And if you’re shedding too much weight, or you’re burning through limited fat and glucose stores too fast, your body will actually start to break down your muscles for fuel-and that’s going to mess with your performance. This is why competitive road cyclists are some of the leanest athletes around.” Having less fat tissue means that your muscle tissue has less competition for oxygen and fuel, which will increase aerobic capacity. But to put it simply, “a lean, strong cyclist can move quicker than a heavier, just-as-strong cyclist,” explains Natasha Trentacosta, M.D., a sports medicine specialist and orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles. These are the age-adjusted body fat percentile recommendations health pros use:Ĥ Simple Steps to Start Training With Power In terms of your health, your body fat percentage should fall within a certain range. “Some body fat is visible as subcutaneous fat just below the skin, while other body fat surrounds our organs and is used to sheath nerves and the brain,” explains John Martinez, M.D., a sports medicine physician who has worked with the USA Triathlon National team. Your body fat percentage refers to what percent of your body is made up of fat versus the weight that comes from your muscles, bones, and organs. And that’s where understanding your body fat percentage comes in. But if you don’t have enough weight, you might end up being too weak to power through.
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The higher your power-to-weight ratio, the easier it will be to pedal and the faster you can go. Your PWR is the amount of power that can be produced in relation to your body weight, usually expressed in watts per kilogram. One of the most common measures we all strive to maximize at some point or another is our power-to-weight ratio (PWR).