Speaking for myself here, but it was a massive step for me. I still don’t like it, I only do it because its required for some of the challenges on here.
What is it you don’t like about posting them exactly? Genuinely curious, not trying to be a dick lol
Couldn’t really answer that, to be honest.
It would be easy to say it’s because I’m in awful condition, but i still didn’t like it when I was in great shape so I don’t know.
G code! No phones, no photographs!
To Petterson. I own a bioimpedance device that I paid about 5k for. Just to differentiate from scales widely available. I use it daily. This has allowed me to learn some of intricacies and potential shortcomings including how to fool it short term. Taking a reading weeks or more apart can be misleading as some readings are anomalous. I will elaborate more when I have a bit more time. Just know that bodybuilders try to control water content to peak for a contest in an effort to find a balance between looking big but smooth and being cut but looking small. Depending on sodium, water , carbs and other factors , muscles which are 70% water can fluctuate by several lbs in a very short time. But not necessarily indicative of true muscle hypertrophic. Ever look in the mirror some days and think “I’m looking good” and on others thinking “do you even lift, bro? ”. Lol. May I suggest that’s not just your imagination.
==Scott==
These are some of the reasons I find it difficult to see by looking or even measuring if you’ve actually grown or if you appear larger due to a number of unseen reasons. There’s so many variables from day to day or week to week that can fool you into thinking you’ve actually increased muscle size when in fact you haven’t gained any actual size.
Hi again Ricky,
Good question! I had a similar discussion with our health educator, who examined me.
We tried to standardize the testing by doing it at the same time in the morning. I haven’t changed anything in my daily routines, activities, diet or fluid intake over the past months. Same stressors, same lack of sleep. I had a feeling I might had gained a little more muscle. Primarily because of strength increases in terms of load. Not that I had changed sizes in clothes or anything. The growth is expectedly slow as a natural bodybuilder.
The only thing I did was altering the HIT routine from 30-10-30 to a mixed alternating protocol with 30-10-30, 30-30-30 and “normal” (meaning 4 sec pos / 4 sec neg). The new protocol have been running for about 2 months now.
I plan to keep doing bioimpedance testing every 12th week in a similar fashion.
The shortcomings of doing daily, or even weekly, testing is obvious, as you have stated. Similar to following your bodyweight (or blood pressure for that matter) on a daily basis. You just have to resist that temptation. It’s always more accurate to follow measurements over a longer period of time. That being said, I am fully aware of the shortcomings of bioimpedance.
It will be interesting to see my next measurements in two months. I expect my progress will somehow plane out, in other words, less gains than previous testing.
I’ve done it before, and I’m in a little better shape now, but I don’t want to anymore. I even take my face out of it. I think as my kids grow, I just feel more ridiculous about putting “strangers judge my body!” pics on the Internet and I’m just not into it.
I tried to take videos from behind of a couple lifts here and there, just for the value of the critique on here, but I wasn’t going to create a YouTube channel to post them.
I certainly understand the “prove it” ask, especially when folks say they can do some amazing things, but that doesn’t really apply to me for a couple reasons:
- I don’t claim I can do anything impressive, so nobody cares
- I don’t care if everyone thinks I suck!
Anyway, just saying I get both sides and I understand why you don’t want to post pics. I get why people want them, but I get not wanting to do it.
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==Scott==
That is quite amazing! I can’t even go a week or at best two days without one or more of those factors changing quite a bit.
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I actually wasn’t referring to shortcoming of daily… but rather of intermittent, i.e. I could use a certain date to a certain date, and it would look like good progress whereas I use two different dates with a similar time frame and it can look like stagnation or even regression… also, the report that you used that refers to “muscle” is actual measuring “lean tissue” which is everything but fat… and that is measured separately on my device… if you do daily readings, then what you want to do is compare days where water is close if not identical, thus making it more of an apples to apples comparison… (at least that is the conclusion that seems to make the most sense to make with about 180 days of data for me, and for about 20 clients.)
By the way, it is my understanding that water is the confounding factor even for more expensive bodpod and dexa technology. It’s kind of like me trying to measure your height when you refuse to stand still or straight… but if you have multiple readings, you can subdivide by different water contents and make comparisons between those…
I see your point here, Ricky.
But we need to ask ourselves if it’s worth the time and energy, to keep such a frequent record? I for one, would be stressed up by that, which would lead my thoughts in curcuits i don’t really need in order to feel well.
I did the measurement just for fun, to be honest. More interesting is keeping a proper record of your routines, to measure strength increases - if you ask me. I am a believer in the school of “strength precedes hypertrophy”. The bioimpedance thus confirmed my progress in strength. If Dr Darden hadn’t restarted his forum on T-nation, I would have gladly kept the bioimpedance readings for myself.
agree completely… I just happen to have the machine easily accessible… and I am an analytical geek… lol… just wanted to provide food for thought as to how devices work and things to consider in terms of how many grains of salt with which to take the reading…
my apologes if I came across as confrontational in any way… not my intent at all
No, you didn’t Ricky! You are a gentleman. I am glad you asked, and also motivated your thoughts/opinions for a fine discussion! The world of HIT do need more analysts. If we don’t question what we’re actually doing, we won’t be making any progress.
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I would argue that it a measurement is noisy (subject to swings due to variables that you can’t control) then you are better off making lots of measurements (daily) and then looking at a moving average.
I see this when I track my own weight: I can get day to day changes of up to 3 pounds, depending on how I exercise, how many carbohydrates I eat, hydration level, etc. So I take my weight every morning under similar circumstances. I’ve learned to ignore daily fluctuations, and look at the trend line in my calorie tracker. It is pretty obvious when the trends are looking good, or not, as long at you have at least a couple weeks of data. Just having two weight measurements a couple of weeks apart can be highly misleading, because it is hard to separate normal fluctuation from a trend.
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Hi Al,
True! The best trends are always based on many close measurements. My only argument against is the risk of falling into obsession over something that is secondary to the actual training. Simply a priority issue. I’d rather spend that time planning my next workout - but that’s me (though I highly respect them analysts).
Considering bioimpedance, I think that a longer time span between readings give a more accurate estimate, since it’s taking forever to build muscle, provided a standardized life in many aspects (routines and planning is the answer).
Ok, so here’s an update. A new measurement of bioimpedance under similar circustances as before. Continued progress as it seems. The current measurement is after 3 months of my combined cycle of normal, 30-30-30 and 30-10-30 to failure, twice a week. Bear in mind the current figures was under a period of sleep depravation, stress at work and life with small kids…
I now head into a heavily personalized version of extreme HIT 30-10-30, discussed in another thread. Plan to do monthly bioimpedance readings.
Dr Darden: It works! Any suggestions? What to expect? What is possible?
I was thinking about losing some fat this time, but it will probably come naturally with the new routine - or at worst - a continued growth (hopefully) with some more fat as part of the package? Don’t fix what isn’t broken?
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Thanks for posting it. What is your age and height?
Have you done multiple readings over a few days in a row or this is just the only result “on spot” on a certain day?
Ok, now I read again this thread so I suppose you haven’t 
But I wondered do you see changes in mirror/clothes?
Thanks again.
And let me say that I really appreciate all your inputs in this forum.
S.
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