Oct 15, 2022
The so-called "skinny fat" novice may have the toughest road to body recomposition of all trainees beginning their strength training journey. A skinny-fat person is a person of normal BMI and "normal" bodyweight for their height, but a high body fat percentage. This person usually looks normal in a t-shirt, but with their shirt off appears soft and undefined. Male skinny fat novices may complain of having man boobs, or a smooth stomach, with no visibl separation in the arm muscles.
The skinny fat novice often believes that they need to lose body fat to appear more muscular and look like they train. This is incorrect. Their problem is they are undermuscled, and need to build a significant amount of muscle mass to give shape to their body, spread their existing fat mass over a larger surface area, and lower their body fat percentage. Remember, body fat percentage is a ratio! If you drive lean mass up, without gaining body fat or only gaining a small amount of fat, then the percentage of fat goes down.
Here's the rub, though. Skinny fat novices aren't genetically predisposed to be lean and muscular -- otherwise they wouldn't be skinny fat at baseline. So, they need to do whatever they can to build muscle. The most efficient way to do this is by committing to a novice linear progression and driving their lifts up as high as possible in the first couple years of training. Increasing the lifts involves eating enough to support the training, which means, for most skinny fat novices, they'll have to gain weight too. And with any amount of weight gain, there will be some fat gain. The goal of barbell training is to make the muscle gain outpace the fat gain.
It's a long process, but it works. After 2-3 years of hard strength training, even the skinny fat novice will see big changes in the way they look -- bigger, more muscular, with a more athletic looking V-shaped frame. The arms, shoulders, and chest will fill out, making a smooth but flat stomach appear more trim and athletic.
At this point, some folks may need to do a dedicated cut to bring down their body fat percentage more. Other folks may decide they are happy with their body composition and continue getting stronger and building more muscle. Either way, it takes commitment and trust in the process to dedicate the 2-3 years necessary to make big body composition changes.
Gains come to the patient and the dedicated!
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Trent Jones: @marmalade_cream