How far does your middle finger fit around your wrist? (body frame size) (lifting, arms)
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My fingers overlap by a lot and I am definitely not small-framed. I measured my wrists and they are 7.5 inches in circumference, which is considered large-boned for women. So, the finger thing doesn't work.
Here are other ways to measure frame size:
Me too. My fingers overlap when I wrap them around my wrist but my wrist is 7 1/4 inches. And here I thought I had small wrists, lol. I have big feet, hands with long fingers with big palms and my wrists always looked thin to me. I am large framed. At my lowest weight I was 135 at 5'6" with measurements of 35-24-35 and I looked anorexic. I can lose in my waist but my hips will never be small.
If you were to wrap your thumb and middle finger around your wrist, can you touch your two fingers together?
To get the gist:
*If the fingers overlap you're "small-boned" and would be on the lighter end of the scale.
*If your fingers just touch, you'll probably have a medium.
*If your fingers don't touch at all, you have a large frame or you're "big-boned".
Where do you fall? Sure, this may be pseudoscience and whatnot, but what the heck.
Whether the fingers overlap or not has nothing to do with being skinny or fat, as your poll asks. It supposedly indicates whether you're small boned or large boned, as your post says.
I've read it's more accurate to just take the wrist measurement.
There is also a second measurement for women, which is to lie down on your back, and measure width from pelvic bone to pelvic bone. Women can be small boned on top but have larger bone structure on bottom half, I read.
Me: I can almost touch the first digit on my thumb with my middle finger. (I am 6' 1" tall and 174 lbs)
Wife: Same. She can almost touch the first digit on her thumb with her middle finger (she's 130 lbs at 5' 2" tall)
Neighbor: She cant touch her fingers at all. She's fat. Morbidly obese.
It seems that the bottom line is, if you are fat, you wont be able to to touch your fingers unless you have crazy long fingers. But people who know they are fat, already know they are fat and wont be fooled by this stupid crazy "touch your finger....you are big boned...." b.s. that will just try to make them feel better about being obese.
I'm obese and my finger overlaps my thumb to the first joint. I just don't carry much of my weight in my wrist
There is something to the whole frame size thing...at 165 lbs my mom wears a 16 and looks very overweight. I'm 4 inches shorter than her and at 230 lbs wear a size 16 and don't look as overweight as she does. She has little bird bones and no muscle. I have my dad's more solid frame and very long torso and I put on muscle more easily than most women. I'm still obese and not denying it, but I don't want to get below 180 lbs because I start to look really old and gaunt when I go below that.
Whether the fingers overlap or not has nothing to do with being skinny or fat, as your poll asks. It supposedly indicates whether you're small boned or large boned, as your post says.
I've read it's more accurate to just take the wrist measurement.
There is also a second measurement for women, which is to lie down on your back, and measure width from pelvic bone to pelvic bone. Women can be small boned on top but have larger bone structure on bottom half, I read.
True^^.... I try it, laying down, my measurement points to small like my wrist. I do wounder how accurate the pelvic measurement is, because pregnancy & childbirth can push the pelvic outward, mine was after my second, she turned came out face up, ugh! .. I rather be med or big boned myself, because as you age small bones can break easier from a fall etc...I'll be 54 soon..
Last edited by WildCard~; 06-27-2016 at 09:50 PM..
Left fingers and right wrist: just touch. Right fingers and left wrist: overlap slightly.
To get more precise, right wrist measurement: 7-1/4. Left wrist: 6-7/8. Elbow width: 3-1/2 both sides. According to the info in CatTX's link (post 32)--and I've seen other websites with the same numbers--that puts me at the high end of the medium range by wrist girth and the low end of the high range by elbow width.
It seems accurate for me to fall in that medium-large boundary. By appearance I have a medium-large frame. When in top shape I look like an all-around athlete (picture an outfielder or hockey player), solidly muscled, on the large side but not huge. 6'0", presently weigh around 206-8 range. 190 lb. when I was in my best shape in my twenties after a few years of running and lifting weights.
According to the link in Elnina's post, here are my results:
Ideal weight range is 178 - 195.8 lbs. (80.9 - 89 kg.).
You are marginally overweight by 11.2 lbs. (5 kg.).
Regardless of who's right in this thread's discussion about whether "big-boned" always means fat, I do think there are differences in frame size, and this needs to be taken into account in determining your best weight.
Look at the example above. According to BMI, at a height of six feet, a weight of 184 lb. puts me right at the top of the acceptable range. That puts me only about 1/3 of the way up from the low end of the range they say is acceptable in Elnina's link, and that one takes frame size into account. At the very least you clearly get a different picture if frame size is considered.
By the way, I don't kid myself. I've lost about 30 pounds in the last two years, but I know I still need to lose a few more to be really trim. The assessment in Elnina's link seems roughly correct. I might need to lose a bit more than another 11.5 lb. to be really trim, but their estimate seems reasonably close.
This page calculates body fat percentage: Here is the info it asks for:
Weight
Height
Neck
Forearm - Arm held horizontally, palm up, maximum girth
Waist - Minimum girth just below bottom rib, tape level
Abdomen - Maximum girth, above navel, tape level
Hips - Maximum girth, feet together, tape level
Thigh - Maximum girth just below buttocks, legs 2' apart, tape level
Calf - Maximum girth, tape level
Wrist
I entered my weight as 207 (usually has fallen in the 206-208 range recently). This calculator says my current body fat percentage is 12.75.
They also include the results from the Navy's body fat calculator. The Navy's estimate uses only waist and neck measurements, so frame size is not taken into account. They estimate my bf percentage as 21.15. Quite a difference when frame size is or is not considered.
By the way, the website also lists the average of these two results in round figures, which for me in round figures is 17 percent.
It's difficult to tell how much fat you're really carrying, but my sense is that this average is probably closer than either of the two results making up the average. That average indicates the weight of my lean mass as 171.81 lb. That puts me at 190.9 lb. at a body fat percentage of 10, right in the 190 ballpark I weighed in athletically trim shape in my mid twenties.
So ridiculous when people say "Oh, Im just big boned". NO YOU ARE NOT!!!
When I first heard of this test it was to see which set of figures you should use to see how much you should weigh. And yes, there are three different sizes of bones--small, medium and large. If you are going to fix another persons post at least know what you are talking about.
Me too. My fingers overlap when I wrap them around my wrist but my wrist is 7 1/4 inches. And here I thought I had small wrists, lol. I have big feet, hands with long fingers with big palms and my wrists always looked thin to me. I am large framed. At my lowest weight I was 135 at 5'6" with measurements of 35-24-35 and I looked anorexic. I can lose in my waist but my hips will never be small.
Even so I could stand to lose about 15 pounds.
My daughter found a wedding dress that she wanted but it was a little too small. She lost weight until she was skin and bones but we still had to let the dress out at the seams because she has my husband's big bones.
It's not pseudo-science, unless you have oddly sized hands. (Not naming names. )
Regardless what my weight has been in my life, my fingers have never touched around my wrist. What I would like to know is if that is at all correlated with the strength I have always had. I hit a Grand Slam in softball and was always a slugger in my youth, and I won the award for most push-ups for a girl.
So, are bigger bones also stronger bones, assuming one has not developed osteoporosis?
Wrist size is a determining factor for maximum strength potential. All other things being equal the larger your wrist the stronger you can become compared to someone with narrower wrists.
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