Losing fat but losing strength?

[Bills10]

The title is sort of confusing but I'm trying to figure out something. I'm trying to figure out when the point of losing fat becomes counter productive for athletes if strength goes down as well. Obviously in a ideal world, strength loss wouldn't happen but usually it does. So I'll use the squat as an example. If someone is 175lbs and 20% body fat and he can squat 350lbs(2x bodyweight). If that athlete decides that he wants to lose fat and in doing so ends up weaker relative to his weight. Lets say he ends up 155lbs at 10% body fat and squats 1.5x bodyweight. Will this person be doing more harm than good by dropping fat? When is an athlete hurting his or her ability by dropping fat if strength loss occurs? This is mainly related to jumping and sprinting ability too.

[Jaymannn]

Which sports are we talking ?

[Bills10]

Which sports are we talking ?

I guess it doesn't matter really but basketball is what I had in mind. Mainly increasing vertical jump and 20-40 yard speed. It's just a general question though. Less fat and less strength or more fat and more strength basically. If both athletes have movement efficiency down, who is more explosive?

[deadrats]

it is generally acknowledged that strength and weight go hand in hand, though it may seem counter intuitive. strength is a function of how much contractile force the thick and thin myofilaments within your muscles fibers can exert but it's also dependent on limb length, the connective tendons where the muscle attaches to the bone, bone strength and a number of other factors most strength athletes don't take into account such as inertia due to mass of the lifter, potential energy, and leverage.

with some lifts more than others, having increased body mass, even fat mass, helps to lift more weight, and the reason would require you to be familiar with concepts of frame of reference, potential energy, rotational inertia, entropy, as well as understanding that weight is really a measure of the acceleration due to gravity times the mass of an object and understanding that mass is the measure of an objects resistance to change.

there is also one other factor that people fail to take into account, assume you have a considerable amount of fat, say 100 extra pounds worth, walking around and doing your daily tasks is actually giving your muscles a decent workout because they are carrying all that extra weight. if you have a physically demanding job, your shoulders, back, glutes and legs are all being made to work harder than if you didn't have all that fat. so you lose the weight and now your muscles aren't getting the same amount of work to do that they used to and so they start getting weaker.

strength is not as simple a topic as some believe it to be.

[Bills10]

it is generally acknowledged that strength and weight go hand in hand, though it may seem counter intuitive. strength is a function of how much contractile force the thick and thin myofilaments within your muscles fibers can exert but it's also dependent on limb length, the connective tendons where the muscle attaches to the bone, bone strength and a number of other factors most strength athletes don't take into account such as inertia due to mass of the lifter, potential energy, and leverage.

with some lifts more than others, having increased body mass, even fat mass, helps to lift more weight, and the reason would require you to be familiar with concepts of frame of reference, potential energy, rotational inertia, entropy, as well as understanding that weight is really a measure of the acceleration due to gravity times the mass of an object and understanding that mass is the measure of an objects resistance to change.

there is also one other factor that people fail to take into account, assume you have a considerable amount of fat, say 100 extra pounds worth, walking around and doing your daily tasks is actually giving your muscles a decent workout because they are carrying all that extra weight. if you have a physically demanding job, your shoulders, back, glutes and legs are all being made to work harder than if you didn't have all that fat. so you lose the weight and now your muscles aren't getting the same amount of work to do that they used to and so they start getting weaker.

strength is not as simple a topic as some believe it to be.

Nice, thanks for that detailed response. I understand the majority of what you're saying. I still am trying to figure out though my initial question. If you have identical athletes but one is 10% body fat and squats 1.5x bodyweight and the other is 20% body fat and squats 2x bodyweight. Which one in your opinion is going to be more explosive with vertical jumps and short distance speed(under 40 yards).

[BC02]

it is generally acknowledged that strength and weight go hand in hand, though it may seem counter intuitive. strength is a function of how much contractile force the thick and thin myofilaments within your muscles fibers can exert but it's also dependent on limb length, the connective tendons where the muscle attaches to the bone, bone strength and a number of other factors most strength athletes don't take into account such as inertia due to mass of the lifter, potential energy, and leverage.

with some lifts more than others, having increased body mass, even fat mass, helps to lift more weight, and the reason would require you to be familiar with concepts of frame of reference, potential energy, rotational inertia, entropy, as well as understanding that weight is really a measure of the acceleration due to gravity times the mass of an object and understanding that mass is the measure of an objects resistance to change.

there is also one other factor that people fail to take into account, assume you have a considerable amount of fat, say 100 extra pounds worth, walking around and doing your daily tasks is actually giving your muscles a decent workout because they are carrying all that extra weight. if you have a physically demanding job, your shoulders, back, glutes and legs are all being made to work harder than if you didn't have all that fat. so you lose the weight and now your muscles aren't getting the same amount of work to do that they used to and so they start getting weaker.

strength is not as simple a topic as some believe it to be.

ie gaining pure size usually helps with bench and squat, but not as much in deads. your muscles dont have to do as much work without the fat in everyday activities, thus you can lose strength if you dont make up for this. of course if you keep the same strength power numbers and lose some fat, chances are youll be able to run faster/jump higher (to a point)

[deadrats]

Nice, thanks for that detailed response. I understand the majority of what you're saying. I still am trying to figure out though my initial question. If you have identical athletes but one is 10% body fat and squats 1.5x bodyweight and the other is 20% body fat and squats 2x bodyweight. Which one in your opinion is going to be more explosive with vertical jumps and short distance speed(under 40 yards).

explosive vertical jumps have less to do with body fat percentage and more to do with the ratio of fast twitch to slow twitch muscle fibers, a topic that is not fully understood yet. in general more fast twitch fibers result in greater explosiveness while more slow twitch results in greater muscular endurance.

there is some evidence to suggest that muscles can switch the type they are but there is also evidence that it's all genetically programmed and can't be changed.

but i would think that if one were to train for a competition the person carrying the least amount of weight, assuming equal strength, would have the advantage.

[Ronin4help]

explosive vertical jumps have less to do with body fat percentage and more to do with the ratio of fast twitch to slow twitch muscle fibers, a topic that is not fully understood yet. in general more fast twitch fibers result in greater explosiveness while more slow twitch results in greater muscular endurance.

there is some evidence to suggest that muscles can switch the type they are but there is also evidence that it's all genetically programmed and can't be changed.

but i would think that if one were to train for a competition the person carrying the least amount of weight, assuming equal strength, would have the advantage.

Go to any bodybuilding show and you will see plenty of evidence that muscle type, size and shape often reflects a person's heredity and cannot be changed very much so with that part I agree.