Recommendations for Bodyfat Calipers?

Off Topic
1

I would like to buy a decent body fat caliper. Anyone have any experience with this one?

http://www.vitamaker.com/accumeasure-digital.html

Thanks in advance.

2

I wouldn’t use any of them.

3

I can’t view the link for some reason, but unless they’ve significantly improved those calipers, I wouldn’t recommend them. I’ve used both the Fat Track Gold and the Fat Track Pro, and they tend to both be pretty inconsistent as far as the measurements go.

4

So would you say that other calipers are better, or that no calipers are actually any good? Because I noticed there seem to be very few people on this forum who take %BF measurements. Is this because calipers are genereally considered too inaccurate?

And as far as I know, most other methods of fat measurement are either even less accurate (scales that measure bodyfat) or expensive (DEXA scan, ect…).

Anyways… anybody here who got something good/bad to say about the Accu-Measure caliper?

5

Yes, there are other calipers that are much better, but they are more expensive. I remember reading some threads a while back regarding better calipers that are available. You might want to search the forums for some of the other threads regarding them.

6

Those calipers are not the close to the best.

I have a those with a few other in my office but I have moved on to a more efficent tool. The link is below. You enter your age, height, wieght, and sex into the device and measures your bf with and electical bioimpedence or sending a current though your body.

http://bigfitness.com/bofatan.html

I prefer these calipers if I had a choice but it is vital that the person taking the measurements has been educated in taking skin folds. It takes some practice to get the techniques down and gets really hard if the testee is obese. Itmakes it very hard to distinguish between skin, fat and muscles, If a person has an acceptable amount of fat it is easier to separate the fat from the muscles. I have used these in college courses and labs and have had them used on my while playing CFB. They are ecxpensive but you should be able to find plastic versions that are cheaper

http://www.quickmedical.com/calipers/lange_skinfold.html

Also you may be able to get a underwater hyrdostatic reading (bod pods) at a local wellness center or hospital. I know of a local one that only charges 15 - 25$. That is going to be the cheapest gold standard. …Even better and more $ is a dexa scan.