good content, but I try to never put anyone on a pedestal and watch them uncritically. And with a charitable view, I always viewed his views on body fat as him projecting his body dysmorphia into his brand and content, because most athletes tell you that you are more prone to injury that way, and they have less energy. I love your content because I feel like you put honestity first and you have your feet on the earth. Your videos might not be over produced, so you don't have millions of subcriptions, but your information quality is top notch.
@@6SoulHunter9 what did you really learn ? With him you think you learn because he use fuzzy words that more often than not don't mean what he think they meant and that's it. I tend to think I was protecting myself from shoulders injury and then I learned that his info was outdated, pure unsubstantiated feat mongering tactics and that even uproght could be safe and a great exercise. In my opinion he's liar, a scammer, with no value no values, and keep the general fitness level much lower than it could and should be for his own monetary benefit.
@@michaelthreepeat I usually tried the things he says, because if you take him literally, you end up doing one and half hours a day of prehab work which is absurd. But I was a total newbie to fitness, so I learned a lot of very basic things like progresive overload, pull-push-leg splits, etc. Then I started correcting things with other people, and eventually I started watching him only for the entertaining value. Luckly, I had already good criteria when I started squatting so I never payed attention to the absurd tips he gives. Nowday I prefer to watch Dr. Mike Isratel for the entertaining value, and he seems like a way more serious guy (and he's honest about his PED use and has a sense of humour that resonates with me). But yeah, Athlean X lies a lot with the "putting the science on training", as he's mostly dogmatic and never cites studies properly.
Joe Delaney and Mario tonic have great videos about not making any gains for 5 years while staying lean. These are guys whose livelihoods come from their physiques so they are not missing workouts. Getting super lean should be a temporary thing for the beach or photoshoot, you need fat stores from 15%+ to gain muscle post nooby phase as a natural.
My older brother doesn't have any muscle and is telling me he wants to cut, he's been lifting for 3 years following AthleanX and is complaining that he can't gain any muscle, legit saddens me, I wish he would just bulk ffs, I keep telling him to bulk yet he won't, I'm turning 16 in 2 weeks and have been lifting for 7 months and made more progress than he has and he's 12 years older than I am...
Cavaliar keeps people hooked for years thinking they somehow made progress just by staying alive and not having shoulders surgery, and they pay good constant money for that. He's a liar extraordinaire and a genius marketing guru
@@michaelthreepeat my brother thankfully hasn't payed anything to Jeff but he has watched a shit ton of his vids, I've been powerlifting the past 2 or so months and my brother is taking a little bit of an interest in it I'm hoping to get him to actually make progress, maybe even get him on Johnny Candito's 6 week program who knows, yes strength training does build size too
I am about 18% right now and I look leaner than some of those 11-12% claims. Thing is, I am not even close. How you look is EXTREMELY reliant on your base muscle mass. You got the 5% anorexics that look fat due to the lack of mass, and you got the 22% Pro BB with soft eightpack and shoulder veins.
I've been sub 10% (7-9% in dexa) and it was very hard to achieve and absolutely miserable. I was often light headed, lost a lot of strength and stamina, zero sex drive and never in a good mood.10% to 14% is optimal in my experience. If you're on gear that obviously changes everything.
Thank you for calling this out in a direct manner. Earned my subscription for this. I can't even imagine how many people he's pushed into body dysmorphia. Anyone who's actually been in bodybuilding circles knows how awful it is under 10%.
Honestly I don’t really understand this perspective. Why are we talking in percentages? If dexa scans/any other body fat % calculator are shit, we aren’t going based off of standards set by them right? And so if you’re using your eyes you’re not “calculating” anything, you’re just assigning a value to how “lean” or “ripped” or “peeled” someone is, which are the words you say are bad to use
Watching Jeff Cavalier and Mark Rippetoe slowly get torn apart on the internet from 2016-now while being on opposite sides of the lifting spectrum are two pretty funky sh*t sandwiches to pull apart if you’re bored and want to browse reddit posts and RUclips comments on a rainy day.
In Sophomore year of High School I once measured around 6% body fat. That was only achieved through severe overtraining (running six days a week and lifting four times a week). While maintaining an extreme calorie deficit, eating only cereal and school lunches. My body was cannibalizing most of the muscle I was trying to build. I was a stick with probably really low levels of testosterone, constantly injured, and anemic. But hey I had visible abs.
Last time I touched 6%-ish body fat I was a 17yo cross-country runner in high school. Who knows the exact % for sure but I had to be close. I was just over 6' tall @ 128 pounds. I remember going in for my physical and the doctor asked if I ran cross-country, otherwise he was sending me to the hospital. You could see my heart beating through my chest and honestly I got comments all the times at school that I was way too skinny and my grandmother was mortified. My facial features looked a lot like Jeff C's TBH. I was just skin and bones. This wasn't on purpose, I ate like a horse. I was just a lanky teenager growing an inch plus a year and running 40+ miles a week at a very competitive level almost year round for 4 years. Even then, by the time I hit track season the following Spring I was up to 165 pounds and probably closer to 10-12% because I started moving beyond that teenager "growing like a weed" phase. Elite marathon runners have body fat %'s that low. Very few people have those genetics let alone are training like a world class marathon runner. I guess my point is it's not normal unless you're working at starving yourself or in a sport like distance biking, running or the such where you just burn absolutely insane amounts of calories.
Great video, this message needed to be told. In my gym, most guys who are strong, quick on their feet, work hard, and look impressive, are most likely in the 15-20% bf range. The ones who appear unusually lean, but aesthetic, are nowhere near as strong. I guess it boils down to personal preferences.
Everyone who always talks about his resume and how he worked for professional sports teams defending him vs how little he knows about athletes and their bodies is hilarious.
I saw this video the other day and thought it was the perfect video for Jeff to come out and say that for the overwhelming majority of people maintaining a super lean, sub 10% BF level isn’t possible and is probably unhealthy. But he always leaves things so ambiguous and never addresses that being excessively lean will actually “kill your gains”. It’s sad that his reach is so large as he just perpetuates body dysmorphia and potentially eating disorders.
He can't openly say that if you are too lean you will kill your gains because all of his programs are literally focused on a more cardiovascular approach to be lean than to actually gain muscle
I was about 9-10% body fat for 3 years straight and even then l didn’t feel lean enough. Althean x completely warped my perception of a healthy body fat to be at. My strength never increased at all except my pull-up a lil in this time frame, and this really hurt as l was working so hard in the gym and really tried to optimise my training. Now that l’ve been bulking for a year, my bench has increased from barely 100kg to a 140kg bench and l feel great maintaining about 15% body fat. I’m so glad l no longer view 15% as being fat
You didn't pay attention to jeff's video, he never said people should be sub 10%, he said a small percentage of people can be on that body fat especially athletes and most people should have higher body fat
@@rossdownie4441 yup I’ve done it too. I tried to maintain at like 12% and went nowhere for a while. I was also pretty miserable and constantly thinking about food. Plus I looked stringy in clothing and everyone kept asking me if I was sick. I can easily maintain 15% and be happy but my favorite place to be is around 18-20%. That’s where I personally make the most gains in muscle and strength. I also fill out my clothing WAY better. Realistically, I spend most of my day in clothing, sitting a computer analyzing data. Nobody cares if I have a 6-pack. Hell even my wife likes me “fluffier”.
The example of Michael Chandler is very disingenuous from Cavaliere too. MMA fighters fight in a certain weight class, so they are required to weigh (in Chandler's case) 155 pounds the day before. That really limits his ability to put on extra fat, even if that extra fat would be beneficial.
He could simply move up in weight class if he wanted to. The fact of the matter is that having that post-weigh-in blow up of weight is seen as more advantageous than being at a comfortable weight, especially when it comes to grappling. Almost everyone cuts weight now, and fighting at "walk-around" weight is basically its own handicap. Look at Frankie Edgar. The guy became LW champ way back when and finished his career at BW, 2 divisions down. He would be tiny compared to today's crop of 155ers.
I'm probably 15-20% I don't mind. I have solid muscle underneath, and I can move stuff well. I come from having a big boi body when I was younger so hanging around here and being strong is just fine by me. How you feel should be priority number one.
I think one thing that goes unsaid much of the time when discussing the so-called natty triangle is how much performance-enhancing drugs have distorted the metrics. For example, during his time, you never heard anyone say that Steve Reeves was relatively small or soft. To audiences of the 40s and 50s, he looked both huge and lean in and out of clothes.
I have wondered if Cav has lipodystrophy or such and that’s why he’s that lean all of the time. It makes sense to me that there’s something going on given how detached he seems to be to all things physique. I dated a gal years ago who had the condition and she looked like she came fresh from the cover of a fitness magazine and had never really worked out a day in her life to that point.
I LOVE Your channel man, I rarely comment on RUclips but credit where credit is due. You popping off more jokes too, letting your personality show, keep it up! 👍
I remember losing my first year of training in which I relied on Jeff as a lifting mentor,,, i thought the key was exercise selection and proper technique above all😂 I was 130lbs and prolly 11%bf, must've gained a single pound of muscle maybe
There's a massive difference between wrestling at 8-10% and 10-12%. I learned my lesson dropping a weight class in high school and absolutely wouldn't repeat it. Feeling like a potato is an easy way to get destroyed in a match. 🤣
If Jeff was right, people like George Foreman, Butterbean, Daniel Cormier, Derrick Lewis, Tyson Fury, and Oleksandr Usyk would all be fighting at a massive disadvantage. Hell, this was a big thing in the lead up to the first Usyk vs Joshua fight. While it's true that Anthony Joshua was an amazing champion with incredible skill, people weren't giving Usyk the credit he deserved because he didn't look like your typical Baki character. Especially when you compare him to Joshua, who definitely fits that image a lot better.
The irony of all of it. Is that being athletic doesn't mean your ripped outta your mind. People can't grasp the fact that a sumo wrestler is "athletic", that Lasha is "athletic", that Tyson Fury is "atheltic" none of these guys are 7-9% body fat. If anything there gonna be in the 20-29% range.
The only reason why someone might wanna be 13% body fat is face. If you have good face it can enhance your looks a lot. Even then, for most dudes anything between 15 to 18% bf is the best.
I could excuse poor advice in respect of technique for bracing on squats or crazy programming as one-off blips, but this consistent narrative that it is healthy and optimal to be this lean just blows my mind.
Yes but after being called so many times why does he keep the vids ? He does not really lacks videos...also, why does he do free video explaining that bench dips will destroy shoulders and that only ignorant bros do them and then he programs them into his paying programs ? He just doesn't care, at all.
As someone from the UK where rugby is a little more popular I was howling at him suggesting that most rugby players are in any way lean. Also 6% is waaaay to low to be athletically competent, and even if you were to push those numbers higher to 10%, the failure to recognise a lot of these athletes are enhanced and can sustain lower levels of bodyfat is completely glossed over. Jeff has some good videos on biomechanics and fixing things such as lower back pain, but then comes out with some completely baffling videos which even someone with an ounce of common sense can see straight through. It's so bizarre that someone can be so informed but so ignorant in very similar topics.
Hey Geoffrey, great vid. Bought your book on rings, loved it. Just wanna ask if you’ll ever cover about some of the best home gym options other than rings such as Sandbags, Chest Expander and resistance bands. Cheers
Glad you liked the book! I'm not sure if there's enough material there for a full book (I usually prefer to have a LOT of content in the books as you know) but I can look into it.
There was this argument I once heard online, and it's absolutely true to level that is just crazy. The argument was that people would be significantly more muscular if it wasn't for social media.
@@seban-jackedweeb5513 I heard a few guys say that. It really is one of the best sayings. Hyper focusing on ridiculous shit like which pullup variation is best or some study that says TUT increases hypertrophy by 7% is so pointless. Eat and improve your major lifts like deads, rows, pullups, bench etc..and you'll be good.
Hey GVS. This is such a great video. very helpful for individuals who were once brainwashed into thinking "if you don't have abs, you're fat." I'm sure many people can relate to that. I think being lean is subjective. Say for instance, you have a 'high' set-point, i'd argue that 15% could be lean (for you!). The same would work for 20% The point being that people should not develop unhealthy relationships with their body and with food, just to be at the arbitrary 8%-10% BF, when your body both feels best and really performs optimally at 15% (as an example). Keep the good content coming, coach
Competed in mma and wrestling for 8 years and hated cutting weight to lean 10% so much I stopped, still loved it and train just couldn't do weight cuts anymore (now doing powerlifting and loving the 15% bodyfat)
Great video as always Geoff. Absolutely crazy how someone who's whole life seems to be dedicated to staying lean has no idea what actual body fat % numbers look like. Makes me wonder how much he believes what he says and how much is just a sales pitch. In other news I started doing Lu raises today instead of normal lateral raises and I don't think I'm ever going back, hits way different and feels amazing!
Geoffrey, can you speak more about Jessie's amazing strength gains? I know you said you like him. Dude's got a 550 deadlift and 400 plus squat! Aren't those elite numbers for his size?
Ha ! Too easy for you Geoff. That clown beats himself in an argument...he has no chance with you. Good video, everytime you get another person to see through athlean x nonsense, you help them on their fitness journey. I still can't believe how popular he is!
Maybe I'm the unusual one here, but I'd rather have a little power belly and look good in clothes than be lean as shit and look small for 90% of the day
only reason I could see Jeff saying this us because most people severely underestimate where they are. In media people who are 15% are said to be like 4%
I spent like 6-8 months cutting straight and lost all sex drive.I was probably only about 9-12% at that point(still not too sure). Bulked up 10kg over the next couple months while maintaining abs etc and feel so much better. Getting super lean is a nice little goal for a short period of time to see how you've progressed and what you need to work on but that doesn't require 6% and trying to actually maintain something like that is nuts to me. The only real benefit to getting super lean as someone with no social media presence etc would just be able to bulk for a longer periods of time when done.
7:27 Oh, hey look, it's me. Yeah, I probably wasn't cutting weight in the optimal way (crash dieting, lots of cardio), but the sub-10% thing still stands. Whether it's fat or water weight, chasing the shred for bodybuilding or for combat sports just isn't worth the pain for me.
Depends on how bad it is, I usually ask a ton of questions in order to see how much things need to be modified. I don't usually outsource that kinda stuff to physical therapists but that might be worth considering.
@@GVS it's definitely not bad, I believe I caught it right when it started acting up, I've been using straps for most of my pulling movements since that seems to aggravate it the most. But since I work a hard labor job it's harder to prevent those movements that cause it to hurt a bit lol
Lmaooo. Im a lean year round type of guy. Even when I starve myself, the lowest I can probably get is 8%. I think Jeff has a VERY skewed perception on what’s healthy
Thanks for the video, I happened to watch this Athlean X video randomly and it was a bit of white noise to me because I didn't have a notion of what these fat percentages meant and because I happen to know that having visible abs doesn't talk about your strength as much as about your tendency to remain hungry. Just an hour ago I ran into a livestream with (probably young) people criticizing slight bellies and saying they had a six pack which makes me think that indeed, there is some unhealthy notions out there on body shapes that are easily malleable and can go wrong if they run into bad information. I had already found out about other faults in Athlean X videos but this one is specially disappointing
Jeff has the loudest voice in the fitness industry. He owes it to his audience to give out credible, healthy information. These BS clickbait videos really aren't doing him or his fans any favours.
@Sooner Born We all used to be, probably. I will say though, he was a great motivator and he did teach me some of the important basics when I was a teenager. His deeper info isn't great, but it's also not Vshred-level bad. Anyone starting out can get at least 'fit' using his videos
When I first started lifting I paid for his course (it was something like £90) and it had so little value that the only reason I kept lifting is because I'd just spent £90... I was stagnant and literally starving myself thinking that it was the right thing to do because this guy was telling me it was and I didn't know any better as a beginner. If it wasn't for finding other lifters who knew better, I would have just stopped and gone back to exclusively lifting pizza and beer... It's shocking to me how much further I've come with just free content from RUclips and a little helping of another Geoffrey's book
Perceived leanness also depends on muscular development. Once you have build a lot of muscle you will still look kind of shredded at 15% body fat (dexa scan) because your subcutaneous fat is distrubuted on a larger surface. Being athletic is only about performance and has nothing to do with bodyfat percentage. Maybe in some sports like long distance running, jumping, etc. it is advantageos to be as light as possbile but in other sports it is advantageos to carry some body fat. Strongmen, throwers(shot put, hammer, discus) and powerlifters usually have more than 25% bodyfat but are considered athletes.
I'm not the biggest fan of Greg Doucette. But his bodyfat estimates tend to be pretty accurate. This is a perfect example of his rule of thumb of adding 5% to gym bro bf standards. As you mentioned, if you add ~5% to the Athlean-X list, the descriptions become almost spot on.
As a rugby guy (not professional), having less than 10% BF would actually be terrible, and actually super dangerous. Our fat helps when tackling or getting tackled, since we have that extra cushion from all the force and impact we take. Don't think any competent rugby coach would even let someone under 10% BF play. Too much of a risk and liability.
I’m natural and lean and every time I try and bulk I feel awful (much more tired, marginally stronger and somehow always hungry). I don’t know if this is common to guys who start pretty skinny, I know it’s the same for my 3 brothers. I guess there’s exceptions and heredity is going to play a huge role in your optimal athletic body fat %. Keep in mind im not talking 6-12% im talking 10-20% (estimation)
I’m similar. I am not naturally super lean but I just don’t feel good when I am trying to put on some weight. Tired, heart burn, bloated, and just bleh.
Well.. The best thing that Jeff could've done for me was mention Mike Mentzer in one of his videos (can't remember which one) and after that I started looking up HIT training and found a wonderful video yours! So gotta thank him for that! 😂
I am about 18% or 19% bodyfat and everyone at work thinks I am super skinny. I think people are just so used to seeing people (guys) 30% and higher and that has become the norm.
When I was teaching golf and selling golf clubs. People used to buy sets of golf clubs that were unsuitable for them, they couldn't even hit the middle of the club. They weren't good enough for the clubs. After they walked out I'd say to my co worker... he doesn't know, that he doesn't know🤣
Jeff was one of the guys who got me into fitness, but I figured out pretty quickly that he's not giving the best advice. He has a physique that anyone can envy, which is why so many newbies follow him, but nothing he preaches will really get you out of the intermediate lifter phase. The terrible bf% estimates are just the tip of the iceberg tbh.
Any publicity photo for any reasonably professional outfit have "editing in post" done. That doesn't mean egregious shopping pushing pixels around, but certainly lots of shading and lighting adjustments, which are gonna make all the abs and separation and veins pop out.
I like how transparent you are man. No bullshit. No fucks given. Just honest advice and I also like that you don’t push supplements in our face since you’re a guy who doesn’t take creatine same as me. Silver era bodybuilders proved that just with a good diet and hard work you can build a physique and so do you.
Actually I do take creatine now haha. Added it back in about a month ago. But it's definitely not needed...just tougher to get in a lot of meat in the diet when cutting, at least for me.
I am a -59kg powerlifter. A rather short guy, historically speaking I've always been "skinny" or what have you. Struggled with various eating disorders, etc. I used to be underweight before I started working out... put around 5kg of bodyweight on within the first 6 months of training. (Started again at 20, after having fallen off due to studies.) One of the first things I noticed was that I wasn't perpetually freezing. I used to freeze all the time while being underweight. Also, saying people do strength sports and admire strongman and powerlifting athletes as an excuse not to get leaner? What utter nonsense! I train for powerlifting, why on earth would I look to professional bodybuilders for inspiration? It's not my sport... Also, no one can "maintain" peak performance in any sport year round. That's why it's called a "peak"... you're not supposed to be there all the time. It's not healthy. I suppose Jeff gave me some inspiration when I first stepped into the gym as an 18-year-old. Now, I'd rather consume less bullshit content. With all his young viewers, it's disgusting that he isn't acting more responsible.
Last year, I dieted from 85kg to 77.8kg over several months, I had lower back striations, delt striations, chest striations almost, my arms were even more vascular and cut than usual (check my photo,) and every other muscle was cut and defined, albeit flat due to low calories (carbs specifically.) I am guessing even then I was approximately 8-10% bodyfat, since even then I had pinchable love handles, and my abs still had a few mm of pinchable skin. What you don't see from the outside is that my gym performance was tanking, compounds for legs especially, and my strength overall was a good bit lower. To eat at maintenance at that level would simply not fuel my training the same way as eating in a surplus and gaining a little fluff. I went back on a bulk, performance has gone way up, and my weight peaked at 87.8kg a week or so ago, my heaviest weight ever, a good bit softer than I'm used to, and have started another short cut just so I don't exceed roughly 16-18% bodyfat.
![Lil Uzi Vert - Chill Bae [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/D7F42F_JM3U/mqdefault.jpg)
6% bodyfat, let's gooooooooo. Who's with me?
Important Edit: at 2:54 and again later I used a pic of Dwayne Wade by accident instead of Serge Ibaka, as he showed up in the image search. Never edit videos after 11pm after working all day!
However, overall point still stands. Suffice to say, if you image search Serge, he's not 6%.
Anyway, books, below, useful, buy them, support my future caffeine addiction etc, etc, etc
Book 1: SWEAT (beginner/intermediate)
www.verityfit.com/product-page/sweat
Book 2: Ring Training For Hypertrophy
www.verityfit.com/product-page/ring-training-for-hypertrophy
Book 3: Resurrecting Your Gains (intermediate/advanced)
www.verityfit.com/product-page/resurrecting-your-gains-finding-your-muscle-growth-formula
It's actually Dwyane, and not Dwayne, Wade. Look it up. Thanks for the precision nonetheless
Great video! Btw, WTF were those last few frames of the video? Glad I was sober while watching lol
I owned one of his program ax1 I don't use it anymore cuz I bought yours are u interested in reviewing his. Program
@@Yebacheck had to chop out an edit at the very end because it got dinged for copyright. I don't run ads on the channel still so it wouldn't hurt me financially, but didn't want them to show up and bother the viewer for like 5 seconds of footage. Thanks to everyone who has gotten the books, it's actually a big help!
His channel is fueled by hair dye and bulemia..... And also, just like your channel, frozen vertebrae.
This obsession with being shredded is one of the biggest things holding natural bodybuilding back...
100%. Then they hop on gear when they hit their "limit" but barely eating.
@@GVS Merijn **cough**
It's actually painful to watch. Most people have realistic goal physiques that they could reach with 1-2 years of lifting. But they absolutely refuse to put on ANY fat because their goal physique is lean ... and then a few years later they hop on gear WHILE STILL NOT EATING :(
@@GVS Yeah bro I've been maingaining at 6% bodyfat for 2 years and have made zero progress 🤣 the natty limit strikes again
@@NattyLifeYT so true haha 😂
Pro tip: Is easier to maintain high energy levels at the gym while being 6% bf when the weights are not real.
Jeff is generous. Any time he mentions the notion that he's a "strength coach" he gives belly laughs all around.
It’s also easier when you don’t have to produce your own testosterone.
True
Don't forget to use tactical soap!
Exactly!! 💯 people who have never gone under 15 who myself included live in a dad bid don’t understand that
You ever wonder what he truly does know? It's not body fat percentage. It's not strength. It's not exercise form. It's not exercise selection. It's certainly not mass building. The only thing I am certain of is that Jeff knows how to stay lean and that could, perhaps, be more of a mental tick or ED than anything. Speculation. No judgment. Not erectile dysfunction.
Gotta agree. That and marketing/SEO.
He's got the clickbait thing down pat though.
That’s a great point: what does he actually know? And, yes, I don’t think you stay that lean, that consistently, at that age without it being some sort of fixation. I remember a while back saying he only cheats once a year on his birthday with carrot cake, as if that was something to brag about SMH
He knows what kills your gains
Physiotherapy is what he knows. If you sit at a desk all day and tweak your back, he can help sort you out.
Every other video is useless
Just a note, when Jeff was talking about “Rugby Players” he was showing footage from Australia’s Football Leauge (AFL). It’s an entirely different sport to rugby and the optimal body type for Australian Football compared to rugby is very very different. AFL players are often very tall and lean (still very muscular) and need incredible cardiovascular endurance as they run on average 15-16km a game (10 miles). Rugby players on the contrary do tend to hold a much higher body fat percentage however athletes from either sport would never come anywhere near 6% BF.
Never mind that it was pics of Ben Cousins, who was taking a lot of drugs (performance enhancing or otherwise) at the time!
Came here to say this
@@insertuniqueusernamehere At the time? he still does to this day. He sold his Brownlow medal to buy meth, and Jeff thinks he's a good example for his message
Most AFL players would be up around 15% body fat, with only the midfielders being 10ish %. Ben Cousins only looked that ripped because he was taking every drug known to mankind and somehow managed to avoid getting pinged for it. He is lucky to still be alive, a couple of his teammates were killed by their drug habits.
Yeah but even footy players are nowhere near 6% bodyfat
Man the athlete low bodyfat thing just won't go away.
These guys who are supposedly 4-6% are like 12%+.
6% is striated glute territory, period.
HackleanX, at it again. 3-5% is minimum to be alive. Most pro bodybuilders aren't below 4-5% in peak condition. 3% is Münzer level.
And they're most likely enhanced. But Cavaliere is too political to admit it.
@Surtur Raven
Spoilers, but there's little chance that Cavaliere is natty himself, so doubt he'd ever call out drug use. He's had no degradation in his physique despite being well into his 40s, he's on TRT at minimum.
MMA fighters, NFL players, NBA players are most of his examples. Maybe the 3 mostly likely popular sports to be enhanced. NBA drug testing is apparently a joke (as is the NFL's), there's no incentive to have guys be natty. NBA plays 82 games (and then the playoffs), I'm sure a lot of guys are on compounds for recovery and body composition at minimum. LeBron has surely dabbled with more than that (esp back in his early Cleveland days when he was playing at 270 lb). NFL and MMA are power and explosiveness based, yet there are hardly any positive tests. Very curious.
A lot of lean pro athletes are in the 12-15% range. People don't understand how lean 12% is, you have a visible 6-pack all the time with ab veins, it's the fitness cover model look. This is typically the level most regular people consider to be "super lean" or "shredded", people who don't know anything about bodybuilding. 8-10% can be stage ready for natural men's physique. Under 8% is close to striated glutes, and def under 7%. Very few people ever get under 4%, and if they do it's not for long, and they're not natty if they have any semblance of muscle mass at that leanness (excluding people starving to death).
I maintained 8-10% BF for about 8 years. I was running 40-50+ miles per week and training for marathons, only occasionally doing bodyweight exercises. I was 155 at 6'0" at that time. I was often tired and irritable. Now I'm about 180 probably 13-15% and feel much better emotionally.
12 to 15 percent sounds comfortable and healthy.
Really hard to be big and shredded at the same time
Oh god, it's that Liver King approach to marketing, where they recommend something absurdly unrealistic, making people think their systems make unrealistic things realistic.
Meanwhile, it makes people preaching more realistic approaches seem like they don't know how to get proper results.
there was a popular korean fitness challenge show called physical 100 recently, where 100 of the best athletes in south korea competed at various challenges to see who would come out on top and have the best body. the challenges were pretty creative (hang for time, pushing big rocks up and down hills, pulling giant ships, building a bridge to transport sand, fighting over a ball, flipping as many tiles as you can for time, etc., all kinds of tests of strength, speed, agility, and endurance). it's notable that of the top 5, not a single one had visible abs.
Your test sounds like a weird strongman event. You could take crossfit athletes and state the exact opposite.
@@cronikvialo5463 some of the events actually were inspired by crossfit. you should watch it, it's pretty good. it's on netflix. there were a lot of crossfitters that did well in it. the crossfitters did better than the powerlifters and strongmen actually. the crossfitters weren't very lean either though.
But like many people dont care about this shit i just wanna look good naked and have my wife thank god every morning for the beautiful man she sleeps with every morning.
@@cronikvialo5463 the show actually had quite a few CrossFit athletes in it.
@@yakudza2773 i'm sure she'd prefer you live longer too. like if aesthetics are your only goal, and not longevity, is it really better to look great for 50 years and then die than to look almost as great for 80 years?
Hot take, Jeff could just be lying because it's his brand and to his benefit to underestimate people's body fat.
That would be ignoring all the rest of his nocebo bullshit, stupid exercises, lack of basic programming knowledge, lack of basic technique knowledge, etc.
He is a flat out hack. In the medical circles, he would be known as a quack. He's built his brand on preying on noobies and disguising his lack of practical knowledge with anatomy demonstrations. He bases all his trivial fitness knowledge on anatomy, somehow; for example, his marker demos and "follow the fiber" crap.
@@DCJayhawk57 that is absolutely true. But you’re ignoring that he is selling a brand. Leanness equals athleticism, according to Jeff. And everything he does caters to that brand. I agree he’s a charlatan. I shy away from quack, because I think he’s worse. He knows what works and deliberately gives people in the public a different message and advice. Seriously doubt that he gave that same advice to Jesse in private.
@Jonathan Link I'm saying that he's given plenty of bad advice that has nothing to do with leanness, so it's possible he's a true believer. It's really hard for a charlatan to be so wrong about so many things all the time consistently for years,.
@Jonathan Link I think he's both deceitful and lacking knowledge, just like so many snake oil salesmen.
I don’t think that’s a hot take. That’s his entire business. He puts out false information people want to hear. That’s why he’s such a big channel - all he does is pander.
after losing 100lbs through mainly cardio and diet, i started taking my weight training more seriously. a year in, my newbie gains progress stalled hard. my problem was i was still eating in a “lose weight” mindset. lifted for literally another year without much progression until i stumbled across good content explaining the importance of maintaining a small surplus. the result one year after that: small fat gain and a lot of muscle gain.
The funniest part to me was when he used professional athletes as examples of people with a low body fat % to show it can be done... Then said you're *not* a professional powerlifter to argue against the necessity of bulking to get strong.
The people Jeff Cavalier showed weren’t even Rugby players, they were Aussie Rules players lol.
You were spot on, Rugby players are generally not lean.
No idea what he was talking about. He was showing Aussie Rules, not any code of Rugby. Also, as a forward, if you are not at least 20% BF-35%, you simply do not have the mass, or the padding, to prevent repeated and continuous contact that you receive.
We all need to post our 15-20% body fat physiques on social media and call this BS out. It can be our own #bodypositivity movement.
“He doesn’t need a tan” had me 💀
I watched a few videos of Jeff Cavaliere back when I was in high school, I am 33 now and Jeff Cavaliere still looks the same as back then,which tells a lot how much muscle you can build when you are obsessed with your abs.
Yeah that’s a good point. What sort of progress is he achieving at this leanness?
Jeff is 50, extremely lean, and actually pretty fucking ripped. The only issue I have with his physique is that he's lying that he's not juicing. Otherwise, a lot of people don't want to get big in the first place.
At 11% bodyfat measured with 8 measures with calippers I had veins visibles in my stomach. Relaxed.
8% is 2 weeks of a bodybuilding show. Forget ot
I have a semblance of a six pack at 15 percent bodyfat. Jeffs insane
You can make out a 6 pack for me at 17% bodyfat and I train everything but abs you can have a good 6 pack at easily 15% bodyfat
One crucial thing everyone is overlooking in this topic is that most (if not all) professional athletes are on some sort of PEDs, it's basically necessary to continue being competitive.
At this point I am convinced Yeff is anorexic/bulimic or is on Gear. He even looks unhealthy af with his sunken face and lack of energy.
Depends on the sport. We have a lot of Olympic weightlifters in the USA who don't win internationally because our anti-doping regime is like the East German Stasi. The "American record" in olympic weightlifting is kind of a thing at least for me because it gives you a realistic upper limit on performance. We still have people popped every now and again, just no state-run doping program like everybody else does. My guess for Jeff is just HRT (possibly even legit doses) and dialed in nutrition. I am not defending him here, because a lot of this content is obviously ridiculous, but the attacks on his strength levels I think are unfair due to his priority on being shredded and athletic. If he were to bulk up and actually focus on strength training instead of all these weird variation exercises, he'd probably be bigger and stronger than most of you. I bulk up in the winter and lean down in the warm months. I look totally different but my muscles don't really go anywhere. I just look much smaller and more athletic. Overall strength is down maybe 10% tops when I get down below what I suspect is around 12%. Athleticism goes WAY up -- just not for any kind of strength sport. I am not sure exactly how to get as lean as Jeff and still have that look he has, and I really suspect it's a higher dose of test than he is supposed to take. My natural test is very high so I don't need HRT and don't really know the ins and outs of it, though. The only thing I can say here is that there exist drugs that will VASTLY make this process easier for you. I am a disabled veteran and the VA puts me on PTSD medications that make eating mostly optional. So it's easier for me than probably for you, though definitely not easy to get below 10% without both losing muscle and feeling like crap. That's where I think his HRT comes in. I would guess he uses a drug similar to mine since he's been doing this for awhile.
Nah. Look at the majority of NBA and NHL players
Jeff: "I've not suffered a loss in performance"
Also Jeff: Still has lifts that someone would achieve in 1-2 years
*meeoowww!!*
He really does. Huh, bro how do you get to be a fitness youtuber with a 295lb bench. *looks at Geoffrey* aha, I mean. uh... an 80kg tricep extension* :)
@dood man there is 0% chance Jeff Cavaliere can bench 295 lol, maybe 195.
he is not training for strenght he is a bodybuilder training for muscle growth, and he has done a good job
@@mcpartridgeboy Yeah... yeah... he's got a really good personality.
Not surprised at all by Jeff's scam. Preventing noobs from eating more will keep them noob for longer. Which is the majority of Athlean X's audience (and by extension potential buyers of programs and/or supplements) The novice purgatory guardians are powerful indeed.
It also reminds me of G-Shred & his maingaining. Last time I saw him talking about Max Euceda & how he could have built muscle maintaining 140lb(shredded) at 5'8.
But I think with Greg he's just that dumb...
Agreed. He kept me in noob gains for a while. I hold a grudge lol.
Man I hate Jeff for this. Simply despicable. Athlean X? More like Midlean X.
Jeff Scamaliere. Griftlean X.
Jeff has the perfect combination of scam artist and true believer, just like all the best snake oil salesmen.
I had so many conversations with a younger guy at my old gym about AthleanX. Poor guy had paid for one of his programs. I tried to be nice and give him resources of good natural lifters, but the poor guy was just fully bought in.
Despite being 150ish lb and skinny fat, he was doing 40 min of stair climber before lifting weights, and his program was 90% isolation movements done with no intensity or goal.
He would say to me "I just want to get big like you" and when I told him to eat more, stop doing so much cardio, get good at compound movements, and push his isolation movements close to failure you could see the glaze come over his eyes.
Honestly, learning to lift with intent and intensity are the most important factors for any newer lifters. You have to learn your limits and learn how to train uncomfortable. This guy was in the nocebo category of overly hesitant lifter without a sports background. Then there are the people who have played sports extensively and ego lift at every occasion. That was me. This is the common thing I see high school kids doing, work up to a max bench or 1/4 leg press every day then the rest of the workout is a bunch of fluff.
I know it seems humiliating to not be able to do 135x10 on bench press, but you've got to start somewhere. I'm way more impressed when I see people who know how to train in the sweet spot with good technique than I am with ego lifters.
I started consuming fitness youtube with Jeff Cavaliere. I think he has a lot of good content, but I try to never put anyone on a pedestal and watch them uncritically.
And with a charitable view, I always viewed his views on body fat as him projecting his body dysmorphia into his brand and content, because most athletes tell you that you are more prone to injury that way, and they have less energy.
I love your content because I feel like you put honestity first and you have your feet on the earth.
Your videos might not be over produced, so you don't have millions of subcriptions, but your information quality is top notch.
That's just like G-Shred. Man, body dysmorphia's everywhere. So dumb...
No bro
He's simply terrible
@@StefanosMarinos You're right, I am too good with him because I have learned things from him, but I had to filter wayy too much bullshit.
@@6SoulHunter9 what did you really learn ? With him you think you learn because he use fuzzy words that more often than not don't mean what he think they meant and that's it. I tend to think I was protecting myself from shoulders injury and then I learned that his info was outdated, pure unsubstantiated feat mongering tactics and that even uproght could be safe and a great exercise. In my opinion he's liar, a scammer, with no value no values, and keep the general fitness level much lower than it could and should be for his own monetary benefit.
@@michaelthreepeat I usually tried the things he says, because if you take him literally, you end up doing one and half hours a day of prehab work which is absurd.
But I was a total newbie to fitness, so I learned a lot of very basic things like progresive overload, pull-push-leg splits, etc. Then I started correcting things with other people, and eventually I started watching him only for the entertaining value.
Luckly, I had already good criteria when I started squatting so I never payed attention to the absurd tips he gives.
Nowday I prefer to watch Dr. Mike Isratel for the entertaining value, and he seems like a way more serious guy (and he's honest about his PED use and has a sense of humour that resonates with me).
But yeah, Athlean X lies a lot with the "putting the science on training", as he's mostly dogmatic and never cites studies properly.
It's about damn time GVS. I'm hoping NH also does a video on this. 💪
Joe Delaney and Mario tonic have great videos about not making any gains for 5 years while staying lean. These are guys whose livelihoods come from their physiques so they are not missing workouts. Getting super lean should be a temporary thing for the beach or photoshoot, you need fat stores from 15%+ to gain muscle post nooby phase as a natural.
It's always interesting to see how much leaner people look by gaining muscle.
My older brother doesn't have any muscle and is telling me he wants to cut, he's been lifting for 3 years following AthleanX and is complaining that he can't gain any muscle, legit saddens me, I wish he would just bulk ffs, I keep telling him to bulk yet he won't, I'm turning 16 in 2 weeks and have been lifting for 7 months and made more progress than he has and he's 12 years older than I am...
Cavaliar keeps people hooked for years thinking they somehow made progress just by staying alive and not having shoulders surgery, and they pay good constant money for that. He's a liar extraordinaire and a genius marketing guru
@@michaelthreepeat my brother thankfully hasn't payed anything to Jeff but he has watched a shit ton of his vids, I've been powerlifting the past 2 or so months and my brother is taking a little bit of an interest in it I'm hoping to get him to actually make progress, maybe even get him on Johnny Candito's 6 week program who knows, yes strength training does build size too
@@manspeej I hope it works. Wish him the best
I am about 18% right now and I look leaner than some of those 11-12% claims. Thing is, I am not even close. How you look is EXTREMELY reliant on your base muscle mass. You got the 5% anorexics that look fat due to the lack of mass, and you got the 22% Pro BB with soft eightpack and shoulder veins.
Exactly, and that is never really explained. Geoff, NH still have abs over 15%, some skinny dudes are 10% with no abs definition
Yep, soft six-pack at about 20-21%. Even when flexed after a workout pump some gills are visible.
I've been hoodwinked by Athlean-X. It sucks how much time and money I wasted on his "advice". You live and you learn.
I'm glad I didn't spend money.
I've been sub 10% (7-9% in dexa) and it was very hard to achieve and absolutely miserable. I was often light headed, lost a lot of strength and stamina, zero sex drive and never in a good mood.10% to 14% is optimal in my experience. If you're on gear that obviously changes everything.
Thank you for calling this out in a direct manner. Earned my subscription for this. I can't even imagine how many people he's pushed into body dysmorphia. Anyone who's actually been in bodybuilding circles knows how awful it is under 10%.
"why are we talking in words?" Love him or hate him, this man spitting facts
**grunts in agreement**
Honestly I don’t really understand this perspective. Why are we talking in percentages? If dexa scans/any other body fat % calculator are shit, we aren’t going based off of standards set by them right? And so if you’re using your eyes you’re not “calculating” anything, you’re just assigning a value to how “lean” or “ripped” or “peeled” someone is, which are the words you say are bad to use
Watching Jeff Cavalier and Mark Rippetoe slowly get torn apart on the internet from 2016-now while being on opposite sides of the lifting spectrum are two pretty funky sh*t sandwiches to pull apart if you’re bored and want to browse reddit posts and RUclips comments on a rainy day.
In Sophomore year of High School I once measured around 6% body fat. That was only achieved through severe overtraining (running six days a week and lifting four times a week). While maintaining an extreme calorie deficit, eating only cereal and school lunches. My body was cannibalizing most of the muscle I was trying to build. I was a stick with probably really low levels of testosterone, constantly injured, and anemic. But hey I had visible abs.
Last time I touched 6%-ish body fat I was a 17yo cross-country runner in high school. Who knows the exact % for sure but I had to be close. I was just over 6' tall @ 128 pounds. I remember going in for my physical and the doctor asked if I ran cross-country, otherwise he was sending me to the hospital. You could see my heart beating through my chest and honestly I got comments all the times at school that I was way too skinny and my grandmother was mortified. My facial features looked a lot like Jeff C's TBH. I was just skin and bones. This wasn't on purpose, I ate like a horse. I was just a lanky teenager growing an inch plus a year and running 40+ miles a week at a very competitive level almost year round for 4 years.
Even then, by the time I hit track season the following Spring I was up to 165 pounds and probably closer to 10-12% because I started moving beyond that teenager "growing like a weed" phase.
Elite marathon runners have body fat %'s that low. Very few people have those genetics let alone are training like a world class marathon runner.
I guess my point is it's not normal unless you're working at starving yourself or in a sport like distance biking, running or the such where you just burn absolutely insane amounts of calories.
Great video, this message needed to be told. In my gym, most guys who are strong, quick on their feet, work hard, and look impressive, are most likely in the 15-20% bf range. The ones who appear unusually lean, but aesthetic, are nowhere near as strong. I guess it boils down to personal preferences.
Everyone who always talks about his resume and how he worked for professional sports teams defending him vs how little he knows about athletes and their bodies is hilarious.
I saw this video the other day and thought it was the perfect video for Jeff to come out and say that for the overwhelming majority of people maintaining a super lean, sub 10% BF level isn’t possible and is probably unhealthy. But he always leaves things so ambiguous and never addresses that being excessively lean will actually “kill your gains”. It’s sad that his reach is so large as he just perpetuates body dysmorphia and potentially eating disorders.
He can't openly say that if you are too lean you will kill your gains because all of his programs are literally focused on a more cardiovascular approach to be lean than to actually gain muscle
I was about 9-10% body fat for 3 years straight and even then l didn’t feel lean enough. Althean x completely warped my perception of a healthy body fat to be at. My strength never increased at all except my pull-up a lil in this time frame, and this really hurt as l was working so hard in the gym and really tried to optimise my training. Now that l’ve been bulking for a year, my bench has increased from barely 100kg to a 140kg bench and l feel great maintaining about 15% body fat. I’m so glad l no longer view 15% as being fat
@@rossdownie4441 Same thing happened to me. I'm glad you (and i) opened our eyes and got out of what was essentially a disorder
You didn't pay attention to jeff's video, he never said people should be sub 10%, he said a small percentage of people can be on that body fat especially athletes and most people should have higher body fat
@@rossdownie4441 yup I’ve done it too. I tried to maintain at like 12% and went nowhere for a while. I was also pretty miserable and constantly thinking about food. Plus I looked stringy in clothing and everyone kept asking me if I was sick. I can easily maintain 15% and be happy but my favorite place to be is around 18-20%. That’s where I personally make the most gains in muscle and strength. I also fill out my clothing WAY better.
Realistically, I spend most of my day in clothing, sitting a computer analyzing data. Nobody cares if I have a 6-pack. Hell even my wife likes me “fluffier”.
The example of Michael Chandler is very disingenuous from Cavaliere too. MMA fighters fight in a certain weight class, so they are required to weigh (in Chandler's case) 155 pounds the day before. That really limits his ability to put on extra fat, even if that extra fat would be beneficial.
He could simply move up in weight class if he wanted to. The fact of the matter is that having that post-weigh-in blow up of weight is seen as more advantageous than being at a comfortable weight, especially when it comes to grappling. Almost everyone cuts weight now, and fighting at "walk-around" weight is basically its own handicap. Look at Frankie Edgar. The guy became LW champ way back when and finished his career at BW, 2 divisions down. He would be tiny compared to today's crop of 155ers.
I'm probably 15-20% I don't mind. I have solid muscle underneath, and I can move stuff well. I come from having a big boi body when I was younger so hanging around here and being strong is just fine by me. How you feel should be priority number one.
Could not agree more. I don’t think Jeff has been to a typical gym & definitely not a Walmart to see “normal” people.
You're naturally witty. NH should have given you a higher rate for humour!
He allways gives bad grades for humor, because he finds himself the most hilarious from those peasants
I think one thing that goes unsaid much of the time when discussing the so-called natty triangle is how much performance-enhancing drugs have distorted the metrics. For example, during his time, you never heard anyone say that Steve Reeves was relatively small or soft. To audiences of the 40s and 50s, he looked both huge and lean in and out of clothes.
I'm aiming for 12% next cut and I'll feel highly acheived at that lol
THIS Video made me subscribe.
youtube needs more honest influencers like you, who tell people the truth whats possible and whats realistic.
I have wondered if Cav has lipodystrophy or such and that’s why he’s that lean all of the time. It makes sense to me that there’s something going on given how detached he seems to be to all things physique. I dated a gal years ago who had the condition and she looked like she came fresh from the cover of a fitness magazine and had never really worked out a day in her life to that point.
Wouldn't surprise me if he has a genetic mutation. That+TRT.
He’s on gear
I LOVE Your channel man, I rarely comment on RUclips but credit where credit is due. You popping off more jokes too, letting your personality show, keep it up! 👍
I remember losing my first year of training in which I relied on Jeff as a lifting mentor,,, i thought the key was exercise selection and proper technique above all😂 I was 130lbs and prolly 11%bf, must've gained a single pound of muscle maybe
"8-10 vascularity and striations are less present" if i flex at 18-20% my shoulders and upper chest are fully vascular
There's a massive difference between wrestling at 8-10% and 10-12%. I learned my lesson dropping a weight class in high school and absolutely wouldn't repeat it. Feeling like a potato is an easy way to get destroyed in a match. 🤣
If Jeff was right, people like George Foreman, Butterbean, Daniel Cormier, Derrick Lewis, Tyson Fury, and Oleksandr Usyk would all be fighting at a massive disadvantage. Hell, this was a big thing in the lead up to the first Usyk vs Joshua fight. While it's true that Anthony Joshua was an amazing champion with incredible skill, people weren't giving Usyk the credit he deserved because he didn't look like your typical Baki character. Especially when you compare him to Joshua, who definitely fits that image a lot better.
The irony of all of it. Is that being athletic doesn't mean your ripped outta your mind. People can't grasp the fact that a sumo wrestler is "athletic", that Lasha is "athletic", that Tyson Fury is "atheltic" none of these guys are 7-9% body fat. If anything there gonna be in the 20-29% range.
Athletics mean running and jumping. Strength is not athleticism. Usein Bolt is athletic. Eddie Hall is not.
The funny thing is Jeff himself is probably hovering towards 10% bodyfat. Under 10 % you have veins popping out everywhere
The only reason why someone might wanna be 13% body fat is face. If you have good face it can enhance your looks a lot. Even then, for most dudes anything between 15 to 18% bf is the best.
I could excuse poor advice in respect of technique for bracing on squats or crazy programming as one-off blips, but this consistent narrative that it is healthy and optimal to be this lean just blows my mind.
Yes but after being called so many times why does he keep the vids ? He does not really lacks videos...also, why does he do free video explaining that bench dips will destroy shoulders and that only ignorant bros do them and then he programs them into his paying programs ? He just doesn't care, at all.
I'd rather be straight Alpha Destiny, max Jefferson block pull, bear mode all day long!
Exactly! That’s what I want too. Fuck this being tiny and lean and nooby shit. We want to become natural monsters.
I know it’s been 10 months but the picture of Jeff and Bill Clinton killed me lmao. I was having a rough one until that. Thanks GVS. Subbed
As someone from the UK where rugby is a little more popular I was howling at him suggesting that most rugby players are in any way lean. Also 6% is waaaay to low to be athletically competent, and even if you were to push those numbers higher to 10%, the failure to recognise a lot of these athletes are enhanced and can sustain lower levels of bodyfat is completely glossed over. Jeff has some good videos on biomechanics and fixing things such as lower back pain, but then comes out with some completely baffling videos which even someone with an ounce of common sense can see straight through. It's so bizarre that someone can be so informed but so ignorant in very similar topics.
Hey Geoffrey, great vid. Bought your book on rings, loved it.
Just wanna ask if you’ll ever cover about some of the best home gym options other than rings such as Sandbags, Chest Expander and resistance bands. Cheers
Glad you liked the book! I'm not sure if there's enough material there for a full book (I usually prefer to have a LOT of content in the books as you know) but I can look into it.
@@GVS Cool, I thought a video would suffice but a book would be great too haha. Cheers for the response
There was this argument I once heard online, and it's absolutely true to level that is just crazy. The argument was that people would be significantly more muscular if it wasn't for social media.
And channels like Jeff's that major in the minors.
@@jumbothompson Layne Norton is thee goat! Or at least he's the only I know who has ever said that saying.
@@seban-jackedweeb5513 I heard a few guys say that. It really is one of the best sayings. Hyper focusing on ridiculous shit like which pullup variation is best or some study that says TUT increases hypertrophy by 7% is so pointless. Eat and improve your major lifts like deads, rows, pullups, bench etc..and you'll be good.
Hey GVS. This is such a great video.
very helpful for individuals who were once brainwashed into thinking "if you don't have abs, you're fat." I'm sure many people can relate to that.
I think being lean is subjective. Say for instance, you have a 'high' set-point, i'd argue that 15% could be lean (for you!). The same would work for 20%
The point being that people should not develop unhealthy relationships with their body and with food, just to be at the arbitrary 8%-10% BF, when your body both feels best and really performs optimally at 15% (as an example).
Keep the good content coming, coach
you mean curling just my leg instead of a barbell isn't going to get me to 6% bodyfat
Competed in mma and wrestling for 8 years and hated cutting weight to lean 10% so much I stopped, still loved it and train just couldn't do weight cuts anymore (now doing powerlifting and loving the 15% bodyfat)
The only way I'll ever get to 6% body fat is after I've been laying in my coffin for a few months.
Great video as always Geoff. Absolutely crazy how someone who's whole life seems to be dedicated to staying lean has no idea what actual body fat % numbers look like. Makes me wonder how much he believes what he says and how much is just a sales pitch.
In other news I started doing Lu raises today instead of normal lateral raises and I don't think I'm ever going back, hits way different and feels amazing!
Schofield is my favourite Chinese RUclipsr!
Geoffrey, can you speak more about Jessie's amazing strength gains? I know you said you like him. Dude's got a 550 deadlift and 400 plus squat! Aren't those elite numbers for his size?
0:51 "he doesn't need a tan" lmao
15:45 Daaammnn, I didn't know u knew that, Geoff.
That was the day my hero was truly shattered...
Ha ! Too easy for you Geoff. That clown beats himself in an argument...he has no chance with you. Good video, everytime you get another person to see through athlean x nonsense, you help them on their fitness journey. I still can't believe how popular he is!
I stopped watching Athlean Xs content a long time ago nice to know I didn't miss anything
Maybe I'm the unusual one here, but I'd rather have a little power belly and look good in clothes than be lean as shit and look small for 90% of the day
"Most Rugby players" procedes to show a picture of AFL (not rugby). Shows how well researched Jeffs video was.
I dont want to hear any king of Truth from a Guy who uses Fake Plates for a 405 Deadlift.
only reason I could see Jeff saying this us because most people severely underestimate where they are. In media people who are 15% are said to be like 4%
I spent like 6-8 months cutting straight and lost all sex drive.I was probably only about 9-12% at that point(still not too sure). Bulked up 10kg over the next couple months while maintaining abs etc and feel so much better.
Getting super lean is a nice little goal for a short period of time to see how you've progressed and what you need to work on but that doesn't require 6% and trying to actually maintain something like that is nuts to me. The only real benefit to getting super lean as someone with no social media presence etc would just be able to bulk for a longer periods of time when done.
7:27
Oh, hey look, it's me. Yeah, I probably wasn't cutting weight in the optimal way (crash dieting, lots of cardio), but the sub-10% thing still stands. Whether it's fat or water weight, chasing the shred for bodybuilding or for combat sports just isn't worth the pain for me.
Hey geoffrey, awesome video as usual! Quick question, have you ever had any clients with golfers elbow? And if so how did you go about rehabbing it?
Depends on how bad it is, I usually ask a ton of questions in order to see how much things need to be modified. I don't usually outsource that kinda stuff to physical therapists but that might be worth considering.
@@GVS it's definitely not bad, I believe I caught it right when it started acting up, I've been using straps for most of my pulling movements since that seems to aggravate it the most. But since I work a hard labor job it's harder to prevent those movements that cause it to hurt a bit lol
Lmaooo. Im a lean year round type of guy. Even when I starve myself, the lowest I can probably get is 8%. I think Jeff has a VERY skewed perception on what’s healthy
Having tens of millions in his bank telling lies with no conscience feels healthy to him. Trt too, probably
Thanks for the video, I happened to watch this Athlean X video randomly and it was a bit of white noise to me because I didn't have a notion of what these fat percentages meant and because I happen to know that having visible abs doesn't talk about your strength as much as about your tendency to remain hungry. Just an hour ago I ran into a livestream with (probably young) people criticizing slight bellies and saying they had a six pack which makes me think that indeed, there is some unhealthy notions out there on body shapes that are easily malleable and can go wrong if they run into bad information. I had already found out about other faults in Athlean X videos but this one is specially disappointing
Jeff was the one who made me hit the gym so, it feels sad that the man has now become the villain of the fitness industry.
Jeff was always bad.
I love how Jeff used a completely different sport, Aussie Rules Football as footage when talking about rugby.
Jeff has the loudest voice in the fitness industry. He owes it to his audience to give out credible, healthy information. These BS clickbait videos really aren't doing him or his fans any favours.
@@soonahero We don't owe him anything either, so it's a good thing to think critically about his business practices
@@soonahero gotten
Gottem
I (regrettably) used to be a fan. I’m so glad I found GVS, Sean Nalewanyj, Jonni Shreve, Peter Khatcherian, and Revival Fitness!
@Sooner Born We all used to be, probably. I will say though, he was a great motivator and he did teach me some of the important basics when I was a teenager. His deeper info isn't great, but it's also not Vshred-level bad. Anyone starting out can get at least 'fit' using his videos
When I first started lifting I paid for his course (it was something like £90) and it had so little value that the only reason I kept lifting is because I'd just spent £90...
I was stagnant and literally starving myself thinking that it was the right thing to do because this guy was telling me it was and I didn't know any better as a beginner. If it wasn't for finding other lifters who knew better, I would have just stopped and gone back to exclusively lifting pizza and beer...
It's shocking to me how much further I've come with just free content from RUclips and a little helping of another Geoffrey's book
Geoff I want you to coach me to get to 100% body fat
Perceived leanness also depends on muscular development. Once you have build a lot of muscle you will still look kind of shredded at 15% body fat (dexa scan) because your subcutaneous fat is distrubuted on a larger surface.
Being athletic is only about performance and has nothing to do with bodyfat percentage. Maybe in some sports like long distance running, jumping, etc. it is advantageos to be as light as possbile but in other sports it is advantageos to carry some body fat. Strongmen, throwers(shot put, hammer, discus) and powerlifters usually have more than 25% bodyfat but are considered athletes.
I'm not the biggest fan of Greg Doucette. But his bodyfat estimates tend to be pretty accurate. This is a perfect example of his rule of thumb of adding 5% to gym bro bf standards.
As you mentioned, if you add ~5% to the Athlean-X list, the descriptions become almost spot on.
As a rugby guy (not professional), having less than 10% BF would actually be terrible, and actually super dangerous. Our fat helps when tackling or getting tackled, since we have that extra cushion from all the force and impact we take. Don't think any competent rugby coach would even let someone under 10% BF play. Too much of a risk and liability.
6%?!😂
You just gotta want it, bro.
I’m natural and lean and every time I try and bulk I feel awful (much more tired, marginally stronger and somehow always hungry). I don’t know if this is common to guys who start pretty skinny, I know it’s the same for my 3 brothers. I guess there’s exceptions and heredity is going to play a huge role in your optimal athletic body fat %. Keep in mind im not talking 6-12% im talking 10-20% (estimation)
I’m similar. I am not naturally super lean but I just don’t feel good when I am trying to put on some weight. Tired, heart burn, bloated, and just bleh.
Jeff, frankly, looks terrible. He is a skinny guy, no legs, drawn in face….with arms.
Well.. The best thing that Jeff could've done for me was mention Mike Mentzer in one of his videos (can't remember which one) and after that I started looking up HIT training and found a wonderful video yours! So gotta thank him for that! 😂
I am about 18% or 19% bodyfat and everyone at work thinks I am super skinny. I think people are just so used to seeing people (guys) 30% and higher and that has become the norm.
Truth...the fitness industry and the "normal world" are quite different.
When I was teaching golf and selling golf clubs. People used to buy sets of golf clubs that were unsuitable for them, they couldn't even hit the middle of the club. They weren't good enough for the clubs. After they walked out I'd say to my co worker... he doesn't know, that he doesn't know🤣
Jeff was one of the guys who got me into fitness, but I figured out pretty quickly that he's not giving the best advice. He has a physique that anyone can envy, which is why so many newbies follow him, but nothing he preaches will really get you out of the intermediate lifter phase.
The terrible bf% estimates are just the tip of the iceberg tbh.
Any publicity photo for any reasonably professional outfit have "editing in post" done. That doesn't mean egregious shopping pushing pixels around, but certainly lots of shading and lighting adjustments, which are gonna make all the abs and separation and veins pop out.
I could never get to 10%. The lowest I could go was the high 11% and even then I felt like garbage all the time.
Yep. At 11-12% I started feeling constantly depressed. And no, not for lack of food. I was overactive and eating 3000 cals daily.
The breath out then squat tip is INSANE
I like how transparent you are man. No bullshit. No fucks given. Just honest advice and I also like that you don’t push supplements in our face since you’re a guy who doesn’t take creatine same as me. Silver era bodybuilders proved that just with a good diet and hard work you can build a physique and so do you.
Actually I do take creatine now haha. Added it back in about a month ago. But it's definitely not needed...just tougher to get in a lot of meat in the diet when cutting, at least for me.
I am a -59kg powerlifter. A rather short guy, historically speaking I've always been "skinny" or what have you. Struggled with various eating disorders, etc. I used to be underweight before I started working out... put around 5kg of bodyweight on within the first 6 months of training. (Started again at 20, after having fallen off due to studies.) One of the first things I noticed was that I wasn't perpetually freezing. I used to freeze all the time while being underweight.
Also, saying people do strength sports and admire strongman and powerlifting athletes as an excuse not to get leaner? What utter nonsense! I train for powerlifting, why on earth would I look to professional bodybuilders for inspiration? It's not my sport...
Also, no one can "maintain" peak performance in any sport year round. That's why it's called a "peak"... you're not supposed to be there all the time. It's not healthy.
I suppose Jeff gave me some inspiration when I first stepped into the gym as an 18-year-old. Now, I'd rather consume less bullshit content. With all his young viewers, it's disgusting that he isn't acting more responsible.
Last year, I dieted from 85kg to 77.8kg over several months, I had lower back striations, delt striations, chest striations almost, my arms were even more vascular and cut than usual (check my photo,) and every other muscle was cut and defined, albeit flat due to low calories (carbs specifically.) I am guessing even then I was approximately 8-10% bodyfat, since even then I had pinchable love handles, and my abs still had a few mm of pinchable skin. What you don't see from the outside is that my gym performance was tanking, compounds for legs especially, and my strength overall was a good bit lower. To eat at maintenance at that level would simply not fuel my training the same way as eating in a surplus and gaining a little fluff. I went back on a bulk, performance has gone way up, and my weight peaked at 87.8kg a week or so ago, my heaviest weight ever, a good bit softer than I'm used to, and have started another short cut just so I don't exceed roughly 16-18% bodyfat.