Before we take a look at the BMI of some of the fittest men and women on earth let’s first have some clarity on what exactly we’re looking at.

WHAT IS BMI?

Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on your weight in relation to your height, and applies to most adult men and women aged 20 and over. BMI is a measure of relative size based on the mass and height of an individual.

Factors such as age, sex, ethnicity and muscle mass are NOT accounted for in BMI.

For a normal non-athlete a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 means your height-to-weight ratio is healthy. A person who registers a BMI of below 18.5 is likely underweight, while a person with a BMI above 24.9 is overweight and a BMI of 30 or higher indicates obesity.

To calculate BMI you simply follow these equations:

For pounds: BMI = weight in pounds / [height in inches x height in inches] x 703.

For kilograms: BMI = weight in kilograms / your height in meters squared.

If you don’t want to do the math on your own, here’s the online BMI calculator I used.

THE DATA

Because BMI doesn’t account for muscle mass the BMI of these games athletes obviously will be higher than those of the average person.

For example, I’m a 6’2 196lb Male. That would give me a BMI of 25, which according to normal results would mean that I am technically overweight although my body fat is under 15%.

However there is still some valuable information that we can gather from looking at the BMI of games athletes. Knowing that top Crossfit athletes are predominantly muscle with very low body fat we can use their results to determine what weight we should be for our respective heights if we want to be competitive.

Other data: Crossfit Games Complete List of Strength

First lets take a look at the athletes and then we can determine our optimal range after.

MEN

Mat Fraser – 30

Brent Fikowski – 28

Patrick Vellner – 28

Noah Ohlsen – 30

BK Gudmundsson – 27

Scott Panchik – 28

Ben Smith – 27

Alex Anderson – 29

Jonne Koski – 28

Jason Smith – 26

Logan Collins – 27

Travis Mayer – 27

Garret Fisher – 27

Streat Hoerner – 28

Cody Anderson – 27

Cole Sager – 28

Cody Mooney – 28

Lukas Esslinger – 28

Tim Paulson – 28

Samuel Kwant – 28

George Sanchez – 27

Dakota Rager – 29

Travis Williams – 30

Frederik Aegidius – 28

Rob Forte – 28

James Newbury – 27

R. Paul Castillo – 28

Jason Carroll – 27

Josh Bridges – 29

Zak Carchedi – 27

Michael Palomba – 29

Tommy Vinas – 29

Zeke Grove – 29

Jeff Patzer – 28

Elijah Muhammad – 26

Alec Smith – 27

Wesley Rethwill – 27

Mitchell Sinnamon – 29

For the men it looks like the sweet spot is to have a BMI between 27-30 with only 2 outliers having below 27 at 26 and no man had over 30. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute every one of these athletes is overweight or obese relevant to their BMI because it doesn’t account for muscle mass.

Some of these men are a little on the skinnier side and some are bulkier than others but they are all very close to one another in terms of BMI. This is because Crossfit requires you to have enough size needed to move around heavy loads, but also be light enough to maintain aerobic capacity and gymnastics.

WOMEN

Tia-Clair Toomey – 22

Kara Saunders – 27

Annie Thorisdottir – 24

Sara Sigmundsdottir – 24

Katrin Davidsdottir – 24

Tennil Beuerlein – 26

Kristin Holte – 23

Jamie Greene – 24

Sam Briggs – 21

Kari Pearce – 25

Alessandra Pichelli – 25

Cassidy Lance-Mcwerther – 25

Kristi Eramo – 23

Brooke Wells – 24

Carol-Ann Reason-Thibault – 24

Emily Bridgers – 25

Chyna Cho – 22

Thuridur Helgadottir – 22

Emily Abbott – 25

Dani Horan – 24

Alethea Boon – 23

Bethany Shadburne – 25

Mekenzie Riley – 27

Margaux Alvarez – 23

Anna Tobias – 23

Whitney Gelin – 26

Stacie Tovar – 24

Kirsten Pedri – 22

Regan Huckaby – 24

Lauren Fisher – 23

Carly Fuhrer – 24

Valerie Voboril – 25

Alexis Johnson – 24

Jessica Griffith – 23

Madeline Sturt – 24

Jessica Coughlan – 24

Casey Campbell – 25

Carleen Mathews – 24

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet – 24

Chelsey Hughes – 23

It turns out that the women had a little bit more variance than the men with their BMI range being from 22-26 with a couple outliers below and a couple above. The women also had a lower range altogether with their highest athlete having 27 as compared to the mens 30.

This could be due to the fact that men naturally hold more muscle than women and that the men tend to desire to be a little bulkier as well.

THE RESULTS

Now we’re going to see what exactly your weight range should be if you want to be competitive. *These ranges are based on the results of the games athletes BMI’s shown above. Given that high muscle mass and low body fat is necessary to be competitive, these weight ranges below will get men into that 27-28 optimal BMI and women into that 24-25 optimal BMI.

BMI is not the ultimate factor in competitive performance but it is important to have your body weight similar to those at the top.

Dial in your nutrition and get to a weight where you feel confident under heavy loads as well as quick during gymnastics movements. When you reach that weight where you feel your best you will likely be close to or in the range of the fittest in the world.

If you got value from this data, check out the Crossfit Games Complete List of Strength.

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