[Music]
hey how's it going it's your muscle
building Coach Lee Hayward here and in
this video clip I'm going to show you
how to accurately track your body fat
percentage and this is a critical
element when it comes to monitoring your
overall Fitness results I mean if you're
not tracking your body fat percentage
then you really don't know if your
program is working or not I mean for
example if you're in a muscle building
phase and your goal is to gain muscular
body weight but you're not tracking your
body fat percentage then you may be
actually just gaining excess body fat
and yes the weight on the scale is going
to go up but that's not good weight
that's not what you want you want to
gain lean muscular weight so you need to
be able to track your body fat
percentage to know if you're gaining
muscle or gaining fat and vice versa if
you're on a fat loss program I mean I
mean if you're just losing weight on the
scale I mean yeah that's great but if
you're not tracking your body fat
percentage you don't know if that weight
loss is coming from lean muscle or if
it's actually coming from body fat so
again this is a critical element and
it's an important thing that you need to
do as a regular part of your Total
Fitness bodybuilding
routine now there are several different
methods you can use for calculating your
body fat percentage some of the most
advanced methods include hydrostatic
weighing which is basically underwater
weighing and how this works is you are
submerged underwater and then weighed
using a special apparatus and the idea
is that your fat mass is going to float
and your lean mass is going to sink thus
you'll be able to accurately calculate
your body fat percentage another very
Advanced method is using the bod pod and
this is considered the gold standard of
body composition testing right now and
this uses air pressure to actually
calculate your body composition position
and it calculates your V2 Max as well
and this is very advanced stuff I mean
obviously these body fat testing methods
are not practical for most
people but thankfully there are some
easy to use body fat tests that you can
perform yourself at home and one popular
body fat test is using an electronic
body fat analyzer and basically how this
works is it's either a handheld device
or sometimes it's like a bathroom scale
that you stand on
and this machine is going to send an
electric current through your body and
the electric current is going to travel
differently through your fat Mass versus
your lean mass and thus help calculate
your body fat percentage but personally
I'm not a huge fan of electronic body
fat testers I've just seen the results
are too hit and miss I mean your levels
of hydration can greatly affect how
electricity flows through the body so I
I personally don't recommend this as a
method of testing your body fat my
all-time favorite method of body fat
testing is the simple skin fold caliper
I mean these are cheap easily available
and anybody can use them with a little
bit of practice all right so I'm going
to show you now how to measure your body
fat using the skin fold caler and this
is like I mentioned for the cheapest
easiest and most practical way to
measure your body fat yourself at home
now the one that I have here is the
active fitness body fat caliper and when
you buy this program or this this kit it
comes with a little manual
that shows you the basics of how to
measure your body fat and there's a CH
in here as well that that you use
basically you take a skinfold
measurement and plug it into their chart
now I'm not a huge fan of the acum
measure charge because it only relies on
one skin fold measurement and that's at
your hip it's 1 in above your hip bone
and the reason is is because different
people store body fat in different
places I mean if you store body fat
primarily around the middle well then
maybe that one skin fold measurement at
the hip is accurate enough to give you
you know a ballar reading of your body
fat percentage but if you don't store
your body fat in the midsection like for
example a lot of women tend to store
body fat in the lower body then just
measuring your hip may not give you an
accurate reading so the formula that I
like to use uses different SES there
actually three sites throughout the body
uh for men it's the side of the chest
the side of the belly bun and the front
of the thigh and for this we're going to
use um keep all the measurements on the
right hand side and we're going to take
several measurements on each point and
then take the average of them so for
this I'm going to get my girlfriend
Patricia to help me out here all right
if you have somebody who can help you
out with this is great so for the first
measurement we're going to go to the
side of the
chest so take a good pinch the skin at
about a
centimeter from the the the skin fold so
mean I can even help there's the
pinch what we getting here we're going
to take several
measurements there you
go let's just
say yeah all right we're on pretty lean
right now like I'm ding for a
bodybuilding show my body fat is going
to show up on the low reading actually
we're getting a 1 mm thickness there on
the chest all right side of the belly
button so a vertical
pinch do just we'll take three or four
of these measurements just keep going
until you get an average do a little
slower pinch a little
[Applause]
slower
one right just me all right and um okay
last one is uh front of the thigh
so right here take a vertical pinch of
skin on the
[Applause]
thigh take one more just to average it
over take at least three measurements
for each of
these all
right the skinfold measurement sites for
women are a little different than men uh
for the women's formula we're going to
measure just side we're going to measure
the triceps we're going to measure above
the hip 1 in above the hip and we're
going to measure the thigh the same as
with the men and this is just different
areas that you know obviously women tend
to store body fat more than men and it's
just the way that the formulas work out
so I'm going to measure Patricia's
tricep so again take a vertical pinch on
the
tricep and with the active measure you
just pinch till it clicks uh the way you
do the skin fold I just kind of give you
a bit more detail here take a good firm
pinch of the skin and then about a CM
below the
pinch that's where we want to
measure and for you people standard
about4 of an inch below so centimeter qu
of an inch depending on what
measurements you use so right
there okay and we're going to take
multiple measurements to make sure that
we get an average because sometimes you
might pinch a little bit more skin other
times you might not pinch enough so you
take three or four measurements just
average them out to get the approximate
number for each skin fold now we're
going to do the uh hip so 1 in above the
hipbone so where Trish is really lean
you see that's her hipbone 1 in above
that's where I'm going to take the
measurement all right and I'm going to
take a few averages
[Music]
here
okay there we go and again the front of
the thigh is the same with the men's
measurements so we do the we're all do
all the measurements on the right hand
side
and one
more all right so once you have your
skinfold measurements you can now
calculate out your body fat percentage
and I have a free body fat calculator
right on my website that you can use all
you have to do is just click on the link
that's right below this video clip in
the description and you can get access
to that free body fat
calculator so once you click on the link
that's in the description of this video
you'll be brought to my my website where
you can access the online body fat
calculator and all you have to do is
just scroll down the page and you'll see
it there it is the body fat percentage
calculator and this is really easy to
use all you have to do is enter in your
stats whether your mail or female
entering your age your body weight and
then your skinfold measurements as I
just shown you how to take here in this
video and click the calculate button and
you'll get an instant readout of your
body fat percentage as well as your lean
muscle mass so so it's a really great
tool to use on an ongoing basis as
you're tracking your body fat and as
you're following a fitness program to
ensure that you're on the right track
and that you're moving in the right
direction and if you'd like to get some
uh Advanced tips and tricks on how to
lose body fat I actually cover uh some
of these in my extreme fat loss program
uh this DVD package includes the exact
diet and fat loss program that I use to
get ripped for bodybuilding competitions
so if you are looking to lose some body
fat this is a program that I highly
recommend you check out and again I have
the link to it right below the body fat
calculator so again I hope this video
clip was helpful and leave me a comment
below and let me know how it works out
for you take
care