How do you know if you are muscular or muscley?

[lljkk]

It's something MNers sometimes say about selves. They never say they have low body fat, just "I'm very muscley" type statements. Other than low body fat, is there an objective way to know if you're very muscley?

Trusting your eyes is like deciding who is handsome or ugly, entirely subjective.

Not really. Handsome and ugly are subjective because they are judgments in the eye of the beholder - people find different things attractive.

Being muscly is not subjective. In the vast majority of cases, when someone is muscly, the muscles are clearly visible to anyone. If someone has a lot of fat over their muscles it might be a bit less obvious, but in the fatter picture of Eddie Hall above, it is clear that he is still muscly. If you compared that with a picture of a similarly large man who had high body fat but wasn't muscly, the bulges in their bodies and the distribution of them would look totally different.

I would think of a muscular person as having under 8 % body fat and a noticeably taut physique.

Anyone can be muscley- if they have big muscles

On your 8% body fat requirements no woman would be muscly

It turns out we have some Renpho scales but I never got them working (it's DH's toy, not mine). So, 1 hour later with app installing & bluetooth wrestling... it says I'm 43% skeletal muscle which I think is low-average. Which is what I expected since I think there's little definition to my visible muscles, and I have a right paunch.

not headspace dominant, honest! I've done about 10 other "useful" things today (and more to come soon). Just idle curiousity.

Is that a typo? Even professional athletes will tend to have a higher percentage than that. Below 8% for a woman is vanishingly rare and not healthy. I know a couple of pro athletes and their body fat percentage is never below 14% and they look about as taut and muscly as is possible.

Yes, 8% body fat for women is too low. As in, too low for their body to function properly. Women need a minimum of 10% body fat, and a woman who is at that level will look absolutely shredded and will have a 6 pack.

I am muscular because I have visible muscles. 'Bulging' biceps, if you wish. Big traps. Noticeable quads.

Same. I have boulder shoulder, defined triceps and pop out quads. I wear a size 10-12 clothing

They mean the same thing to me... someone who is fit and has muscles.

If they meant slim but strong I'd expect them to say fit or wiry.

As mentioned 8% body fat for a women would be unhealthy.