In this instructional segment, Mark Ottobre demonstrates how to accurately measure the umbilical skinfold using calipers. He explains that the measurement site is directly in line with the subject’s belly button, shows how to locate the exact spot using the edge of the caliper, and emphasizes proper body positioning—crouching low enough to see the caliper readout while keeping one leg behind the subject. He walks through the full process: locating the site, removing the finger, placing the calipers, gripping them, and reading the measurement, while repeatedly stressing the importance of being able to see the caliper scale to ensure a reliable reading.
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The 8th measurement in taking skinfolds is the umbilical. Now, this is probably one of the most easiest to take, but all you need to do is put your calipers on the person's belly button and the calipers use as a good reference tool that obviously the calipers don't change in how big they are. But see the edge of the caliper? That's exactly where the site is. So now I can point, remove my finger or point exactly. Actually, that should be a little higher. It should be directly in line with her belly button. So let me do that again. Perfect. So that's directly in line with her belly button now. So that's where I want to be. Again, I'm going to move my body into position. I always have one leg usually behind the person. You can see now I'm almost crouching down because I don't want to be too high because now I can't really see the caliper. So I want to get myself in a position before I take the measurement that I can see the calipers. So in this position is good. Hand is open wide. I pull all together. Pulling it directly to the front of Jade's body. And now I can look over, I can see the caliper clearly, and there's the measurement. So I'll just demonstrate that one more time. Again, in the belly button, I point, find the site, move my finger away, put the calipers there, grabbing it, put the calipers in, and I can see. Again, just quickly on that, always make sure your body is in a position where you can read the calipers. It's no point me taking the measurement from here because I can't read the calipers. So I've got to be nice and close. I've got to be able to see when I take that grab what the calipers actually say.
