I misread your post, CROWLER, and thought you were disagreeing with my statement that bf% is a bad measurement for a person to judge their visible "shreddedness", so I did some basic math...after all of that hard work, I reread your post and realized you weren't disagreeing
oops!!
So, for all of those nay sayers and non-believers out there, I left the math up there.
Point of this following peice was simply: BF% is not the best way to determine your shrededness....
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Okay, let's do the example with a cube. Lets say we're dealing with a cube of water. Cube means all sides are equad. water's density is 1g/cm^3.
Let's assume we have a 1g cube and a 2 g cube. lets find the surface area of both.
c=cube=density
d=side
1g cube:
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c=d^3
we have density (1g)
1=d^3
d=cuberoot(1cm^3)
d=1cm
*we've determined that the side length of a one gram cube of water is 1cm.
find surface area:
**There are six sides on a cube. Each side is LxW. LxW = 1cm^2. So area = 6 sides x 1 cm/side == 6cm^2 of area
*Now, we've determined the area of a 1g cube of water is 6cm^2.
Solve for 2 gram cube:
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Again, we alread have c (density).
2cm^3=d^3
d=cubedroot(2cm^3)
d=1.25cm
*we've determined that the side length of a 2g cube is 1.25cm
LxW = 1.25cm x 1.25cm = 1.56cm^2
1.56cm^2/side * 6 sides = 9.375cm^2
So, even though we doubled the mass of the cube, the surface area only increased by a factor of 1.5!!
Therefore, if a person of larger size, but with an equal amount of bodyfat (cm thickness) layered over his body was given a bodyfat percentage test, the larger person would show up with a lower BF% although visibly and phsyically the layer of fat covering the body is the same.
Of course, this does not take into account fat anywhere other than the fat outside of the body, but that's an irrelevant factor assuming ideal conditions. NOTE: I'm not getting theoretical here...I'm simply doing the math that cannot be denied.
BF% is a good measurement, but what is more important is HOW YOU LOOK. If the goal is to have a six pack, dont ask what BF% you need to have....just do the workout and find out.