I second that notion!

+2

That's even lighter than Pantani in race shape, and he was like 5 ft 4inches wearing a fake afro for added height..

I think it has a lot to do with your personal body make-up. I have been 4% since I was 15 years old (and that was a long time ago). I was tested again a year or so ago, and I was still 4%. I don't ride nearly the number of kms I used to when I was racing...

Agreed. I am naturally well below 10% and when I raced seriously was probably around 5%. It wasn't very pretty though...

But seriously, 6ft and 120lbs.

At that height any pro-cyclist that I know of is in the 160-170lb range, and that is with single figure BF %.

120lbs is ridiculous, even if you have the lightest of light builds and bone structure! As other have pointed out, that is lighter than Pantani and he was no where near 6ft!!

8% is considered very good.

_________________
Biomechanical spreadsheet. Sizing&Fitting.

http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum ... 8e319d185b

At bf's that low you are risking organ damage.
You need at least 3% bf to cushion the organs. There is no way that if someone actually got to 4% (and I mean a true 4%, not internet 4%), they could hold it for more than several hours (think bodybuilders) without suffering a severe performance drop.

Cyclists at 4%..not gunna happen.

A lot of these really low BF percentages have to be taken with a large grain of salt, there is degree of error. Unless you've had a dexascan or the like you could easily be few percent off the figure you have.

Callipers to flotation gave me almost a 100% error, from memory the callipers came in at around 6%, flotation came in at 11/12% ish........ (10 years ago now tho) guy doing the measuring said that sort of error wasn't particularly unusual, especially for extremely lean people (less subcutaneous fat to get in the callipers, but still a fair bit of fat inside.

Callipers for tracking trends, flotation for getting an absolute value.

Watts/kg for useful data.

where can u get a dexascan and what does it do exactly?

Dexascan is a low-yield x-ray scanning machine which gives a full body analysis of bone density, muscle composition fat percentage etc.

Universities may have them as well as health clinics, especially those that deal with osteoporosis or the like. I had one as part of a study, very interesting to see how much the bones weigh, muscle in each leg, and the fact a lot of fat is around my head.....

I got tested through a health and fitness program at work last week. The testing was done with electrodes placed on the hand and foot. Then a tiny electrical current (you can't even feel it) is passed through the body and recieved at the other electrode. Apparently it tells you your body fat % as well as intra-cellular and extra-cellular water %, and lean body mass %. My body fat was 9.3%, the tester said that it is unusual to see people as low as 7% or less. I'm really skinny as it is, I wouldn't like to see me with 50% less fat again!

I could be wrong but I believe that this system too is subject to large variations depending on hydration.

4% is doable, it just has to be done very slowly. There is always that weight at which a person has trouble dropping below. Most cyclists know about what that weight is. For example, I am 6'3" or 190.5 cm and have a hard time dropping below 175 lbs or 79 kg. I can do it, it is just harder to stay down there without constant vigilance of what goes in the ol' pie hole. At that point, 1000 calorie per day (2 lb per week) weight loss is no longer healthy and a 500 cal per day (1 lb per week) weight loss should be done. Of course when I wrestled in high school, I just starved myself but got down to a flotation measured 4%. I was able to do 2.5 hour brutal practices with only a single 1 min break for water. The lack of body fat certainly did not hurt my endurance or power.
Elite Nordic skiers are another group of endurance athletes with crazy low bf %. You don't see too many of those guys with a spare tire....

My fellow countryman Saxo Bank Kurt Asle Arvesen told Norwegian TV his bodyfat was down to 4% now. He used his entire pro carrer getting there.

Its hard loose fat without loosing muscles and performance...