Converting walking to rowing

NavigationHazard · Post by **NavigationHazard** » June 29th, 2006, 6:01 pm

Body Mass Index doesn't adequately take into account muscle mass, nor does it recognize that bone density in many elite athletes is higher than that of the general population. Thus it is notoriously misleading when applied to elite athletes.

84% of the ice hockey players at the 2002 Olympics were theoretically overweight according to BMI, for example (http://www.isokinetic.com/pdf_attivita/ ... 6/1311.pdf).

Michael Jordan was theoretically overweight when winning world championships in basketball.

Most people I think agree that the scale is the problem with these sorts of results, not the 'fitness' or putative 'leanness' of the athletes. For a powerful argument against making too much of leanness measures see the USA Swimming page linked here.

ragiarn · Post by **ragiarn** » June 29th, 2006, 6:11 pm

NavigationHazard wrote:Body Mass Index doesn't adequately take into account muscle mass, nor does it recognize that bone density in many elite athletes is higher than that of the general population. Thus it is notoriously misleading when applied to elite athletes.

84% of the ice hockey players at the 2002 Olympics were theoretically overweight according to BMI, for example (http://www.isokinetic.com/pdf_attivita/ ... 6/1311.pdf).

Michael Jordan was theoretically overweight when winning world championships in basketball.

Most people I think agree that the scale is the problem with these sorts of results, not the 'fitness' or putative 'leanness' of the athletes. For a powerful argument against making too much of leanness measures see the USA Swimming page linked here.

I totally agree with you on that point. As a matter of fact it is generally recommended that when using the BMI one has to take into account the individual's physical measurements with special attention paid to the waist line. In individual's whose BMI is > 25 you should measure the waist as well. I believe that the standard is that the waist should be <24" for males. I don't know what the standard is for females.

As a matter of fact the military starts by measuring the BMI and if a soldier exceeds a BMI 25 the they have standards set for waist measurements.

In this particular situation I did not have the athletes waist lines for comparison and the only way of trying to compare apples with apples was to simply use the BMI.

Byron Drachman · Post by **Byron Drachman** » June 29th, 2006, 8:04 pm

Here is a link to a chart about waist to hip ratios mentioned by Ralph:

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/waist-to- ... -chart.php

johnlvs2run · Post by **johnlvs2run** » June 29th, 2006, 8:21 pm

ragiarn wrote:I believe that the standard is that the waist should be <24" for males.

JohnBove · Post by **JohnBove** » June 30th, 2006, 10:11 am

Swimmers can float, so it doesn't matter as much what they weigh or how fat they are. Actually their fat helps them to float. If they were as lean as runners then they wouldn't be able to float as well, and swimming would be much more work for them than it is.

Are you familiar with the term non sequitur? The question wasn't suitability of body type to sport, the question was whether, by your "logic," worldclass swimmers, who train copiously and burn huge amounts of calories but don't meet your criteria of leanness, are therefore not fit.

However, Janet Evans was very lean when she set her 400 and 800 meter world records. So a swimmer doesn't HAVE to be fat to swim well.

Yes, and there are others. My question was about those who are not. (And no one but you suggested that a swimmer has to be fat to swim well or that a trained swimmer is fat. No one else would.)