Bodyfat percentage?

[Takemi 0]

Whats the avarage bodyfat percentage among the sekitoris?Whats Asashoryus? If you dont have facts, make a guess.

I read somwhere Chiyonofuji was down to 11% at some point during his sumo days? That cannot be true can it? certanly it must be more.

[Jonosuke 28]

I think our guess is as good as yours.

If I recall Otokoyama san gave us a link to Tokyo Taiiku University study done with amateur rikishis while back. I think if you search the forum, you wil find it. I just don't remember the thread name.

If you ever look through ozeki Kirishima's pictures (current Michinoku oyakata), there was one time he bulked up so much and he devoted so much bodybuilding disciplines in his training that his bodyfat level got down to 5% or so.

If you can ever find a picture from the era, it's amazing how he looked as he could have blown away more than few bodybuilders with so much mass and so little body fat. He was never able to gain weight easily so it was easier for him to get a "cut" look.

But he did look like a monster and I guess wisely he gave up bulking up like bodybuilders and returned to more traditional sumo training.

He spent hours and hours training alone so he was often considered to be a loner and anti-social type but there was something about him that I really liked and he was my favorite rikishi until he retired. Despite his not so typical rikishi physique, when I think of what Japanese call "Dohyo No Bi (土俵の美)" (roughly meaning the beauty of the dohyo/sumo), I always think of him. He had an inner beauty like a garden in a zen buddhist temple.

He had quite a few great bouts with fellow ozeki Konishiki and they remain good friends even after they retired.

[Iwagakki 0]

I did a little quick research, and came up with several interesting suggestions.

One thing I found was that Musashimaru was said to have a body fat percentage of 30%, at around 500 pounds. WOW. Forget the fat percentage, because his absolute lean mass (0% BF) still leaves him at 350 pounds of "solid muscle" so to speak. That's incredible.

Most sources seem to suggest that around 24% is average, but that it can be in the low teens (Chiyonofuji) to the 40's (Konishiki)

Other interesting things are that rikishi have a suprisingly high VO2 max rating. It is much higher in absolute terms than most, but rated by bodyweight, it's low.

Several sites contend that they are prone to type 2 diabetes, heart troubles, high blood pressure, and that they average lifespan of wrestlers is less than 60. These sites seem to be staffed by skinny blonde haired nordic skiing types. (kidding...) But they do seem to have some kind of hateful grudge against body fat.

Other sites suggest that studies say the opposite, and find Sumo's to be very athletically capable, and apparently with lower instances of health problems that would be expected in "normal populations" of similar BMI's and fat content ratios. One site says that the average business man has a significantly higher fat percentage than the average sumo, because of a lack of exercise, and pitiful muscle mass.

Personally, I think that a fair amount of BF is attractive, but only when it is on an otherwise healthy, athletic and muscular individual. Sumo is the new supermodel.

My uneducated guess is that Asashoryu has a BF% of about 23-25%. Tochiazuma is sometimes less, and sometimes more. Lately about 28-29% Kaio is more. Maybe 34%. Kotooshu is lower, maybe 18%. Ama is the same area 18-20%

There is some phrase that says that if you can't see abs at all, it's more than 28%, abs show a little=25-28%, 2-pack=22-25% 4 pack =18-22% 6pack below 18%

Or something like that. I don't remember the exact numbers. Someone else might remember better. (in fact, I think those are a little bit high...)

[Petr 0]

Coach of the Nihon Taiiku Daigaku Sumo Club and of the Japanese National Sumo Team, former World Champion Kazuo Saito has got his PhD on the methodology of measurement of the body fat in sumo wrestlers (the usual methods don't work for the big boys). Maybe you can find his thesis..

[Asashosakari 17,606]

Coach of the Nihon Taiiku Daigaku Sumo Club and of the Japanese National Sumo Team, former World Champion Kazuo Saito has got his PhD on the methodology of measurement of the body fat in sumo wrestlers (the usual methods don't work for the big boys). Maybe you can find his thesis..

This?

[Petr 0]

Coach of the Nihon Taiiku Daigaku Sumo Club and of the Japanese National Sumo Team, former World Champion Kazuo Saito has got his PhD on the methodology of measurement of the body fat in sumo wrestlers (the usual methods don't work for the big boys). Maybe you can find his thesis..

This?

(Shaking head...)

[Petr 0]

And here's a paper that seems to be saying that fat rikishi die young

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...p;dopt=Abstract

[Mark Buckton 1]

no jest - I did a test last week - 9% came the printout. I looked down and thought the macjhine was broken but repeat came in at 9% too!

Overall that was - internal measured higher but I just nodded, pretended to fathom the science and left the docs office.

[Petr 0]

My official result from the university health check says 21.8%

(Shaking head...)

[Iwagakki 0]

Judging by any pic's I've seen, I'd say the machine is busted...On both counts.... (Shaking head...)

[Iwagakki 0]

My official result from the university health check says 21.8%

(Shaking head...)

Is that you in the Tokitenku thread? If you are more than 12.8 I'd be surprised. The machine got it way off. Unless you got fat on nabe since then?

[Otokonoyama 2,735]

no jest - I did a test last week - 9% came the printout. I looked down and thought the macjhine was broken but repeat came in at 9% too!

Overall that was - internal measured higher but I just nodded, pretended to fathom the science and left the docs office.

My official result from the university health check says 21.8%

(Shaking head...)

Those machines are junk! A friend has an electronic scale that measures body fat, and it varies from 13-21 percent on any given day. A biger, more complex scale at a branch dojo I visit occasionally gives the same garbage...readings of 14-22 percent depending on the day. This, even after I had a bad case of food poisoning and lost 7 kgs. over a couple weeks. I couldn't eat much at all, yet my bodyfat remained unchanged over two weeks, a month even with a huge drop in weight. My body was burning muscle mass before hitting the fat reserves :-S

I think the only reliable measurement is the immersion tank. Caliper measurements by experienced people may come in second. Those electronic scales that purport to measure body fat have a huge margin of error. :-)

[Petr 0]

I was lighter on the picture than I am now but my result was about 20% that year as well.

Some say that another cause of error in electronic measurement of sumo wrestlers' body fat is the thick sole on the feet, which even I have developed.

[Takemi 0]

I did a little quick research, and came up with several interesting suggestions.

One thing I found was that Musashimaru was said to have a body fat percentage of 30%, at around 500 pounds. WOW. Forget the fat percentage, because his absolute lean mass (0% BF) still leaves him at 350 pounds of "solid muscle" so to speak. That's incredible.

Most sources seem to suggest that around 24% is average, but that it can be in the low teens (Chiyonofuji) to the 40's (Konishiki)

Other interesting things are that rikishi have a suprisingly high VO2 max rating. It is much higher in absolute terms than most, but rated by bodyweight, it's low.

Several sites contend that they are prone to type 2 diabetes, heart troubles, high blood pressure, and that they average lifespan of wrestlers is less than 60. These sites seem to be staffed by skinny blonde haired nordic skiing types. (kidding...) But they do seem to have some kind of hateful grudge against body fat.

Other sites suggest that studies say the opposite, and find Sumo's to be very athletically capable, and apparently with lower instances of health problems that would be expected in "normal populations" of similar BMI's and fat content ratios. One site says that the average business man has a significantly higher fat percentage than the average sumo, because of a lack of exercise, and pitiful muscle mass.

Personally, I think that a fair amount of BF is attractive, but only when it is on an otherwise healthy, athletic and muscular individual. Sumo is the new supermodel.

My uneducated guess is that Asashoryu has a BF% of about 23-25%. Tochiazuma is sometimes less, and sometimes more. Lately about 28-29% Kaio is more. Maybe 34%. Kotooshu is lower, maybe 18%. Ama is the same area 18-20%

There is some phrase that says that if you can't see abs at all, it's more than 28%, abs show a little=25-28%, 2-pack=22-25% 4 pack =18-22% 6pack below 18%

Or something like that. I don't remember the exact numbers. Someone else might remember better. (in fact, I think those are a little bit high...)

So its a fair statement that Asashoryu has about the same amount of muscles as Chiyonofuji had during his days? Asa has just more fat.

According to my calculations Asa would have about 24% of bodyfat and still have the same amount of muscles as Chiyonofuji had. And this is calculated with Chiyo 127kg weight and 11% bodyfat (lowest he ever had) and Asa 148kg weight. They are/were about the same height , Asa 1cm taller according to kyokais website, so the height is not really a factor and can be overseen.

[Tony 16]

Takemi wrote : "And this is calculated with Chiyo 127kg weight and 11% bodyfat (lowest he ever had) and Asa 148kg weight."

Are you sure about that? I read that Chiyonofuji's bodyfat was 11% around 1985-1986. And I read that it was 7% when he was promoted yokozuna.

Anyway, Chiyonofuji weighted around 125kg during his last three active years. During period 1981-1984, he weighted between 115 and 120kg.

One question : when Kirishima's bodyfat was 5%?

[bigfatman 0]

I did a little quick research, and came up with several interesting suggestions.

One thing I found was that Musashimaru was said to have a body fat percentage of 30%, at around 500 pounds. WOW. Forget the fat percentage, because his absolute lean mass (0% BF) still leaves him at 350 pounds of "solid muscle" so to speak. That's incredible.

I don't think you can make those calculations that easy. 30% body fat doesn't mean 70% muscle. You got bones, organs, water, height to consider if you want to calculate muscle mass. Calculating exact gains and losses is easy, but total lean muscle mass is harder:

Edited February 5, 2007 by bigfatman

[Iwagakki 0]

I did a little quick research, and came up with several interesting suggestions.

One thing I found was that Musashimaru was said to have a body fat percentage of 30%, at around 500 pounds. WOW. Forget the fat percentage, because his absolute lean mass (0% BF) still leaves him at 350 pounds of "solid muscle" so to speak. That's incredible.

I don't think you can make those calculations that easy. 30% body fat doesn't mean 70% muscle. You got bones, organs, water, height to consider if you want to calculate muscle mass. Calculating exact gains and losses is easy, but total lean muscle mass is harder:

You are absolutely right. I did some rechecking of the numbers, and it appears that, according to my extremely complex, scientifical, double blind, triple caffeinated, peer reviewed calculations, Musashimaru actually had a lean body mass of 349.8 pounds on November 12th, 1998, at 7:37pm JST.

Sorry for my previous vicious assault on scientific procedure.

Edited February 5, 2007 by Iwagakki

[Johnofuji 231]

I'm not sure about those body fat machines either ,although some are meant to bounce a laser beam to analyse bone,water and muscle but I don't know how they distinguish grissle and offal.

I hate to think what I was at 145kgs but at 101 kgs I tested as 19% body fat. I got down to 85kilos but there is no way I would have been under 10% or I would have looked like Gollum Buckton (only joking mate) .I must have lost muscle mass as well because I think your body naturally maintains some muscle mass by lugging around a bigger body and you lose it if you don't need it.Even at that weight I still wouldnt have been as lean as Petr so you must be less.

Last year in Osaka before the worlds I weighed in at just over 90kgs at 10pm the night before the weigh in and lost 5kgs overnight to get down to 85kilos for the lightweight division weigh in at 5pm the next day.The prevoius year it only took at snooze with a raincoat on to lose 1.2kgs and then some training for the rest to lose a total of 2.5kgs in about 3 hours.

It seemed a bit daunting beforehand as I had already lost about 8 kilos in the prevoius few weeks.

Here is a link to some fast weight loss techniques I found the week before I left. How to cut and make weight They said everything I wanted to hear as I knew it was going to be a challenge but I wasn't prepared to do anything too dangerous.

I didn't do the diuretics or bowel emptying (because there was nothing left after the airline food went through fast than a shinkansen) but the other methods worked really well.Drinking heaps of water for the preceding few days was easy enough but you need to wee a lot.I think a sauna would have been the quickest but I didn't want to cook the kintamas before we have children. I did a lot of running with plenty of clothes on but I didn't want to look like Rocky and put a hood on to cook my brain too.The Asahi TV producer kept laughing at me during the day as I did a few laps of the city,river and up and down the hotel stairs and even did a bit of sunbaking on the roof.

The lean Russians seem to cut down mysteroiusly fast by sweating but I and only resorted to a makeshift sauna in the hotel bathroom by running the hot shower and turning off the light because it was attached to the exhaust fan.I only needed about 5 x 5 minite stints over 45mins to shift the last 500gms. Mentally it was only hard at the end as I lost concept of time because I was in the dark.I did also drink about 500mls of fluid (those sports gel thingys from Quicky mart and fibre mini that didn't kick in until I was running across the road to buy some chuhais to celebrate making the weight).Also everytime they moved the scales to a different room or surface they said something different.At one point I even went up 600gs when the scales were moved to the carpet outside the office.

The most extraordinary thing was how quickly I was able to whack on about 12 kilos straight after.I know I should have done it slowly and rehydrating with alchohol is not recommended but it sure was a lot of fun.Luckily I was fit enough and I didn't affect my performance as much as I would have thought.I left that to the judges and gyoji to do that eh Kenzo!

I don't think my body fat would have changed much over that time but the above link may be useful to anyone trying to cut weight for competition.It just doen't seem right to have lose weight for sumo.

I have heard that the average rikishi has less body fat than an average woman.Perhaps they don't mean Japanese women?

[Petr 0]

You're going to have kids? That's very nice but please don't speak to them before they grow up.

[aderechelsea 107]

ok since we are having this kind of talk ...

what is the normal weight for a lightweight in Amasumo? I know the limit is 85kg but do all the athletes reach that limit?

how about you Petr? you look really slim in the pics but you must be tall too. Are you 85kg too?

[Petr 0]

I think they are mostly 85. I am keeping around 85 too. Some wrestlers (including the top ones) appearently do what Johnnofuji described. So at the day of the tournament they are over 90kg. Japanese representatives are competive at this weight even if they lighter than 85.