Brian Shaw admitted there was one number he was hoping not to see after completing his dramatic 10-week transformation—and it wasn’t the amount of weight he’d lost.
The four-time World’s Strongest Man recently underwent hydrostatic body fat testing and a SECA body composition scan after completing the Shaw Elite transformation challenge, having dropped around 44lbs through months of disciplined dieting and training.
Despite the impressive physical changes, Shaw revealed he went into the testing with one major concern.
“I genuinely don’t know how this is going to go. So it’ll be interesting. Very interesting,” he said before the results.
Rather than focusing on the scales, Shaw was worried about how much lean body mass he may have lost during the process.
“I was probably the most concerned about the reduction in lean body mass,” he said.
The initial hydrostatic results suggested his lean body mass had fallen significantly, prompting Shaw to look into why the numbers appeared so dramatic.
“I did do a little bit of research on this because I was just curious. We did do a hard photo shoot the last two days going into this and I have been dieting very hard,” he said.
Shaw explained that dehydration and depleted glycogen stores can have a major impact on body composition testing.
“So, your hydration level a little bit, but mainly it would be the glycogen and water. Glycogen and water can represent a lot of this and that would all fall into the lean body mass category.”
He accepted that some muscle loss was inevitable while dieting but believed the results didn’t tell the full story.
“So, really in reality, did I drop some lean body mass? Probably yes. But it only makes sense that you would have dropped some. Trying to maintain that is where my head was at for sure during this transformation challenge,” he said.
Although that figure initially caught his attention, Shaw chose to focus on what he considered the real success of the challenge.
“The positive change is a reduction in body fat. So, moving in the right direction again… going from a 17.4 to a 14.3. That’s what the test showed,” he said.
The follow-up SECA scan painted an even clearer picture of his transformation.
Shaw’s weight had dropped from 386.9lbs to 342.4lbs, while his body fat percentage fell from 18.6% to 10.8%, with the scan estimating that he had lost around 10lbs of skeletal muscle alongside a much larger reduction in body fat.
Reflecting on the experience, Shaw said the numbers were useful – but only as part of the bigger picture.
“Truly at the end of it, in my mind, what it is about is the discipline to take action and to make a change,” he said.
“It’s fun to analyse at the end of any transformation and look at body composition and all these different things, but the reality is the work has to be put in to get to this point to actually have a change and to have a result to go over. So, I’m very proud of that.”
Featured image credit: Brian Shaw / Instagram
