Body Fat

Mine is between 6 and 6.5 in peak form, 8.5 right now. For a competitve high school runner I would say between 4 and 8% would be ideal (everyone is different)for optimum performance.

Depends how your measure it, some methods are more accurate than others. As a high school runner, I really would not concentrate on it, and in reality I feel most runners should not make it a goal to do anything with it. If you are running hard and have decent nutrition it will likely take care of itself. The average college male will be around 15-20%, depending what you read, and therefore I would say anything under 15% is acceptable for high schoolers, since there still may be more growth, development, etc that will eventually lower that number.

That said, most highly trained runners will wind up below 10% when using a reliable method, like underwater weighing or the BodPod. Most of the competitive college runners I have tested have been 4-10%, with a few going over that. A few of those have been below 4% on the BodPod, including myself in Peak shape (30:55 10K), but some of these readings shouldn't be taken as undeniably accurate, since at the extremes I feel the technology/equations are a bit shaky.

Some examples of variation between people I have measured:

Person with 13:58 PR - Less than 5%

Person with 14:11 PR - 10%

Person with 17:31 PR - 4%

Person with 18:00 PR - 18%

In other words, there is a lot of variation. Just because you are extremely lean does not mean you are extremely fast, and vice versa. Hence, the reason not to pay too much attention to it.

Hmmm, yes, well......... My figure of 6-8% is just a guess. I was measured at 12.8%, which I think was very unrealistic, and so would you if you saw pictures of me from the test period. I am sure it was nearer 7%

I pinch my sking all over, both when dehydrated and depleted and fully re hydrated and carbo loaded, and this helps me to make an educated guess, which I think is reliable enough.

At 6% I am really flying in races, which is what people want to know about.

The most important issue is eating healthily, which for me and most serious runners = a lot more kcals than your average sedentary person. Losing weight to improve must be gradual i.e. no more than one pound per week body fat loss.

this ain't no picnic bitch!!!

I was pinch-tested in college at around 4%. The body-fat scale read ERROR. No joke. Maybe I was dehydrated, I dunno.

My bodyfat's been tested at 15% (skin caliphers) a couple years ago, using a Tanita thing at the trainers it says anywhere between 11 and 14%. I'm a female mile-5K runner (5:10 and 17:45 prs). I'm 5"7 and weigh 120-125 pounds depending on how hydrated I am.