Many years ago before I found my place as a Marine, I had lofty dreams of being a professional fighter, a boxer. Big money, fame and a non stop parade of hot girl friends was all part of the fantasy. This was long before MMA was even thought of. So to make any real money as a little guy in professional sports, there was only boxing. How I got started in boxing was kind of a weird story, as I came from a weightlifting background. However, once I got started, I was hooked and dove in head first (more like face first), into the sport. From the very first I loved the workouts, though as you could guess, they were completely different from lifting weights. Right away I stopped lifting completely and quickly shed 10 lbs off my already small frame. I had been doing pretty well in both Olympic and Power lifting, competing in the 148 lb class (usually weighing in around 143-144), so I wasn’t very big to start with, but pound for pound I was very strong. I could easily squat over 300 lbs for reps and Clean and Jerk almost 250. However, boxing has a completely different skill requirement and the workouts to get there didn’t include weights.

My trainer was an old school guy who ended up with a couple of world champions. He had a wealth of boxing knowledge, which also included training and diet. He told me right off the bat that being just under 5’7”, I was always going to be fighting taller people (he was right and in all my bouts, I never fought a shorter guy), so I had to develop a style that would minimize that disadvantage. Think Roberto Duran, not Sugar Ray Leonard. Not that I could actually imitate any champion, far from it, but that was the idea. With that style you need extreme levels of conditioning and punching power (and a good chin), to beat taller, faster boxers. The problem was that when I dropped lifting and lost weight, I felt weak. I was naturally a pretty good puncher, but as some time passed I felt like I was losing strength. I spoke to my trainer about it and thought maybe I should add some weight lifting back into my routine?

He said what I needed was some time to adjust to my new sport and more importantly, an understanding of how this all works. (He was also big on the mental aspect of boxing). He asked me if I thought any weight lifter, bodybuilder, or football player of any size, could punch harder than Rocky Marciano could at 185 lbs? No, I didn’t think so. What about a smaller fighter like Marvin Hagler, at 160 lbs? Probably not, I said. Neither of those two guys ever lifted any weights. So, what is the deal, is it just a natural thing? Well, that’s part of it, as some people can puncher harder, just as some people can run faster, but not all of it. What Marciano and Hagler developed through training is how to transfer their weight into their punch. Think about it this way. If the biggest weight lifter in the world was walking down the street and a 135 lb bag of sand fell out a 3 story window and landed on his head, what would happen? He would be knocked unconscious at least, probably worse. The training that your doing is focused on getting you to do that with your 135 and not just once, but over and over and over. You feel weak now, because your used to a different kind of strength, but as you progress, you’ll get your weight matched correctly to your height and learn how to transfer that weight into your punches. From there you’ll discover a new kind of power, the kind of power you need for boxing. It made sense, so I dropped the idea about going back to weights.

He was right and over the next few months, Though I lost even more weight, I felt much stronger and developed KO power with either hand. I was also very surprised to find out that I could actually hit harder with a left hook, though I was right handed? It was all about using speed and leverage to transfer weight. In any case, looking back, I could hit harder then at 135, than I every could before, or frankly since. The end result was that in all my fights but one, I stopped the other guy. Unfortunately, in that fight (my last) I was stopped by a very tall, very skinny guy whose punches felt like I was being hit by a baseball bat? That fight made me realize that getting punched in the face (a lot), just wasn’t my thing and if you can’t come to terms with that, you will never take boxing to a high level. The bottom line was, while the money and fame of boxing was very attractive, the health risks weren’t worth it to me, so that was that.

So what is the point of this nostalgic sea story? I share this as I got a lot of feedback on last months article when I commented on the current issue of overweight people in our military ranks. Many people pushed back on my take that most of these people are just overweight and the new weight standards are making it worse. What I got specifically was that the body fat measuring methods used aren’t accurate (which I agree with to a certain extent) and that being bigger was actually better anyway. That being heavier isn’t a hindrance, but an advantage. That I don’t agree with at all, not for our military, or 99% of other occupations that require a physical ability and certainly not for the average person.

This is a common misconception that you need to be bigger, to be able to perform better. I’ve heard this a lot over the years trying to help people get into shape and lose weight. Which brings me (finally, I know right) to the point, the conflict between body weight, strength and conditioning. IMO these three things are completely interwoven and cannot be separated, nor do they need to be. However, many people have this baked in idea that they have to be bigger to be stronger, and then train and eat (with lots of supplements, of course), themselves to just being overweight. Gyms and the military are full of these “Joe Bulky” guys. Now if they were bigger in the sense that they were carrying mostly lean useful muscle, that would be one thing, but in the vast majority of people that isn’t the case, they’re just carrying too much weight for their frame and that will end up decreasing their overall physical ability, energy levels and in the longer term, their health.

Yes, it’s simple physics that if you’re heavier, you have a bigger base to push things around, but that by no means proves your in great (or your best) overall condition. For an extreme example, look at NFL offensive lineman. They are huge guys, that are certainly quick and athletic, but most are carrying a lot of extra body fat, some carry huge amounts of extra fat. But in their role on a professional football team, that pure weight is an advantage, as a defensive player has to try and move that weight (or get around it). But the average person is not an NFL offensive lineman, (though many look like it) and doesn’t need that weight. BTW, former NFL offensive lineman sadly have the shortest average lifespan of all positions. No doubt the extra weight they carry for years has an influence on that. I doubt anyone would say that an NFL offensive lineman is an ideal build for our military people, or for any other occupation, except with maybe a bodyguard or bouncer? The goal for the vast majority of us should be to develop a high level of useful fitness, health and energy for our occupation, recreation and our lives in general. To do that we need an all around, balanced type of conditioning and an important part of that is a body weight that fits your frame properly.

To use a motor sport analogy; what you want is a powerful and efficient engine, mounted in a resilient, tough and lightweight frame. Genetically your frame (height) will determine the right size engine required for optimum performance. The point is to fine tune the right sizing of frame and engine. Not to put a powerful (but small) motorcycle engine in a dump truck frame. You may think that dump truck looks big and strong, but in the end it’s slow, burns a lot of fuel and as it’s engine isn’t the right for it’s frame size, it will probably break down a lot and wear out quicker. Your body is the same way. Some people will say to the answer to this problem is just build a bigger engine, more muscle. That works to a certain extent, but the physics of it will take over pretty quickly and you become inefficient on the other side of it. Look at bodybuilders for the perfect example of that. They are an example of an engine that is too big for it’s frame, as they have as much pure muscle packed on their frame as possible, with extremely low levels of body fat. But other than lifting weights can do little else, certainly nothing else at a high level. Not to mention that the diet, workout routine and lifestyle required to get that much muscle is harsh and all encompassing. Plus, it’s an even harder thing to maintain. In any case, it’s infinity better to fine tune the muscle and frame balance and also much easier to maintain.

From long experience and observation I have developed my own system on how to figure out (approximately, as there is a range) what your optimum performance body weight should be for your height, of which I’ll share in a new book I plan to publish next spring. But for now I can say this, it’s a lot lighter than most people would guess, but not extremely so. As the skin and bone build of a elite marathon runners is no where near the ideal either, no more than the NFL offensive man is. The bottom line is that it’s easy to chow down, hit the weight room, bulk up and fool yourself that you’re at your best and for many people that’s good enough. I get that and if that’s your thing have at it. However, if you need, like our military needs (or just desire), great overall physical performance, great long term health and high energy, you need to take a different road to get to a different and IMO, much better place.

Just for one quick real life example. With this article I have included a picture of Lu Xiaojun. Lu is a Chinese Olympic and World Champion Olympic weightlifter and is also a world record holder. IMO Olympic lifting is the best example of dynamic strength, as the Olympic movements require high levels of athletic ability, balance and flexibility as well as extreme strength. Lu is 5’8” inches tall and weighed here at 169 lbs, which puts him 11 lbs under the maximum weight for his height by Marine Corps Standards, (max for 5’8″ is 180 lbs). His weight and height are an almost perfect match for his sport, actually he is statistically a tad on the tall side (by an 1”) for his weight class of 77Kg. In this picture he is clean and jerking over 450 lbs! Notice he isn’t wearing a lifting belt, no knee wraps, no “lifting suit” like you see in power lifting. I would estimate that 99.9% of the world’s population can’t lift 450 lbs off the ground, let along take it from the ground, to overhead. Yes, he is a world champion, with the rarest of genetics and years of hard training, but the point is that he represents how much dynamic power that can generated from a relatively small, lean person. I’m not saying that his weight/height match is perfect for overall fitness, using my formula he is about 9 lbs over the optimum target wgt for a man that is 5’8″: 160lbs. However, I have no doubt if he balanced lifting with a serious program of aerobic conditioning (which I’m sure he does very little of presently), he would probably be pretty close to that weight. In any case, he is obviously within the right range. BTW, how many 300 lb plus NFL offensive lineman do you think can take 450 lbs from the ground to overhead? My guess, is very, very few, if any. Who do you think would look better in a military uniform and perform military duties better? Think about it. I have for years and I’m devoting a entire chapter in my new book on this subject and there I will explain my take on all of it in much more detail.

In any case take care till next month and as always:

“Be safe always, be good when you can”.

Semper Fi
MGunz

Recently a DOD study revealed some disturbing facts about the physical condition of our active duty military. You can get all the details here at: https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2019/09/03/this-branch-takes-the-cake-as-the-us-militarys-fattest/

While there was variance between the services, with the Navy being the most obese at 22% and the Marine Corps the least at just over 8% (which as a Marine I was disgusted, but not surprised by). The bottom line is that too many of our troops are seriously overweight, with the average of all branches being over 17%. That’s about 1 out of 5 being obese, not overweight, but obese. (The overweight number adds another 30%!) Obesity here being defined as a person with a body fat measurement of over 30%, and/or a BMI of over 30.

Now, many people will rant and rave about the BMI and other measuring methods not being accurate and in some cases they’re not. The fact is that all measuring methods have an accuracy variant. But it can work both ways, as I’ve seen some obviously very overweight people get under the body fat limit, mostly only because they have a big neck measurement. The most accurate way to measure body fat is Hydro Static weighing, but this isn’t something that everyone has access to. I had it done once about 20 years ago and it said my body fat was 13% and strangely enough the tape method used by the Marine Corps then had me at 10%? So, in at least my case, the tape method was more forgiving and my observation of many others being taped, is that would probably be the case also.

Putting the debate about the body fat measuring techniques aside for a minute and based just on a lot of personal observation made over many years. There is no doubt our service people are bigger and frankly fatter than ever. As a Marine I know my own service and spent a lot of time around the Navy, both aboard ship and on shore. Now since I’ve retired from active duty and work as an contract instructor for international military people, I’ve had a lot more exposure to the Army and Air Force than I had on active duty when I take my students to many different bases around the country. During these visits I’m often shocked at how many grossly overweight people I see in uniform. It’s actually jarring to see and is both officers and enlisted. The weird thing with all this, is that the PT programs of today’s military are much more sophisticated, scientific and widespread than we ever had when I came in, way back in 1981. The military gyms today are state of the art on bases and even aboard ship. Most bases have civilian personal trainers, nutritionists, counselors and classes are offered on everything from Yoga, to Cross Fit and all types of nutritional guidance. So why is the number of overweight people in the military ballooning? (Pun intended).

Well, to start off with the military is and has always been a reflection of the overall American society. In some cases it’s worse than what’s happening out there, in some cases it’s not as bad, but it’s never 180 out. As a few simple examples; Drug use was big in the civilian world back in the 70’s and 80’s, but I never saw as much drug use as I saw when I first came on active duty. I never saw cocaine, or hash in my life till I saw other Marines using it. Pot smoking was almost as common as drinking then, even on guard duty. Thankfully urinalysis testing and the zero tolerance policy put a quick end to the vast majority of drug use in the military. Not all, as there is still some out there, but nothing like it was. Racism was another thing I never really experienced until I came in the military. Gangs made up of different ethnic groups were common as was black on white, and white on black violence. For the most part that went away with much of the drug use and the much stricter enlistment (moral) standards that started in the 80’s and really tightened up in the 90’s. However, we all know racism still exists, but it’s much less than it was.

Now today, we have this epidemic of overweight people in the military and it’s another reflection of society, which in case you haven’t noticed is busting at the seams with obesity. The CDC puts the average obesity rate in the U.S. at around 38%. In 1962 that figure was 23%. Why the dramatic increase? There are many reasons, not just one. More fast food and snacks, less overall activity, more sedentary work, computers, less walking, etc. etc. The list is long and it’s not a simple issue to unpack. However, with all this I think there has been a bigger, more dangerous change, it’s the change in our thought process. It’s the norm today (in the United States), for people to just be fatter. Overall kids are more overweight, as are their parents. Frankly, it’s very common to see whole families that are very over weight. Don’t take my word for it, go to any Wal-Mart or Buc-ee’s truck stop and take a look around. However, it’s now something that you’re not supposed to comment on. It’s not politically correct and with so many people now overweight, they’re having their own influence on everything. Airlines make bigger seats, restaurants bigger chairs and most major clothing manufactures have lines of clothing to accommodate for the overweight people. Overweight models are a big thing now too, recently a famous fashion magazine had a very overweight model on their cover to make that very point.

Besides the business world, with all this comes many different health problems that are national crisis and not only health wise, but dollar wise. I read a recent report that stated: “Obesity is one of the biggest drivers of preventable chronic diseases and healthcare costs in the United States. Currently, estimates for these costs range from $147 billion to nearly $210 billion per year.1 In addition, obesity is associated with job absenteeism, costing approximately $4.3 billion annually and with lower productivity while at work, costing employers $506 per obese worker per year”. So, with this fundamental shift in not only our physical state, but in the thinking that surrounds it, how do we at least stop the increase and then begin to reverse this alarming trend in the military, correcting the civilian world is a whole other and much more difficult issue.

Obviously, it’s not a matter of information, as the internet alone has more free information than anyone could ever need on the subject of exercise, diet and weight loss. Plus, like I stated earlier, the military is very supportive to help people lose weight and get in better condition, as unlike the civilian world, health and fitness are a requirement of service and frankly a matter of national security. IMO, the first big thing that must happen is the head shed must stop making excuses for our service members. Though the higher ups won’t admit this, but they do and have been doing it for many years now. But, they do it in a somewhat sneaky way. The way it’s done is to slowly relax standards. Supposedly to take into account today’s “bigger service members” Which frankly is bullshit, as hard science tells us that the human body hasn’t changed much in over 100,000 years. It’s just a way (excuse) to enlist/retain people who are overweight. Back in the day we just had hgt/wgt charts. Which despite popular opinion (around buffet tables), were very fair. However, if you felt you just physically had to go over this, you could submit for a wavier. This wasn’t an easy process, you had to go to medical, where a doctor did a real evaluation of your overall body fat, health, body type, fitness level, etc. The command also weighed in based on your overall job performance, appearance in uniform and PFT score. If approved, you got a wavier to an alternate higher weight and this could be pulled in a heart beat if your military appearance, or fitness level degraded. It wasn’t handed out very often, or easily, so most people just got off their ass, PT’ed harder and ate better to maintain the weight standard.

About 20 years ago they started the policy of adding a simple, alternate body fat % to the hgt/wgt charts. If you were over the chart wgt, you got taped. You didn’t have to do more than that and if you were under the body fat %, you were gtg. What you saw was a lot of people quickly learn how to manipulate the inherent inconsistency of that system and without any fanfare, the standards were now lowered. People who before worked hard to stay within the hgt/wgt chart, now had a lower bar to clear. So in response, they just relaxed and soon they were struggling to make the new lower standard. Any NCO knows that troops always push the limits of rules and regulations, the weight issue is no different. If you say the hgt/wgt chart is too hard (unfair), then 18% quickly became too hard and unfair. Soon 21% will be too hard and not fair. This is already happening.

Fairly recently the body fat standards were raised again with the new pretense being that it was now “performance based” Meaning if you could score a little higher on the fitness test, you could have an even higher body fat %. Again, the standard was lowered and people just got more overweight. It just became more the norm to be overweight as the lower standards now reinforced this warped thinking. This trend will continue as the young service members become even more overweight as they age, there will be more relaxing of standards to allow mid-career people to stay in. As that’s only “fair” right?

Another myth associated with this is that we have a recruiting, retention problem that forces the military to lower standards. Meaning, if we don’t allow overweight people to come in and then stay, we won’t meet our manpower goals. As a former recruiter I know the pain and suffering that goes into finding qualified people, (who want to enlist). As we have no draft, an all volunteer force will always have this problem in one form, or another. I heard the same thing about only allowing HS grads to enlist. That not allowing drop outs in, we shrink the pool of otherwise qualified people. Maybe the bigger fix is that we need a much smaller, but better qualified and motivated force overall? That is something I’ve always thought, but that’s another and much bigger issue.

However, the key to current weight problem is to just stop with all the new (and supposed improved) fitness tests and (relaxed) hgt/wgt standards, As even with all this new stuff, people are getting more and more overweight. Get back to training and evaluating people in the tried and true basics of PT and eating. At the same time, come up with the right weight standards. (Which I have my own theory on the best way to do this, which I will include in a new book I’m working on). Then apply leadership and consistency in enforcing them. Which BTW is how I learned to solve almost every problem I ever faced as a military leader and this problem is no different. The only thing that’s different is the way we’ve been thinking about it. Which obviously isn’t working.

Hope everyone is experiencing some cooler weather and stayed out of the way of the recent storms. Till next month:

“Be Safe always, Be Good when you can”.

Semper Fi

MGunz