# Height to weight ratio



## Racer22 (Jul 4, 2016)

Sup guys.

I'm 165cm (5ft 4) male and weigh 161lbs (73kg). I'm not in fat by any means but I'm also not toned, I'm pretty bulky. I've been comparing my height and weight vs professional boxers who are 5ft 4 / 5ft 5 and they pretty much all weigh between 116lbs (53kg) - 132lbs (60kg).

Is it a disadvantage for smaller people to weigh a lot more than their heigh should dictate? Obviously there's no set ratio but imagine a 5ft 4 fighter going in the ring with a traditional middleweight fighter, the high advantage would be huge. 

Then you see some fighters, namely Mike Tyson who was significantly shorter than most heavyweights (5ft 10)? Yet he seemed to use his lack of height to his advantage by getting in close and unloading with massive power.

99% of heavyweight champions seem to be no shorter than 6ft. Most of them 6ft 2 - 6ft 6. So basically what I'm asking is, should I lay off the weights and stop building more muscle? Just go with what I have at the moment and try to become more toned?


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## Bill Mattocks (Jul 4, 2016)

Depends on what your plans are.  As you said, going in the ring with someone in your weight division would probably put you at a disadvantage, as they would most likely have quite a bit of reach on you.

Is that what you're concerned about?

For self-defense, you're fine.  A reasonable fitness level and the ability to use your weight effectively and you're good to go.  You don't find criminals matching up against citizens by height or weight, so you could end up defending yourself against a guy who is big, little, or somewhere in between, without regard to how tall you are or what you weigh.

Unless you're considering a boxing career, I would not worry about it.


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## Racer22 (Jul 4, 2016)

Bill Mattocks said:


> Depends on what your plans are.  As you said, going in the ring with someone in your weight division would probably put you at a disadvantage, as they would most likely have quite a bit of reach on you.
> 
> Is that what you're concerned about?
> 
> ...



I'm not considering a boxing career but I am going to a martial arts school soon and after some time I would like to take part in local competitions of I'm good enough. I just have a feeling that based on my weight, I'd be put against middleweights who are likely to be 5ft 10+ compared to me who's 5ft 4. Seems like a huge disadvantage.


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## Bill Mattocks (Jul 4, 2016)

Racer22 said:


> I'm not considering a boxing career but I am going to a martial arts school soon and after some time I would like to take part in local competitions of I'm good enough. I just have a feeling that based on my weight, I'd be put against middleweights who are likely to be 5ft 10+ compared to me who's 5ft 4. Seems like a huge disadvantage.


 Most point sparring tournaments are age and belt, not weight. At least in my experience.


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## JR 137 (Jul 4, 2016)

Don't follow the boxers' height to weight too closely.  They cut weight for fights, just as wrestlers (not WWE guys, but Olympic, collegiate, etc.) and MMA fighters do.  Depending on the individual, they can weigh 20 lbs or more during everyday life.  It's hard to understand the mentality fully if you haven't competed in a sport with weight classes.

If weight classes are used or not is mainly dependent on the MA.  Grappling arts like judo and possibly BJJ use them, while striking arts like karate and TKD don't use them much.  Striking sports like Muay Thai, kickboxing and boxing use them.

I'm in Seido Juku.  We use them for black belt divisions at Seido tournaments.  Kata goes by rank, but black belt kumite and breaking are separated by weight.  Weigh ins are done in full gi with belt.  Thes are closed Seido tournaments and not typical of most karate tournaments.  I think Kyokushin recently started weight class tournaments though.  

As to short reach being a disadvantage, it rears it's ugly head most in point fighting IMO.  In something like knockdown, it's not as big of a deal because you can take a few punches on your way inside.  In point fighting, once you're hit, you stop and reset.

I recently competed in point fighting, and my lack of reach killed me.  I'm almost 5'9, and the two guys I faced were about 6' and 6'6.  The 6' guy had freakishly long arms, even for a 6' guy; he could almost touch his knees with his arms at his sides.  The 6'6 guy was the tallest guy in the gym, and it was just way too much distance to cover when I countered.  If it was knockdown fighting, I'd have had far better chance.  In a game of tag (which point fighting basically is), it was nearly impossible to score a point.

In regards to health, height to weight ratio is highly unreliable for individuals, but is very good for populations.  The best measure of healthy weight (other than body fat testing) is height to waist circumference.  Measure your circumference an inch above your belly button.  A healthy ratio in general is your waist is less that or equal to half your height.  So if you're 64 inches tall, your belly button circumference should be 34 inches or less.


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## Buka (Jul 4, 2016)

As long as your feet reach the ground, you're tall enough. 
As long as you are fit and in fighting shape, no worries.


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## drop bear (Jul 5, 2016)

When you compete you will need to worry about cutting weight.  Otherwise don't really let it concern you.


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## WaterGal (Jul 5, 2016)

Racer22 said:


> I'm not considering a boxing career but I am going to a martial arts school soon and after some time I would like to take part in local competitions of I'm good enough. I just have a feeling that based on my weight, I'd be put against middleweights who are likely to be 5ft 10+ compared to me who's 5ft 4. Seems like a huge disadvantage.



Are you trying to compete in MMA tournaments, or in amateur karate/taekwondo/etc kind of tournaments?  In the latter, from what I've seen, most adult competitors, especially ones below black belt, are people who are somewhat physically active but not elite athletes.  (I've never been to an amateur MMA competition, so I'm not sure what the standard is there.)

I'd recommend going to watch one of these local competitions first so you can see what you'd be up against, and then if you still feel you'd be at a big disadvantage, you can try losing weight or practicing strategies for shorter fighters or whatever.


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## WaterGal (Jul 5, 2016)

JR 137 said:


> If weight classes are used or not is mainly dependent on the MA.  Grappling arts like judo and possibly BJJ use them, while striking arts like karate and TKD don't use them much.  Striking sports like Muay Thai, kickboxing and boxing use them.



TKD, at least of the KKW/WTF variety, absolutely uses weight classes for sparring.  Local tournaments often play a little loose with them for color belts, just kind of eyeballing it and combining some weight groups in cases of low turnout.  But, officially, there are defined weight classes.


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## drop bear (Jul 5, 2016)

WaterGal said:


> TKD, at least of the KKW/WTF variety, absolutely uses weight classes for sparring.  Local tournaments often play a little loose with them for color belts, just kind of eyeballing it and combining some weight groups in cases of low turnout.  But, officially, there are defined weight classes.



If there are weight classes. Then there is no reason why you can't eat a few salads and take advantage of that.

Just depends how much effort you want to expend on preparing for a competition.

My view is expending a lot of effort so that you have done everything you could have done to be the best you can be at the time.

Will give you more benifit as a martial artist.


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## Blindside (Jul 5, 2016)

Bill Mattocks said:


> Most point sparring tournaments are age and belt, not weight. At least in my experience.



At larger competitions they will run weight divisions, particularly in the black belt divisions.  Those usually go a way for the Senior and Masters (the older guys) divisions because they don't usually have the numbers.


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## WaterGal (Jul 5, 2016)

drop bear said:


> If there are weight classes. Then there is no reason why you can't eat a few salads and take advantage of that.
> 
> Just depends how much effort you want to expend on preparing for a competition.
> 
> ...



I think you should always work hard to prepare, yeah. But I do think, if we're talking about an adult who's just getting started doing martial arts and going to a local amateur open tournament, that building skill and fitness is more important than cutting weight.

From what I've see, the use of weight classes for adult color belts in local TKD tournaments is pretty haphazard, because of low turnout (it's common for there to only be like 3-5 adult female color belts, for example, so they'll combine all the divisions into one or two).  And it sounds from this thread like a lot of point karate tournaments don't even bother with weight classes.  So in those kind of situations, losing weight to be a lower division may or may not help you, but improving your skill and having good cardio definitely will.


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## lifelongstudent1 (Jul 26, 2016)

nope, no disadvantage at all.  I have always been a short (5'6") guy, stocky (200).  I have never had an issue with any martial art.  There are many advantages and some con's.  But think of this, the main meat of martial arts come refined from Asia.  They have been short people, (like us) yet always excelled in warfare.


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## KangTsai (Aug 21, 2016)

Racer22 said:


> Sup guys.
> 
> I'm 165cm (5ft 4) male and weigh 161lbs (73kg). I'm not in fat by any means but I'm also not toned, I'm pretty bulky. I've been comparing my height and weight vs professional boxers who are 5ft 4 / 5ft 5 and they pretty much all weigh between 116lbs (53kg) - 132lbs (60kg).
> 
> ...


Bodybuilders generally tone muscles with low weight, high rep workouts.


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