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There are various ways to loosely track your body composition changes over time, like taking progress pictures or measuring your waist.
But if you want to be a little more rigorous or just have more data on how your body fat levels are changing, you can use skinfold calipers.
While no body fat measurement method is foolproof, calipers can give you a fairly accurate reading if you know what you’re doing. So in this podcast, you’re going to learn how to properly use skinfold calipers to measure your body fat percentage.
Listen and let me know what you think!
Timestamps:
0:00 – Please leave a review of the show wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure to subscribe!
2:26 – Try Pulse today! Go to https://buylegion.com/pulse and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points!
4:31 – What are skin fold calipers?
5:16 – Are skinfold calipers accurate?
15:28 – How do I use calipers?
21:07 – What are the different types of measurements you can take?
25:22 – What are the different methods of reading and estimating body fat percentage?
35:59 – Which calipers should I buy?
Mentioned on the Show:
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Transcript:
Hello, I am Mike Matthews and this is Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today to learn about skin fold cas. How to use CAS to measure your body fat percentage. Which is not necessary. You can just take progress pictures, maybe measure your waist at your naval, watch how that changes. If that measurement is shrinking, you are losing fat.
If that measurement is growing, you are gaining fat. And of course, if you look at progress pictures every week or two, over the course of time, you will be able to track changes in your body composition. But if you want to be more rigorous in tracking, Body composition, maybe because you just like to have more data.
I’m one of those people. I find data kind of motivating. I like to track things and see things numerically. Then skin fold, CAS can be worth. Including in your regimen, taking several measurements that I will be talking about in this podcast that will give you a reliable and fairly accurate estimate of your body fat percentage.
And I say fairly accurate because no method will always give you a 100% accurate measurement of your body. Fatness guaranteed all the time, nothing even dexus. Scans can be off by quite a bit depending on how the machine is calibrated. And depending on the mathematical modeling that is used to turn the data obtained by the x-ray scan into a body fat percentage.
But with caliper’s, if you know what you’re doing, you can arrive at an accurate estimate of your body fat percentage accurate to within probably 10 to 20%, relatively speaking, not in absolute sense. So if you are actually 10% body fat and you know what you are doing with cas, It’ll probably come in somewhere between nine and 11%.
Uh, on average, maybe eight and 12% depending on how you hold your fat, but it will be pretty close. If you know what you’re doing and you are 10% body fat, you are not going to register at 15% with Galls. If you follow my advice that I’m going. Give you in this podcast, but first, do you sometimes lack the energy and the motivation to get into the gym?
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And know that if you don’t absolutely love pulse, just let us know and we will give you a full refund on the spot. No forms, no return even is necessary, so you can’t. Go to buy legion.com/pulse. Order now. Use the coupon code muscle save 20%. Try pulse risk free and see what you think. Okay, so let’s start this discussion with a quick description of what skin fold cas are.
So these are devices that are used to measure the thickness of your skin and the fat underneath the skin. So the subcutaneous fat. And you take measurements on particular points of your body and you use those measurements to then estimate your body fat percentage. I mean, you’re first estimating how much total body fat you have, and then you can calculate your approximate body fat percentage by taking that approximation of your total body fat mass in comparing it to your total body weight because of course that’s what body fat percentage represents, the percentage of your body weight that is.
Now what about accuracy? That’s what most people ask me are skin fold cas accurate? And research shows that in people who have average or above average amounts of body fat, so let’s just say about 15% body fat and higher in men, or 25% and higher in women. And if you are not sure, if you have no idea what those levels of body fatness look like, 15% in men looks athletic, you are going to have some abdominal definition, maybe a little bit of vascularity in your arms or in your shoulders, depending on genetics.
Some people are just more vascular than others, and it also depends on muscular size. More muscular people are going to have more visible vascularity. Less muscular people, but 15% is fairly athletic. A 15% body fat with above average muscles going to look like an athlete, not an overweight person. To look overweight men have to get to 20.
Uh, Percent body fest probably where they start to look a little bit fluffy, I guess you could say are pudgy. And then 25% and above, certainly 30% body fat and above in men is where they are clearly overweight. And now you’re working toward. Obese and in women, 25% is, is similar to what I described for men.
A woman at 25% body fat is not going to look overweight if she has a little bit more muscle than the average woman, especially in the places that women tend to focus more on, which is lower body, maybe the arms a little bit. She’s going to look like an athlete. She’s probably gonna have a little bit of abdominal definition.
She’s going to have clear muscle definition again if, if she trains her muscles, and when women approach 35%, that’s when they. Start to look clearly overweight. And of course that only becomes more pronounced as their body fat percentage rises from there. So in the case of people who look either normal or maybe even a little bit better than normal, a little bit, athletic skin fold, calibers are pretty accurate.
If you know what you’re doing, they can work well for estimating body fat percentage. They are going to be accurate to within. I mentioned in the intro, 10 to 20% in relative terms, not absolute terms, but it might be easier just to put it in absolute. So they’re gonna be accurate probably to within one or 2% in an absolute sense.
So if a guy is 15% body fat and he knows what he’s doing with CalPERS, he is probably gonna register between 14 and 16%. So close enough, good enough for government work, as they say. Right? But as people get leaner, so. Let’s say a guy now is at 10% and at 10% he’s going to have full abs, a six pack, or not a six pack.
Because of genetics. Like I don’t have a perfect six pack because unfortunately my abs are one. They’re kind of staggered, and on one side you really can only see like two of the abdominal muscles clearly, and the third one is the highest. Looks almost like it’s half the size that it should be.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about that. And if you have asymmetrical abs or if it looks like you only really have a four pack or a five pack, no matter how lean you get, uh, it’s just the cards that we were dealt. And there are no special ab exercises or anything else that you can do to change that.
And so it’s just good to know because there. Fitness grooves out there who say otherwise who will pitch you on their special abdominal workouts to correct the asymmetry or to take you from a four or five pack to a six pack. Unfortunately, that is all bogus and so. 10% in men, full six pack more vascularity.
That looks like a, a lean athlete. And in women, when you get down to about 20% body fat, there’s gonna be less abdominal definition, but there’s going to be at least a line down the middle. Probably you, you’ll be able to see. Some, some outlines of, of your other abdominal muscles as well. You’re not going to look as quote unquote shredded as the guy, uh, at least his torso in most cases at 10%, but clear abdominal definition and clear muscle definition everywhere else.
Good muscle definition in your back, in your arms and your shoulders, especially when you’re training. You’ll be able to see separations in your muscles. You’ll be able to see. Clear separation between your shoulder muscles and your biceps, for example, and your triceps. And so in leaner people, as men get down to the 10% range, as women get down to the 20% range, body fat CalPERS tend to underestimate body fat.
Percentage and these results seem to be more skewed, the leaner you get. And so if you’re a guy at eight or 9% body fat, quite lean, you even start to see now some abdominal vascularity. Usually in the lower abdominal region, you’ll see some veins that are coming from your pubic area up to your abs. If you’re that lean as a guy, then you.
Take a caliper reading and register it 5% or 6%, and a woman at 19 or 20% body fat, and I described how that looks just a few minutes ago. She might come in at 14% body fat, and so that’s just something to. To know. I’m not saying that body fat CalPERS are not useful if you’re lean. You just have to understand that it might put you a bit lower than you actually are.
That said, a nice thing about body fat CalPERS is if you have your protocol down, it might not be perfectly accurate, but it is reliably. Imperfectly accurate or reliably inaccurate to some degree. And so that is useful because you can use then the caliper’s as a tool for measuring trends. And what that means then is, again, assuming you know what you’re doing, if your caliper readings and if the final calculation for body fat percentage, if that is going down over the course of time.
You are definitely getting leaner. If it is going up over the course of time, you are definitely getting fatter and the absolute numbers might not be perfectly correct, especially as you get leaner. But again, if you want to make sure that you are improving your body composition and if you want to see it in real numbers as opposed to just looking at pictures, then CalPERS can be very useful for.
Now, some people say that CalPERS are a waste of time because you can just take pictures and you can just take a waste measurement at your naval and accomplish the same thing. And I don’t disagree. And some people even say that you shouldn’t bother. Measuring your body fat percentage because it’s not even useful.
And I also don’t disagree with that statement. So either of those two statements, you don’t need cas. Just take pictures and measure your waist at your naval and watch how those things change or don’t do either of those things. Don’t take pictures, don’t bother taking any measurements. Just focus on getting stronger, on gaining muscle, on hitting your calories and macros and everything will come together.
And again, I don’t. Disagree. However, in working with thousands and thousands of people over the years, what I’ve found is that by taking some measurements, by taking some pictures, people can get motivated and it helps them stay motivated to keep doing what they need to do to keep getting into the gym, doing their workouts, gaining muscle and strength to keep following their meal plan or following their calories following.
Macros and in fitness, consistency is everything. You don’t ever have to even try to be perfect. You don’t even really have to try to be extraordinary. You just have to be consistent. You just have to show up most of the time and do most of the most important things mostly. Right, and if keeping an eye on some measurements of your body composition can help you be more consistent, ultimately it is going to help you achieve your fitness goals faster.
And again, having worked with many people over the years, very consistently taking. Body composition measurements has helped them stay more motivated, which in turn has helped them stay more consistent, which of course then produces better results. And that can become a positive feedback loop because you are staying consistent, you are seeing positive changes in your body, composition happening fairly quickly.
You are getting even more motivated. Because results are the most motivating thing of all, and you are also taking measurements of your body composition, which just reinforces what you are already seeing in the mirror and what you are experiencing in the gym. It just adds a numerical statistical dimension to them, which.
The process even more fun because you can put real numbers to it. When you are talking about it, you can say, yeah, when I started I was at 27% body fat and now I’m at 17% body fat and I’m down X number of pounds. My waist is down X number of inches. And in the gym I started with, X pounds on my squat and deadlift, and now I’m doing double that, and so on and so on.
And then all of that gets even more fired up to stick to your meal plan and to do your workouts and that cycle repeated. For a long enough period of time is how you win in the fitness game. Okay, now let’s talk about how to actually use caliper’s to estimate your body fat percentage. I’m gonna be sharing several methods with you, and I’m gonna start though with what they all have in common, which is taking.
Measurements of the thickness of your skin, and you are going to be taking fewer measurements with certain methods, more measurements with others, but all of them require taking proper measurements of skin thickness. And fortunately, it’s pretty simple. So the first step is you need to pinch your skin on a certain place of your body by placing your thumb and your forefinger.
On your body in the spot indicated about two inches apart, and then you have to press into your skin firmly. You don’t have to jam your fingers into your skin, but you do have to press in with a little bit of pressure. You should see indentations in your skin from your thumb and your forefinger, and then you have to push.
Fingers together, you have to close your thumb and your forefinger, and then you have to gently pull that skin, fold that fold of skin that you now have in between your fingers, away from your body. And this should be light, by the way. The skin fold should only be coming up about a centimeter or so, but you just have to make sure that you have it pinched and then you are pulling it a little bit up off of your body.
And one other thing before I continue is if you have a, a fair amount of body fat, Two inches in between your thumb and your forefinger doesn’t allow you to get a well-formed skin fold just because there’s a lot of fat. Then you can spread your fingers out to three inches apart or even more if you need to.
Okay, so you have your skin fold. Now, how do you measure its thickness? Well, that’s where the CalPERS come in and you want to measure in the middle of it, like if you think about the skin fold vertically, you want to place the CAS in the middle of its vertical mass, I guess you could say. And you need to be measuring, of course, perpendicular.
To it, not parallel to it, you’re pinching it with the CalPERS just as you are pinching it with your fingers. And then you need to be placing those CalPERS a little bit away from your fingers. A half inch to an inch or so. It could be. To one side or the other depends, like, let’s say you’re using your left hand and you have the CAS in your right hand, then you are going to be placing them to the right of your fingers and vice versa.
If you are left-handed and sometimes depending on the on the site, like if you are taking a skin fold measurement of your abdominal region, then you’re gonna go to the right or the left of your fingers, depending. Which handed you are. And then in the case of other measurements, you might go above or below, depending on how you are supposed to be pinching the skin.
And I’ll get into that in a few minutes, the different locations of your body that you are pinching and measuring. But I just wanted to give you first the fundamentals of taking a proper caliper measure. Now, in addition to those fundamentals, I want to give you five tips for taking more accurate measurements, and the first one is to take all of your skin fold measurements on the right side of your body while you are standing with your muscles relaxed.
That just keeps consistency in your measurements because there can be differences between the right and the left. Body. Another tip is to make sure that your skin is dry and free of any lotion. So towel off if you are gonna be taking measurements after getting out of the shower, that makes sure that you get a good grip on your skin and that you have a consistent grip on your skin.
If you take measurements one time with dry skin and the other time with wet skin, and then the other time with lotion skin, chances are those measurements are gonna. Different not because your body composition has changed, but just because the amount of skin that you are gripping and the distance that you are pulling it away from your body is changing a little bit.
Another tip is to not take skin fold measurements after doing anything physically strenuous, so don’t do it. Right after. Hey, there example you are hearing still particularly hot, which is the reason for that is, and if you are, join this podcast like my podcast, generally least something out of your skin would mind sharing, increasing the of fluid beneath your skin.
Loved one. You want to take measurements, you might want to learn something normal. Body temperature, word of mouth helps. Four is every time you, you think of measure. This episode, take them at the same time another one of the day. Please do tell them that many people, for example, they’ll take them first thing in the morning after they have gone to the bathroom, and they’ll just do that often.
It’s when they weigh themselves as well, so they will weigh themselves, make a note of that, and then. Take their caliper measurements, make a note of that. And finally, if you are a woman, don’t bother with body fat caliper measurements at any time during your menstrual cycle when you have gained a noticeable amount of weight because of fluid retention when you are bloated, because of course that is going to skew your numbers and it’s not useful to know.
Your caliper measurements balloon when your weight balloons because your water retention balloons we’re, we’re not trying to measure water retention or bloatedness. We want to measure body fatness, and for that we need normal levels of water retention. Okay, now let’s talk about the different types of measurements that you can take based on the protocol that you’re using.
And I’m going to share several protocols and explain some pros and cons, and you can then try whichever ones you want to try. You might need to come back to this section of the podcast, but I’m just gonna share each of the. Possible measurements that you would take and how to do each of them. So an abdominal measurement requires pinching a vertical fold of skin, one inch to the right of your belly button.
And when I say a vertical fold of skin, that means that the skin fold goes straight up and down. So a horizontal. Skin fold goes left to right and so again, abdominals. Vertical fold of skin, about one inch to the right of your belly button. A biceps measurement requires that you pinch the skin vertically halfway between your elbow and your shoulder on the front of your arm.
A calf measurement requires pinching the skin vertically on the inside of the largest. Part of your right calf. Again, I recommend just sticking with the right side of your body, and I guess I should mention, if you are right-handed and operating the caliper with your left hand is very awkward. It shouldn’t be, but if for whatever reason it really is not working for you, then you can flip that.
And only take measurements on the left side of your body, so then you can operate the caliper with your right hand, your more dextrous hand. Okay, so moving on to a lower back measurement. To take that measurement, you pinch the skin horizontally about six inches above your waist and about two inches to the right of your spine.
We have a mid aary measurement where you pinch the skin vertically directly below. Armpit at the same height as the base of your breast bone. And if you’re having trouble visualizing any of these things, you can also just head over to YouTube and find videos on how to take these measurements. But I just want to list them here and quickly describe them so then at least you can match up my descriptions to the video that you’re watching.
And if the video says something else, find a different video. Matches up with what I’m sharing with you here, so you are seeing it correctly. All right, let’s move on to a pectoral measurement. So in men to take a pectoral measurement, you pinch a diagonal skin fold halfway between the front edge of your armpit and your right nipple or or your left nipple.
So your nipple. And in women, you want to pinch a diagonal skin fold. Two thirds of the way from your nipple to the front edge of your armpit. So in women, it’s closer, the measurement is closer to the armpit than your nipple. And in men, it is about halfway between the armpit and the nipple. We have a subscapular measurement, and in that one you pinch the skin diagonally about an inch between the middle of your shoulder blade, so that is about three inches to the right of your spine and six inches above your waist.
Of course, you can’t do that one yourself. You need to get somebody else to do it. Super iliac is pinching the skin diagonally directly above the bony protrusion on the front of. Hip. That’s called the iliac crest. You can search that online just to see exactly what I’m talking about, but that’s the super iliac measurement.
Then we have a thigh measurement, and with this one, you pinch the skin vertically, halfway between the top of your kneecap and the top of the front of your thigh. And finally, we have a triceps measurement where you pinch the skin vertical. Halfway between your elbow and your shoulder on the back of your arm.
And again, just go online and search any of these measurements up, uh, on YouTube. Or you can probably even just do an image search for each of them to see the locations so you can clearly understand how to take these measurements and just make sure that the instructions or what is being shown agrees with what I just shared with.
Okay, so now let’s talk methods. So we have these different measurements that we can take. Which ones should we take? And then what do we do with the readings to turn them into an estimation of body fat percentage? And the first method I wanna talk about is the three site, Jackson. Pollock skin fold method, and this is one of the most commonly used ones and one of the most commonly recommended ones.
And I agree with that because it’s easy, it’s quick, it’s reliable. But as I mentioned earlier, this one in particular does tend to under. Estimate the body fat percentage of people who are fairly lean. So if you’re a dude close to 10% body fat, or if you’re a gal close to say 20% body fat, chances are you are going to get an artificially low number from this method.
And that’s true of all methods. But I would say because this is a three site, you just take three measurements. That is a, a particular disadvantage to this method. But again, it, it is going to be. Consistently slightly inaccurate. So if you’re just using it to look at the trend of your body composition, this is a great choice because it only requires three measurements.
And those three measurements are in women. You take a triceps measurement, a thigh measurement, and a super iliac measurement, and you take those measurements in millimeters, by the way, I should have mentioned that earlier. And you’re noting down with each skin fold how many millimeters, uh, the of thick.
You are measuring there and then you use some math to calculate your body fat percentage, and the math is fairly complicated. So instead of doing it yourself, I would recommend just using a calculator. I actually have one. If you go to legion athletics.com, you’ll find it uh, in the tools section, which if.
If you look at the main menu, you see learn, and then you see tools, and if you click on that, you will find a tool called Body Fat Percentage Calculator, and then you can choose your formula, your protocol, you can input your measurements, and it will then give you your approximate body fat percentage. It will also give you your approximate amount of lean body mass and.
Fat mass and share some helpful tips if you want to improve your body composition based on where you’re at. So that’s how women should do the three site. Jackson Pollock. In men, it’s a little bit different. Men should take a pectoral, abdominal and thigh measurement and then use the calculator. To turn that into an estimation of body fatness.
And next up we have a Foresight, Jackson Pollock Skin Fold Method. This is also commonly used, commonly recommended. It is about as accurate as the three site formula. Some people. Say that they tend to get more accurate results with the addition of the fourth site, but in some people that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Probably depends how you hold your body fat. Many people hold body fat in different ways. There are norms, but then you have people that deviate from the norm. So in men, for example, men will preferentially gain and store body fat in their abdominal. Particularly the lower abdominal region. Most men, however, I personally know a couple of guys who don’t tend to gain body fat preferentially in their abdominal region, but instead they gain preferentially.
In one case, it’s his back, which is just strange, like from the front he looks. 10% body fat and then on from the back he’ll look 17% body fat for, you know, maybe what? What would come out as a total reading if you were to get a DEXA scan and it were an accurate DEXA scan. Maybe he’s like 13, 14%, which is great for him because he’ll have full abs and.
Kind of a fluffy looking back, but that also just makes it look bigger. And in another case, my brother-in-law, actually, he preferentially stores body fat in his upper chest, shoulders, and arms. Now, of course, both of these people can gain body fat in their abdominal region as they get fatter. They do tend to lose abdominal definition, but at say, 15% body fat.
Abs look like what you’d expect at 10 or 11% body fat. And then in the case of the first guy, his back looks like what you might expect at 16, 17%. And then with my brother-in-law, that’s his upper chest and his shoulders and arms. Will look disproportionately, quote unquote fat, but he gets to keep his abs.
So it’s, it’s a great trade off really because he just looks bigger, his upper body just looks bigger and he, and he has abs. So anyway, some people do find that the foresight works better for their body fat distribution patterns, and so it’s something you can try if you want to. And so the measurements are the same in men and women with the fore.
Both men and women need to take a triceps thigh, super iliac and abdominal measurement, plug them into a calculator, which again you can find [email protected] and get your approximate body fat percentage. Next we have the seven site Jackson Pollock Skin Fold Method, and this one is kind of a hassle.
You would think that seven sites makes. More accurate than three or fore sites, but research shows that that does not seem to be the case. It doesn’t seem to be any more accurate than the three sites. It just requires more work. Again, there are exceptions to that. There are bodybuilders, for example, who take this stuff very seriously and they are very scientific with trying.
Different methods and tracking their measurements and their estimated body fat percentages, and then comparing those two DEXA scans and other methods that can be very accurate. And so if you want to see, just for fun, how the seven site estimates your body composition versus the three or foresight, then you want to take the following measurements.
This is for men and women, so you want to take. Toral abdominal thigh, triceps, subscapular, super iliac, and mid aary measurement and plug ’em all into the calculator over Legion Athletics and get your score. Alright, next we have the nine site Perillo method, which isn’t very well studied, so it’s hard to say how accurate it is, but I’m sharing it because if you are still listening to this podcast, you probably like tinkering with things and you like data and quantified self, and you might just want to.
You might wanna try all of these at least a couple of times just to see how they register your body composition. And then you can settle on whichever one you prefer the most. Again, most people settle on three site, but it can be fun to use each of these methods at least for a little bit, just to see how they measure a little bit differently.
And so for this nine site test, both men and women are going to be taking the. Toral, abdominal, thigh, biceps, triceps, subscapular, super iliac, lower back, and calf measurements. So a lot of measurements and you are going to need some help, of course, particularly for that subscap. And also for the triceps, I should mention that one.
You can’t take by yourself well at least, and then you plug ’em all into the calculator. And get your result. Next on my list is the Foresight Dursley Skin Fold Method, and this one is preferred by some people. Again, some people who are really into this and they have used all these different methods and they’ve used them many times and track them very meticulously.
And so I am going to share it in case you want to give it a go. So with this one, you are measuring triceps, biceps, subscapular, and super iliac. Those are the skin folds that you need or the measurements you need. And women and, uh, just use the calculator that is Israeli and athletics. And there you go.
Now finally, we have the Navy Tape Measure Method, which actually doesn’t use cas, but I wanted to mention it because it’s usually part of any type of body fat measuring discussion. It’s simple and fast and fairly accurate. This method does. Overestimate body fat percentage of people who are fairly lean.
So with some of the caliper methods that I shared, it tends to underestimate body fat percentage. You can have somebody who’s lean or very lean and then they’ll register as absolutely shredded with several of the caliper methods. With the Navy tape measure method, they may register slightly fatter than they are, but again, if you are using it simply to.
Watch the trend of your body fatness and to approximately no. Are you as a guy, are you at 10%? Are you closer to 10% or are you closer to 15% or 20%? Or as a gal, if you just wanna know, are you closer to 20 or 25 or 30 than the Navy tape measure method can work well and to make it work. There are four possible.
That you can take there is your height, and ideally that would be measured using a stadiometer, which is a device for accurately measuring height. But if you don’t have a stadiometer or you don’t wanna get one, you can get ’em on Amazon if you want to get one. But if you don’t, then you just need to hold up a measuring tape against the wall, and then there is the circumference of your neck.
And for that one, you wrap the tape measure around your relaxed neck with the tape angled slightly downward in the front. On the front side of your body there is the waist measurement, which simply requires that you wrap a tape measure around your bare waist at about the height of your navel, and it’s important that you don’t suck in your stomach or expand it.
So your stomach should just be relaxed. And then last is a hips measurement. And for that one, you place your feet together and you gravitate measure around your bare hips at the widest point. So you want it to pass over the widest part of your butt. And so if you’re a woman, you need to take height, neck, waist, and hip measurements, and you take them in inches.
And then you use the calculator [email protected] to turn those measurements into. Estimate of your body fat percentage. And then if you are a man, you need to take height, neck and waist measurements. And again, use a calculator for approximating your body fatness. And one final question I want to answer is, which body fat CalPERS should I buy?
Because there are many options when you start poking around online. And first, let’s just talk about digital. Versus manual, or I guess you could say analog body fat cas both of these so long as their good products are equally accurate, so long as you use them correctly. The benefit of the digital body Fat cas is they tend to be easier to read and they can quickly convert imperial measurements to metric and vice versa.
They are more expensive than manual cas though. So if you don’t wanna spend the money, a good manual or a good analog caliper that I’ve used, I mean, I started using, I guess that was almost 10 years ago. Uh, I started using it and I’ve found it easy to use and reliable is from a company called ACU Measure, A C C U hyphen measure.
And I’m not endorsed by them. I’m not getting paid to, to tell you this. They make Cs that you can find on Amazon. They’re like 15 bucks and they have worked well, which is probably why they’re endorsed by the World Natural Body Building Federation as being a high quality product. One thing I will note though is the Accu Measure caliper’s, at least the last pair that I bought some time ago.
Method that they recommend for using the cas and calculating your body fat percentage is a single site method. If I remember correctly. It’s a super iliac measurement and they give you a little chart for estimating your body fat percentage based on that super iliac measurement, and that is fine for a rough.
Estimate, or again, if you just wanna track trends, if that skin fold is getting thicker over time, yes, you are getting fatter. If it is getting thinner over time, you are getting leaner. But that single site method is less accurate than all of the other methods that I shared with you in this podcast. So, If you want to be more accurate, even if you are just looking at trends, if you wanna be more accurate in your individual readings, I would not recommend the single site method.
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