Another skinny-fat question (sorry)

[Robert Santana]

You said that your upper body is weak. Is it weak and getting stronger or weak and stalled out?

[Timmy]

It’s weak relative to my lower body. I haven’t stalled out yet.

[Robert Santana]

It should be weaker than your lower body the lifts use less overall muscle mass. How are you defining weak in relation to lower body?

[Timmy]

I get that my lower body lifts will be higher in any event, but I thought my upper body lifts were particularly weak for a guy my size whereas my lower body lifts were ok for a guy my size. If that’s not the case then fair enough.

Originally I just meant that, appearance wise, I have that “skinny fat” look whereby my upper body does not look very strong/muscular and yet I have a bit of a belly. And I thought maybe this was reflected in my numbers.

I’m asking about this because there are a lot of articles and videos about what to do if you are “skinny fat” and whether it’s possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time in order to reverse this look. Sometimes it’s said that you can’t, period, therefore you have to choose one or the other, whereas at other times it’s said that you can’t *unless you’re a novice*, which presumably would include everyone doing Starting Strength as it’s a novice programme.

So my question is, do I need to choose whether to focus on fat loss or muscle gain right now, or can I do both simultaneously while I’m still doing the LP and postpone that decision until I’ve finished the LP?

[Robert Santana]

Your bench press, your press, and your deadlift to a certain extent are all "low" for your purposes. You cannot fix this with fat loss unless you are willing to become skinny skinny and underweight. You can fix this by getting your numbers up to the following:

Squat: 2x bodyweight
Deadlift: 2.5x bodyweight
Press- 1x bodyweight
Bench Press - 1.5x bodyweight
Chin Ups - 15 reps and 100 lb over bodyweight

My guess is that given your strength levels you'd probably be single to double digit body fat somewhere around 170-180 lb, which is not productive or recommended. So I'd say to base the numbers above on a 200-210 lb bodyweight since you are in fact carrying a higher proportion of body fat than we'd like. I'd also gamble that you could probably cut down to 220 and still get stronger as a novice.

Now i'm not opposed to a mild weight loss cycle in between to get some of the fluff off but I strongly advise against chasing single digit or low double digit body fat until you've at least hit those numbers if that is a goal that is important to you. Even then you may end up very light at low body fat but definitely less light than you would end up now if you were to do that.

[Timmy]

Ok thanks Robert! Prioritising strength gains it is then