Should You Calculate Your Muscle Mass?

Before we dig in, here is a little body composition primer. The term “muscle mass” refers to the total amount of soft muscle tissue in the body. Then, your "body mass" is made up of two components, body fat and lean body mass. Most of us know what body fat is (if not check my article all about it) but the second component, lean body mass, includes muscle mass, as well as bones and bodily fluid (mostly water). 

Muscle mass (or your muscles) are the part of your body that help you move, balance, and stand and sit with good posture. They also aid your organs in a number of your biological functions. 

The three main types of muscles found in the body are:

• smooth muscle (your internal organs)
• cardiac muscle (your heart)
• skeletal muscle (the stuff I tend to write about a lot)

Put these all together and you have the body’s muscle mass. Although, in most conversations on this topic, muscle mass usually focuses on skeletal muscle. Perhaps this is out of vanity or perhaps it's because we can exert the most control over those muscles—you decide. 

If you've been told that you have low muscle mass, that simply means that you have a lower than average amount of muscle compared to other people of the same age and gender. And if you've been told that you have high muscle mass—yep, you guessed it—you have more muscle then most people your age and gender. And we'll look at those averages later. 

When you are given this information, it's usually in conjunction with your body composition (during a Dexa Scan or maybe an MRI). Your body composition is usually a ratio of your muscle mass to your body fat mass. We’ll get into the reasons why you may want to measure this later. 

What is muscle mass for?

As I said, skeletal muscle plays a major role in mobility and movement, but muscles also play a vital role in supporting overall health, especially as we age. 

Muscles store glycogen (carbohydrates), which they use as fuel every time you ask them to move. This is especially handy when the carbohydrate in your blood (your blood sugar) runs out. That is when your muscle mass essentially acts as a reserve gas tank—you keep it full by eating carbohydrates, and then empty when you exercise. 

Healthy muscle to fat ratio creates what is referred to as a virtuous circle.

Exercising your skeletal muscles, in all the wonderful ways that I discuss in many of my Get-Fit Guy articles, can increase your body’s strength, mobility, and balance. Plus, a healthy muscle-to-fat ratio creates what is referred to as a...

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