I think it depends on how easily an individual can lose fat. If you store fat easily but can burn it off quickly, you have a little more room in the off season, but if you're only of those people that have to really suffer to get get lean, you don't want to take it take far. I wouldn't want to see someone get higher than 12-13%, in most cases. You can grow a good amount of muscle and still stay pretty lean, if you watch your diet. I'm not a big fan of the electric impedance body fat testers. They never seem to be right, and the leaner I get, the more off, they seem to be. I think the best way to track your progress is through pictures. When you can put pics side my side, taken about every 3 wks, in the off season, you can see the general direction you are moving. For myself, I look at pics and I look at how my clothes feel/fit. The scale isn't always going to tell you much, especially as you progress in the sport. I can do a cycle where, for wks, I look bigger in the mirror, clothes are fitting tighter in the arms, back chest and quads, but the scale stays the same. I tend to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. At the end of the cycle, it may only say that I'm up by a few lbs, but you can see in pics or the mirror, that I've made noticable improvments.