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Body Recomposition: Can Trained Individuals Build Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time? Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding: The authors report no conflicts of interest and no source of funding. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially without permission from the journal. Despite the lack of standardized terminology, building muscle and losing fat concomitantly has been referred to as body recomposition by practitioners. Although many suggest that this only occurs in untrained/novice and overweight/obese populations, there is a substantial amount of literature demonstrating this body recomposition phenomenon in resistance-trained individuals. Moreover, 2 key factors influencing these adaptations are progressive resistance training coupled with evidence-based nutritional strategies. This review examines some of the current literature demonstrating body recomposition in various trained populations, the aforementioned key factors, nontraining/nutrition variables (i.e., sleep, hormones), and potential limitations due to body composition assessments.



In addition, this review points out the areas where more research is warranted. A common goal among active individuals is to improve their body composition by increasing skeletal muscle mass and decreasing fat mass (FM). It is well understood that these positive body composition changes have a multitude of health benefits (2,45,66) and have also been shown to improve athletic performance (12,60). Among physique competitors (e.g., individuals who compete in bodybuilding, figure, bikini, etc.), increasing muscle and losing body fat is also of critical importance to be successful in their sport. Despite the lack of standardized terminology, practitioners have described this adaptive phenomenon in which muscle mass is gained and FM is lost concomitantly as body recomposition. It is generally thought that body recomposition occurs mainly in both the untrained/novice and overweight/obese populations. When examining the literature, this dogma seems logical because training age and also the novelty of initiating a resistance training (RT) program have been shown to directly impact the rate of muscle mass accrual (30,49,67). Within RT programs, practitioners can manipulate training variables (e.g., intensity, volume, exercise selection, etc.) as a means to enhance the muscle hypertrophic stimulus.



In addition, dietary intake (i.e., energy balance, macronutrients, etc.) has been shown to influence body composition alone (6,11,23,25,28,31,54). Moreover, when combined with RT, body recomposition is potentiated to a greater degree (3,13,21). For example, protein intake is commonly manipulated among individuals seeking to maximize RT outcomes. 2.0 g/kg/d) (3,13,21). Interestingly, there are also data demonstrating that reductions in FM can occur in well-trained subjects with hypercaloric intakes, specifically when the surplus is due to an increase in protein (13,22). Collectively, those studies suggest that evidence-based nutritional strategies can further enhance body recomposition in trained individuals. Physique competitors carefully manipulate both their training and nutritional programs to maximize muscle mass and decrease FM to present their most aesthetic physique. During the "off-season," they strive to accumulate as much muscle mass as possible, while minimizing FM gained in a hypercaloric state (24). However, most case studies on physique competitors through contest preparation do not demonstrate a recomposition effect (33,48,56). During this phase, competitors restrict their caloric intake, and increase energy expenditure to attain extremely low levels of body fat.



This hypoenergetic state has been shown to negatively impact many variables that can affect body recomposition such as sleep, hormones, and metabolism (35,46,69,71). Therefore, these intense physical demands significantly stress the body and make recomposition difficult for this population. When analyzing the current literature demonstrating body recomposition in trained individuals, it is important to consider contextual differences between studies (i.e., body composition assessments, training design, duration, nutritional control, etc.) and their potential to impact the outcomes (Tables 1-4). Therefore, the purpose of this review is to discuss the existing literature that has reported body recomposition among resistance-trained individuals. Second, we will address the contrasting results reported in the literature among a majority of competitive physique athletes during contest preparation. To draw conclusions from each study's results, it is important to understand the methods for assessing body composition, their strengths, weaknesses, and reliability. These assessments rely on different assumptions and vary based on how many compartments it divides an individual's total mass (i.e., 4C, 3C, 2C). Typically, body composition is divided into bone content, lean mass (i.e., muscle, connective tissue, internal organs, etc.), and FM.


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The 4-compartment model (4C) that has been considered the gold-standard assessment divides the body into FM, water, bone mineral content, and residual content (63,68). Moreover, the 4C model also allows for estimation of protein content (74). However,  [[https://marvelvsdc.faith/wiki/User:MarquisLoe84327|Alpha Surge Male product page]] it is costly and very time-consuming because 4C uses a variety of laboratorial assessments. Two of these laboratory assessments include magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography. Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) is a 3-compartment model commonly used to monitor and assess changes in body composition. It can distinguish between bone mineral content, FFM,  [[https://teslawiki.cz/index.php/During_A_Break_Or_After_Work|Alpha Surge Male product page]] and FM. 0.99) (32). The standard error rate when comparing the criterion MRI to DEXA for estimating body fat percentage is ∼1.6%. It is important to note that some of the recomposition results demonstrated in the training/nutrition literature may be within the standard error rate. Thus, these results must be taken with caution because the magnitude of change in these studies may be due to inherent variation from the measurement method. Body composition can also be separated into 2 compartments (e.g., FFM and FM) using BodPod, skinfold calipers, bioelectrical impedance, underwater weighing, and ultrasound techniques.