Si vous n'ĂȘtes pas Ă l'aise avec l'anglais, utilisez ceci :
Cet outil vous fournit une traduction automatisée en français.
Body Composition
The human body is basically made up of bone, fat, and muscle. The percentages of fat and muscle determine the overall fitness of the body. Two people who are the very same height and the very same weight can look entirely different because of the differences in their body composition.
The term "body composition" is used in the physical fitness arena to describe the level of fitness.
For general fitness, it is recommended that a healthy man should have between 13 and 17 percent body fat. For a healthy female, the percentages are a little higher; between 20 and 25 percent. However, athletes and bodybuilders usually strive for a lower percentage of fat. Most athletes look for a body fat of 7-19% for men, and 10-25% for women.
There are several methods for measuring body fat. The most used is the caliper. A caliper is an instrument that actually looks much like a compass. All gyms have calipers, and you can purchase calipers online or at many brick-and-mortar shops.
You want to take body fat measurements on the abdomen, the arms, the buttocks, and the thighs. The combination of these measurements is then used to compute the actual percentage of body fat. There is a margin of error of about 4%, so it certainly isn't an absolute number; but it can give you a pretty good idea of where you stand.
Many other methods are used to determine body fat. One that is often used is bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). BIA uses the resistance of electrical flow through the body to estimate body fat. This method is actually much more accurate than the caliper.
The basic idea of bodybuilding is to lose fat and gain muscle mass in order to achieve a body composition that has a higher level of muscle and lower level of fat.
BONUS : Bodyuilding: Building the Abdominal Muscles
So you want a six-pack? This seems to be the first goal of every bodybuilder. Unfortunately, there are about as many ab-building misconceptions as there are bodybuilders. Your friend at the gym may have told you to do 100 situps a day to build your six-pack. Wrong. Another friend may have told you to do 100 crunches a day. Again, this is wrong.
Situps can hurt your back. Crunches can give you bad posture, and doing anything that much everyday especially in the beginning is only going to lead to long-term injury, because you aren't giving your muscles enough time to repair between workouts.
What many people don't realize is that the first step to building great abs is not in exercise designed to build those muscles. The first step is in losing body fat. You may actually have a six-pack under the fat, and it doesn't matter how much you work out, if you don't reduce the body fat, nobody is going to see that awesome six-pack of yours.
Once you've lost the body fat so that you can actually see your abdominal muscles, it is time to do some exercise to get them into shape. There are many exercises that you can do to build abdominals, and they involve using the back, in some instances, and using the legs.
Situps, again, can hurt your back. This should not rule them out. The trick is to learn how to do situps properly, and to not do them to the extent that they overwork your back. You can also lie on the floor, bend your knees, and pull your thighs into your abdomen. This is safer, but only works the lower abdominals. You can work the abs when you do chinups. Use an underhanded grip on the bar, bend your knees at a 90 degree angle, and as you pull your chin up above the bar, pull your thighs up into your abdomen.
All of these exercises will work, but again, they are pretty much pointless if you don't lose the body fat first. The loss of body fat typically comes from eating a good diet, while doing exercises to burn fat, as opposed to exercises done to build muscle.
So you want a six-pack? This seems to be the first goal of every bodybuilder. Unfortunately, there are about as many ab-building misconceptions as there are bodybuilders. Your friend at the gym may have told you to do 100 situps a day to build your six-pack. Wrong. Another friend may have told you to do 100 crunches a day. Again, this is wrong.
Situps can hurt your back. Crunches can give you bad posture, and doing anything that much everyday especially in the beginning is only going to lead to long-term injury, because you aren't giving your muscles enough time to repair between workouts.
What many people don't realize is that the first step to building great abs is not in exercise designed to build those muscles. The first step is in losing body fat. You may actually have a six-pack under the fat, and it doesn't matter how much you work out, if you don't reduce the body fat, nobody is going to see that awesome six-pack of yours.
Once you've lost the body fat so that you can actually see your abdominal muscles, it is time to do some exercise to get them into shape. There are many exercises that you can do to build abdominals, and they involve using the back, in some instances, and using the legs.
Situps, again, can hurt your back. This should not rule them out. The trick is to learn how to do situps properly, and to not do them to the extent that they overwork your back. You can also lie on the floor, bend your knees, and pull your thighs into your abdomen. This is safer, but only works the lower abdominals. You can work the abs when you do chinups. Use an underhanded grip on the bar, bend your knees at a 90 degree angle, and as you pull your chin up above the bar, pull your thighs up into your abdomen.
All of these exercises will work, but again, they are pretty much pointless if you don't lose the body fat first. The loss of body fat typically comes from eating a good diet, while doing exercises to burn fat, as opposed to exercises done to build muscle.
