eli5 is it unhealthy to stay shredded year round and how do professional athletes pull it off ?

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As the other response mentioned, it depends on what you mean by “shredded”

For professional athletes, their output is so extremely high and their nutrition and recovery is so perfectly tuned that it’s natural to maintain a relatively low body fat percentage. That combined with above average lean mass and they’re gonna look pretty dang shredded. I’d estimate that most of your shredded-looking pro athletes are in the 10-14% body fat range which is totally sustainable long-term.

Now in terms of “body building shredded” (meaning veins popping out, dehydrated, etc) a professional body builder will only look “competition lean” for a few days once every year or two. To maintain a BF% in the low single digits (like under 7-8%) is extremely taxing on your system. None of them walk around looking like they do during an actual competition.

For women, maintaining a very low body fat percentage has some negative effects on reproductive “health.” A lot of high level women’s athletes struggle to have a normal menstrual cycle (if they even have one at all) which is likely a biological response to their abnormally low body fat. It doesn’t mean they can’t stay lean/shredded year around but it’s another thing to consider that men don’t have to account for.

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