livedarklions

And if you do the same graph for weightlifters, body builders, NFL linemen, and heavyweight boxers, you'll probably find them way above BMI. So? It tells you more about the sport than it does the general health of the athletes. Muscle weighs a lot, bicyclists don't bulk up.

terrymorse 

Kapusta

No, the reason you are not saying that is because it would be utterly nonsensical, because I never said what you are claiming I said there.

It is a classic Straw Man Fallicy.

WhyFi

...or it wasn't a good joke. *shrug*

terrymorse 

"I'm not obese, I'm training to become an NFL lineman."

Skeletal muscle is only about 15% more dense than adipose tissue (body fat).

livedarklions

I don't get why anybody could possibly care what he does or doesn't get at this point. He's dead set on being the topic of this thread, and nothing is going to stop him. I'm just mad because I was enjoying the pre-that guy conversation in this thread and he's completely run it off the rails into a bore-fest. He's using evidence of people trying to get him to stop as "reactions" indicating that people are interested in his claptrap, so I'm not even speaking with the guy anymore.

terrymorse 

It's funny, because it reveals an observation: Many people who complain that BMI is a crummy screening tool have a BMI number in the unhealthy zone.

...

livedarklions

If you're actually obese, it's in relation to the size of your frame. BMI is based on only one dimension of that size, which is height. I'm just under 5'9" and I have very wide shoulders and a fairly wide frame. I got down to the recommended BMI range once in my life, and I looked and felt ten years older than I was--I was really borderline emaciated. I put about 15 pounds of muscle on, putting me firmly in the "overweight" category, and there was no question in my mind that I was considerably healthier and looked much better.

Everyone who's being frank about it will tell you that BMI is a really crappy metric, it's just that no one can come up with anything better that's practical to administer.

I don't have the body of a cycling racer. So?

WhyFi

Jokes that need to be explained and supported with citations are awesome jokes.

But no, you're still wrong and you're still not funny.

terrymorse 

Ooh, did I touch on a tender subject?

WhyFi

No, you made a dumb comment. And no, I don't fall in to an unhealthy BMI category, if that's what you're fishing for.

koala logs

Only for longer rides >3 hours.

For shorter rides, and particularly for 1 hour 100% FTP, the slammed down aero position with back curved in a convex seems the most comfortable for both the arms and back (core muscles).

livedarklions

Your reading comprehension sucks. "Moderately correlated" means essentially useless at the individual level.
You should also probably know, if you're going to insist on this little morality play version of things, that people in the "overweight" (not obese) category have the best longevity statistics.

WhyFi

He's also a cherry-picker - from the same page that he'd cited (my bolding):

livedarklions

15% is a lot, if you think of it in terms of volume. My thigh muscles take up a lot of space. I can tense them, it's not fat, but if it was, that 15%.would result in that space actually being quite a few pounds lighter.
Look at MLB players stats and see how many of the power hitters would fall into the obese category. It's hilarious.

livedarklions

No, you're exposing a jerky aspect of your personality I wasn't aware of up to this point.

I do fall in the "unhealthy" category, it doesn't make any of the things said about BMI untrue. I know for a fact that the only way I can get into the "healthy" range is to drop a bunch of muscle. Ain't gonna do it because of your obnoxious taunting, that would be stupid.

terrymorse 

Yeah, let's keep citing the outliers as evidence that BMI is a crappy screening tool.

genejockey 

The thing is, aerodynamics is not a switch. It's a dial. So, to ride on the hoods is not 'unaerodynamic'. It's more aerodynamic than riding on the tops or the ramps, but less than drops or aero hoods. For the latter two positions, I routinely get low enough that my thighs are bouncing off my lowest ribs. I can get lower, but I can't get lower and pedal. I reserve that, then, for straight, fast descents where I'm exceeding 35 mph.


Thank you. I obviously agree, or I wouldn't be posting the picture every time I have an excuse.

The frame and fork wasn't that awfully expensive - it's from 1995, and I bought it very well used. The build, I did all myself, except for the BB, so I saved money there.

Regarding the stem, it allows me to comfortably get as low as I can usefully get, so there would be no point in further lowering the stem.

terrymorse 

Conveniently ignoring the part where I noted, above, several times, that BMI is A SCREENING TOOL.

Kapusta

If you are truly overweight, you will have a high BMI. But the converse is not always true. This makes it a fine SCREENING tool, but it is a lousy diagnostic one (which TimTak is treating it as).

Years ago I had a doctor insist I was overweight (might have been "borderline" overweight, I forget) based on my BMI. That did not sound right to me as I was very muscular (and fit) at the time. I got a body fat measurement done in my university's embarrassingly well-funded cutting-edge athletic dept facility (I had a friend who worked there). It was ~13.5% which landed me on the border between "fitness" and "athletic".

This doctor was mistakenly using BMI as a diagnostic tool.

Nowadays, I certainly have a higher body fat percentage, but far less upper body muscle and thus weigh less and thus have a lower BMI.

livedarklions

If you fall into the obese category, everyone already knows you're either fat or super fit without the BMI statistic. A screening tool is only useful if it's sorting the "borderline" cases in some reasonably helpful way. The "overweight" category is the one it would actually be useful in as a screening tool if it was to perform that function, but that's exactly where it's most useless because marginal differences in muscle mass are quite possibly what's throwing you into the category. I'm just citing the outliers because they are actual visual proof of why saying something as stupid as "only about 15% difference" totally blows your credibility.

Gotta tell you, this isn't a sore spot with me. I tell people all of the time I fall into the "overweight" category. I do it because they often appear to be in a panic that they're about to cross that forbidden line at a time where they are clearly bulking up muscle, and I'm reassuring them it's essentially meaningless.

WhyFi

Oh, stop. Your "joke" was a direct response to my post about the usefulness for populations, but not individuals. Once a person is physically in front of a medical professional, it's a crap screening tool.

big john

I was watching "My 600 Pound Life" and the doctor told a patient her BMI was 122.

3alarmer 

.
...I knew that if I followed it long enough, the thread would focus on more fat shaming.

genejockey 

The thing about BMI, and why it's so widely used, is that determining it requires only a doorframe, a yardstick, and a bathroom scale. IOW, it's widely used because people are lazy and/or don't have access to better tools. Someone came up with it for looking at populations, and then some other bright folks said, "Hey! Anyone can figure their BMI! Let's use that!" even though it is a lousy metric.

The other thing is, Timtak's repeated references to lowering BMI as a way to get low on the bike overlooks something that's even more crucial - flexibility. As I mentioned above, I'm really inflexible. Not as a function of age because I never was more flexible than I am now. I'm what I think Fizik calls a "Bull", so I ride with a straight back, roll my pelvis forward, and ride a "wave" saddle. So, if I go for a level back, I riding on my pubic bone and my things are bouncing off my rib cage. I guess that keeps my lungs nice and open in aero positions, but it does rather limit how close to level I can comfortable ride.