I did some googling about the body scan that I did at the gym and the numbers that the trainer told me were averages for women of my age and height were actually ideals. So I am above the ideal numbers for weight and body fat which I’m quite willing to believe. Now wondering a bit about the trainer, but the body scan machine is new to the gym so maybe none of them understand it all that well yet.
The medical world mostly works with the BMI, not body composition (muscle percentage, fat percentage, etc.). They have those numbers and know the recommendations but it’s generally more complicated to measure than the equipment is worth, medically, so there generally aren’t medical charts for body composition except the BMI.
But so, most body composition charts are just things made up by fitness equipment companies. Most that I see online are classing things as Lean, Ideal, Average, and Above Average. That makes no sense. Being underweight is unhealthy but they’ve just called it “lean” like it doesn’t matter. And while may be that the average American in 2025 is heavier than ideal, if you call that “average” then your whole chart stops making sense as soon as we get a handle on our weight problem.
I’d expect that the numbers your gym measured were (reasonably) accurate but I wouldn’t trust their classification system, as those were made by 20-something bodybuilders not doctors.
The chart if you scroll down on this webpage appears to be one that someone actually put together from medical info:
Note that I’m just trying to link to the image, not the included calculator or text.
I can’t imagine swimming does much of anything for strengthening the hip bones. I don’t think any of the weight exercises i do really put any stress on the hip bones. Walking probably does more.
This makes a lot of sense and thanks for the link. I’m not likely to do the body scan again. First time was free but after that it’s 30 bucks a shot. I can probably get a scale that gives me much the same data. Not sure how valuable it is. I can tell my leg muscles are getting stronger and a bit larger and that I carry a too much belly fat and should lose some.
For professionals, having the ability to measure stuff is important. For most people, for most cases, measuring things (IMO) is mostly just people having fun. Like, getting my DNA examined so I know where my ancestors came from is fun but doesn’t really change anything in my life. If I measure whether or not I have Covid then, either way, I stay home and try not to cough on people because I’m certainly sick.
You can use body composition measurement to track what you’re doing but, realistically, you can look at yourself in a mirror and determine if you look skinny, muscular, chubby, or some mix.
That said, changing your body composition takes so long that, if you’re seeing yourself in a mirror every day, you might not ever notice the change since your mental image of yourself is adjusting by a tiny amount every day. Having an official measurement, recorded, might help to reassure yourself that you are doing the right things - if you can wait a month or two between measurements.
But I’ve read that some people get more screwed up by measuring, weighing, etc. because they want to see results immediately. But when you’re measuring every day - especially with your bodyweight - things can fluctuate pretty wildly just based on how much water you’ve drunk, when you last went to the bathroom, whether you had a big breakfast, whether it’s morning or evening (you lose most weight by exhaling carbon, in your sleep). If you can’t be patient and you can’t deal with all the numbers bouncing around randomly, then it’s probably better to stick to the mirror.
You’d need to figure out for yourself whether it’s a good tool, or just a waste of time.
Rucking is probably the best tool to put weight on your skeleton, if you want a more fun and active choice.
Otherwise, pretty much any squatting exercise, or leg press, is probably going to do good for your hips, if you’ve got access to a gym and stay motivated to go in.
But yeah, it’s probably good to be able to jump but I’d probably try jumping up onto things - to reduce impact - if you’re younger - and then stepping back down gently, so that you aren’t causing repetitive high stress on your joints. Otherwise, it feels like an exercise that’s needlessly likely to lead to injury for an older person. If an elder wanted to keep their jumping strength, I’d probably suggest some sort of bungie-assisted activity or running/jogging on rubberized tracks.
I have knee issues and can’t really squat safely. And i don’t currently have access to a gym (and hated going when i did, although i could do leg presses safely).
Rucking has never sounded like fun to me, but it’s probably something i could do, so long as i avoided downhill.
For the last 2 weeks, my answer to the OP has been “because I injured my trapezius muscle.”
2 weeks ago Saturday, I was training back and biceps. My back workout began with bent over barbell rows, then to low rack pulls, followed by lat pulldowns.
It’s pretty heavy duty, in that the first 2 exercises are barbell exercises that require maximum effort.
Including 3 warmup sets, I usually do 7 sets of rows, with my last set only doing about 5 reps.
Then I move to the low rack pulls. Those are basically the top half of a deadlift. You grasp the bar while it’s in the bottom pin of the squat rack, keep your back straight, and stand up, finishing by rolling your shoulders back.
It’s a brutally effective exercise. I keep the weight heavy, usually doing about 5 reps for 3 or 4 sets. I feel it from the top of my neck all the way down to my spinal erectors near my pelvis. Even my hamstrings usually feel a little sore the day after.
(From there I’ll do 3 sets of lat pulldowns, with my hands facing me, and then 4 sets of barbell curls. It’s not a long workout - 14 sets for back, 4 for biceps - but it leaves me exhausted)
Except Saturday, on my last set of rack pulls, I felt a strain on the left side of my trapezius. There was no tearing, or muscle spasm (which I’ve had before), and of course I finished my workout, but my upper shoulder/back of the neck has been hurting ever since.
It’s really hard to work around it (every time you lift your arm above your shoulder you’re involving that muscle), and so I’ve shut down my workouts.
Obviously, I could be doing leg exercises, or some sort of alternative workout, but I’m far too stubborn, and so I’ve just been resting. Dr. Google tells me that recovery time is about 2 weeks.
I’m hopeful to have a chest workout Saturday, and a leg workout Sunday, and then try to train my back (with more lat focused movements) next Tuesday.
I don’t want to scare you too much about jumping. Like I said, if you’ve got something that you can jump up onto, and you’ve got good healthy bones and good balance, then it’s probably fine and even good to do. But it would still probably be good to mix in other stuff, even if the above is all true, just to keep it interesting, work some different parts of the body, and spread the wear.
There’s the “Romanian deadlift” and the “straight legged deadlift”. In essence, you get something heavy in both hands (e.g. gallon water bottles, packs full of books, etc.) and alternate between bending forward and standing straight. With the Romanian deadlift, what you do with your knees doesn’t matter too much, mostly you just don’t let the weights touch the ground. With the straight-legged deadlift, you try to keep your knees relatively locked out and bring the weight to a rest on the ground. I’d probably recommend the Romanian version since it’s more comfortable and you can do more weight.
They’ll also improve your grip - which gets important as you age.
Another option might be something like getting a heavy bag of dog food or rice off a high shelf, shoulder and/or cradle it, and then put it back up on the shelf.
You are saying i should move the kitty litter and the large bags of cat food from more storage to high storage. 
Yeah, you might not put it up until it’s lighter, so you don’t try to get it down and smack yourself in the face or drop it, but as you gain proficiency, you should be able to wrangle it even once it gets heavy.
I take 20 pound bags of cat supplies off high shelves at the store kinda regularly. And they didn’t really come heavier than that.
Not a surprise at all.
Exactly. How your clothes fit differently tell you lots about your body composition. The fact that you are hiking longer or brisker tells you lots.
These measurements are not giving actionable information or information that adds value over that.
If you squat or deadlift or (especially) do hip thrusts, this puts tremendous stress on the pelvic bones. Repeated kicking from swimming will put some stress on the pelvic bones, but you are right it is not as much. Walking is an excellent exercise and much underrated. Yoga and one-legged bodyweight exercises are also good alternatives.
I was thinking that hip thrusts - minus a particular machine - might aggravate her knee, if she has knee issues.
I assume that, at the moment, she’s mostly jumping with the ankles/calf and minimal quad.
Technically, the knees aren’t part of hip thrusts, but the position you need to get into would usually require a load on the knees at a 90 degree bend.
You could probably do a heavy Good Morning, to work all the same muscles, minus the traps and grip. Then start building the traps and grip back up, by doing light shrugs, and work the weight up as feels comfortable.
That said, I feel like when you start suffering damage, you were probably running up to the edge on most of your body and you’re liable to get hurt elsewhere as well, if you don’t take the rest.
Taking some time off might be the best answer. You’re unlikely to lose any strength or muscle that won’t bounce right back once you get back to it.
Yeah, aerobic conditioning declines faster but even that recovers pretty quickly after a break (due to injury or whatever), and muscle mass strength doesn’t go too far down too fast and has “memory” that facilitates getting back to previous levels fairly fast. I’d personally err on the side of caution for several weeks and use the time to do something very different than any heavy lifting. Think of it as an impromptu ad hoc recovery portion of a bigger periodization plan. 
Some details on that:
More grist for the mill?
Thank you for that.
People can tap into this “memory” and readily make up lost ground even if they haven’t picked up a weight for more than two months.
Due to recovering from surgery, I am restricted to walking for 10 weeks. No lifting, rowing, running, etc. I think I’ve finally reached the point that I miss doing regular, structured exercise. I feel better when I lift weights. At the moment, even walking wears me out, so I’m not missing other exercise too much.