Friday, Jul 24, 2026 The claims desk. Receipts included. POWERED BY LENZ ↗
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SCIENCE

The Claim

A study on Division 1 and Division 2 college football players found that the average Fat-Free Mass Index for offensive linemen was 25.1, indicating that an FFMI above 25 is naturally achievable for some athletes without the use of anabolic steroids.

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The Short Version

The claim contains two material errors that undermine its reliability. The stated average FFMI of 25.1 for offensive linemen does not match the peer-reviewed data, which reports approximately 24.8. More critically, the conclusion that FFMI above 25 is "naturally achievable without anabolic steroids" is unsupported because none of the cited collegiate football studies verified participants' drug-free status. While some individual players did exceed an FFMI of 25, this observation alone cannot establish natural achievement.

Caveats

  • The specific average FFMI figure of 25.1 for offensive linemen appears inaccurate; peer-reviewed sources from the same studies report approximately 24.8.
  • None of the collegiate football studies cited conducted drug testing, so the claim that FFMI above 25 was achieved 'without anabolic steroids' is not verified by the evidence.
  • FFMI calculations can vary depending on whether raw or height-adjusted ('normalized') values are used, and conflating these methods can shift group averages above or below the 25 threshold.

The Receipts

  1. Fat-Free Mass Index in a Large Sample of Collegiate American Football Players

    PubMed Central

  2. Fat-Free Mass Index in NCAA Division I and II Collegiate American Football Players

    PubMed Central

  3. Fat-Free Mass Index in NCAA Division I and II Collegiate American ...

    Duke Scholars

  4. Fat-free mass index in users and nonusers of anabolic-androgenic steroids

    PubMed

  5. Fat-Free Mass Index in a Large Sample of Collegiate American ...

    Western Kentucky University Digital Commons

  6. Fat-free mass index in users and nonusers of anabolic-androgenic steroids

    Semantic Scholar

  7. Fat-Free Mass Index in NCAA Division I and II Collegiate American Football Players

    Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (Trexler et al. 2017)

  8. Fat-Free Mass Index in a Large Sample of Collegiate American ...

    Researcher.life

  9. Natural FFMI Limit

    leanffmi.com

  10. Fat-Free Mass Index in NCAA Division I and II Collegiate American ...

    Hologic

+ 10 more sources — see the full list on Lenz

Filed Under

Fat-Free Mass IndexNCAA Division INCAA Division IIOffensive Linemen