Lower Fat » Upper Vs Lower Body Fat Measurement
The Truth About 4 Popular Body Progress Measurements
Body Fat Percentage
Calculating your body fat percentage is one of my personal favorite progress markers. In the beginning it is a little scary because this is truly the amount of fat that you have in your body.
You don't want it to be zero and of course you don't want it to be really high. Body fat is vital to your body's health and protection. Body fat actually covers your vital organs providing protection, it helps to regulate your body temperature, and it helps your joints stay mobile and soft.
There is a direct correlation with too much body fat and increased risks to many different diseases. One of those is Type 2 Diabetes... it is sad when even little children are so obese that they are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Too little body fat is also bad because it puts your joints and injury to your organs at risk.
Circumference Measurements
These are pretty obvious but it is surprising how many people, including myself, who do not use these enough. Measuring your chest, waist, hips, thighs, and arms can be of great help to your overall progress.
Let's say you are trying to gain more muscle. Well it is very important to know that you are moving in the right direction, so in addition to taking before pictures, you should also measure your body circumferences.
Same goes if you are trying to loose weight. After measuring your circumferences, you can make a more accurate journal of what is really happening to your body.
Key points though, you need to make sure you measure your circumferences at either the maximal circumference or the minimal. That means if you are measuring your biceps you need to measure where they are at their maximum circumference. If you are measuring your waist, you need to measure at the smallest part of the waist.
Waist to Hip Ratio
This is one of the most used clinical measurements and shows some very important indicators. You can easily do this measurement right after you do your circumference measurements because you already have what you need.
Just take your waist measurement, which you measured at the smallest circumference of your waist. Then take your hip measurements, which you measured at the widest part of your hips. Divide the waist measurement by the hip measurement and you are done.
A ratio above .80 for women and .95 for men indicates an increased probability for a number of different diseases. This relates back to your body fat because the higher the ratio the higher you body fat.
Body Mass Index
I am including this measurement because it is probably the most popular and you will see it all over the Internet, but it is also the most inaccurate and worthless measurement.
Body Mass Index, or BMI, is calculated by taking your weight in kilograms and dividing that by your height in meters squared. Don't even let those units scare you because again this is a worthless measurement.
It is designed to show you whether you weight is appropriate for you height. And in that lies the fact that it is very misleading. Muscle weighs more than fat so if you weight and strength train... like you should be, it will tell you are overweight.
For example, my body fat percentage is 10% and my BMI classifies me overweight. This is a worthless calculation so don't fall for anything anybody tells you based on it.
Dan Boyle has used many of these calculations to help clients and him reach their goals faster. If you know where you are and where you are going, you tend to build more confidence and motivation and that lets you achieve you fitness goals faster. To learn more about these and other body progress measurements, visit his blog at... http://www.liftingrevolution.com/blog
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