Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How to Use Calipers to Measure Body Fatness

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

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 ae 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: Try Pulse today! Go to https://buylegion.com/pulse and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points!

Hello, I am Mike Matthews and this is Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today to learn about skin fold calipers, how to use calipers to measure your body fat percentage, which is not necessary. You can just take progress pictures, maybe measure your waist at your navel, 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 your 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 skinfold calipers

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 DEXA 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 calipers, 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 an absolute sense. So if you are actually 10% body fat and you know what you are doing with calipers, it'll probably come in somewhere between 9 and 11% on average, maybe 8 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 calipers if you follow my advice that I'm going to give you in this podcast. But first, do you sometimes lack the energy and the motivation to get into the gym? Do you sometimes want to hit the snooze button instead of the squat rack? And are you sometimes just not able to give 100% in your workouts? If so, my pre-workout pulse is for you. It is a 100% natural supplement that increases energy,

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Okay, so let's start this discussion with a quick description of what skin fold calipers 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 and 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 fat. Now, what about accuracy? That's what most people ask me.

Are skin fold calipers accurate? people ask me, are skin fold calipers 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 than 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% body fat is probably where they start to look a little bit fluffy, I guess you could say, or 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 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 going to have a little bit of abdominal definition. She's going to look like an athlete. She's probably going to have a little bit of abdominal definition. She's going to have clear muscle definition, again, 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, skinfold calipers 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 going to be accurate probably to within 1 or 2% in an absolute sense. So if a guy is 15% body fat and he knows what he's doing with calipers, he is probably going to 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 is 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 one 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, 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 are

fitness gurus 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 lean athlete. And in women, when you get down to about 20% body fat, there's going to be less abdominal definition, but there's going to be at least a line down the middle. Probably you'll be able to see some outlines of your other abdominal muscles as well. You're not going to look as quote unquote shredded as the guy, 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, in 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 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 calipers 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 nine percent 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 might take a caliper reading and register at 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 know. I'm not saying that body fat calipers 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 calipers 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 calipers 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, if you want to see it in real numbers, as opposed to just looking at pictures, then calipers can be very useful for that. Now, some people say that calipers are a waste of time because you can just take pictures and you can just take a waist measurement at your navel 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 calipers, just take pictures and measure your waist at your navel 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 totally 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 into the gym, doing their workouts, gaining muscle and strength,

to keep following their meal plan or following their calories, following their 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 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 can make 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. Now I'm at 17% body fat and I'm down X number of pounds. body fat. 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 you 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 calipers to estimate your body fat

percentage. I'm going to be sharing several methods with you. And I'm going to 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 your 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 fair amount of body fat and 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 calipers 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 calipers 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 calipers just as you are pinching it with your fingers. And then you need to be placing those calipers a little bit away from your fingers, a half inch to an inch or so. It could be to one side or the other. It depends. Like, let's say you're using your left hand and you have the calipers 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

site, like if you are taking a skinfold measurement of your abdominal region, then you're going to go to the right or the left of your fingers, depending on 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 measurement. 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 side

of your body. Another tip is to make sure that your skin is dry and free of any lotion. So towel off if you are going to 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 the other time with lotioned skin, chances are those measurements are going to be different. those measurements are going to be 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 a workout, for example. Also don't do it when you are particularly hot. And the reason for

that is when your body is physically stressed and hot, it can temporarily boost the thickness of your skin by increasing the amount of fluid beneath your skin. So you want to take measurements when you are relaxed and when you are at a normal body temperature. Tip number four is every time you take body fat caliper measurements, take them at the same time of the day. 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 that your caliper measurements balloon when your weight balloons because your water retention balloons. 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 going to 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 dexterous 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-axillary measurement where you pinch the skin vertically directly below your armpit at the same height as the base of your breastbone. 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 that 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 your left nipple. So your nipple. And in women, you want to pinch a diagonal skin fold about 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'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 your 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 vertically

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 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 you. 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 want to talk about is the three site Jackson Pollock skinfold method. And this is one of the most

commonly used ones and 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 underestimate 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 particular disadvantage to this method.

But again, 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 suprailiac 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 of thickness 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 legionathletics.com, you'll find it in the tools section, which 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, 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 four-site 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 region, 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 from the back, he'll look 17% body fat for, you know, maybe 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, their 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 a great trade-off really, because he just looks bigger. His upper body just looks bigger 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 foresight, if you want to. And so the measurements are the same in men and women with the foresight. Both men and women need to take a triceps, thigh, suprailiac, and abdominal measurement,

plug them into a calculator, which again, you can find over at legionathletics.com and get your approximate body fat percentage. Next, we have the seven site Jackson Pollock skinfold method. And this one is kind of a hassle. You would think that seven sites makes it more accurate than three or four sites. But research shows that that does not seem to be the case. It doesn't seem to be any more accurate than three sites and 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 the different methods and tracking their measurements and their estimated body fat percentages and then comparing those to 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 four sites, then you want to take the following measurements. This is for men and women. So you want to take a pectoral, abdominal, thigh, triceps, subscapular, suprailiac, and mid-axillary measurement. And plug them all into the calculator over at Legion Athletics and get your score. All right, 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 try it. You might want to 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 pectoral, abdominal, thigh, biceps, triceps, subscapular, suprailiac, 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

them all into the calculator and get your result. Next on my list is the Foresight Dernan Womersley skinfold 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 tracked 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 suprailiac. Those are the skin folds that you need or the measurements you need, both men and women. And just use the calculator that is a religion athletics. And there you go. Now, finally, we have the Navy tape measure method, which actually doesn't use calipers, 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 tend to 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 will 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 know, 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 want to know, are you closer to 20 or 25 or 30, then the Navy tape measure method can work well. And to make

it work, there are four possible measurements 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 want to get one, you can get them 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. Your stomach should just be relaxed. And then last is a hips

measurement. And for that one, you place your feet together and you wrap a tape measure around your bare hips at their 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 over at legionathletics.com to turn those measurements into an 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 calipers 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 calipers. Both of these, so long as they're good products are equally accurate, so long as you use them correctly. The benefit of the digital body fat calipers 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 calipers 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. I started using it and I found it easy to use and reliable is from a company called AccuMeasure, A-C-C-U hyphen measure. And I'm not endorsed by them. I'm not getting paid to tell you this, but they make calipers that you can find on Amazon. They're 15 bucks. And they have worked well, which is probably why they're endorsed by the World Natural Bodybuilding Federation as being a high quality product. One thing I will note, though, is the AccuMeasure calipers, at least the last pair that

I bought some time ago, the method that they recommend for using the calipers 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 want to 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 want to be more accurate in your individual

readings, I would not recommend the single site method. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did subscribe to the show, because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for

new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.