In this instructional video, Mark Ottobre demonstrates how to locate and measure the mid‑axillary skinfold (site #6) as part of a 12‑site body‑fat assessment. He explains client positioning (hand on head, side view), how to find key anatomical landmarks such as the top of the iliac crest, the armpit/pec line, and how to determine the midpoint between the hip bone and armpit (approximately half the distance, ~7.5 inches for the demo). He addresses challenges like clothing interference and higher body‑fat clients, offering tips for manipulation (bending forward, adjusting the crop top). Common mistakes—measuring anterior or posterior instead of the true mid‑axillary line—are highlighted. Finally, he shows the proper caliper technique, using a 45° hand and caliper angle to take the skinfold measurement.
Chapters
Site number 6 is the mid-axillary. This one is fairly straightforward if someone is lean. Obviously, if they're not lean, it might take a little bit more manipulation and trying to get it. But again, this one is from the sagittal plane, so going side onto the client, uh, exactly where my position is. You're not in the front. So the first thing you're going to do is get the client to put their hand on their head. Now, what you'll see here, and this is a question I get from a lot of trainers, is let's say Jade's crop top was a little lower. What do you do? You need to get into the site. Well, the first thing is figure out where site is, and I'll show you the way you work around that. So first thing you want to do is find the top of the iliac crest, or otherwise top of the hip bone. Now again, Jade is very lean, find it straight away. I can get my thumb into the top of the iliac crest right there. I found it, no problems. If someone is carrying more body fat and their hips are, say, wider, it might take some manipulation getting your thumb in there. Get the client to ask, bend forward towards me. So bend this way, great. And you might not be able to find it, so you get them to bend that way, and then you just find that top. Again, right there for Jade, that's the easiest way to navigate that one. So now I'm gonna get my pinky finger on top of the hip bone, and I'm gonna measure up to— basically, there's a little triangle mark that her— your armpit makes, essentially. It's the top of the— what would you call— I don't know the exact name for that, but it's basically the top of the armpit. So that's where we want to measure Jade there. Now again, if we want to be super analytical about this, we can use a measuring device, obviously, and I'm going to show you that right now. So if we're measuring this, we measure from the top of the hip bone. So we find that— that's the top of Jade's hip bone— and we measure there. So from her armpit to her hip bone, and what are we, 15 inches? So 7.5 is where we want, which is exactly where my fingers were here. Now, common mistakes with this one is that people measure to anterior or they measure to posterior. And again, it is straight, and the best way to find it as a straight marker is to use the— well, not the armpit, because the armpit can move essentially initially, but the pec line is another good way to do it. So that pec line there, you run the pec, the fold, see from that pec line there, if you run that straight down, that is approximately half of her sagittal plane. So again, I'm gonna find this side. Now this is, her crop top is in the way. So instead of me moving it, what I usually say to my clients is, you know, Jade, I just need you to pull that up a little bit. So just go ahead and cup yourself as well. Perfect. That's where it is. Now, for someone who's lean, you can see the ribs. Uh, that's exactly what you'd normally see, and it usually is this site, the mid-axillary, for 9 times out of 10. It's just directly opposite where the 3 ribs are. Uh, so there I'm going to take this site. Again, this one is taken at an angle, so you can see my hands are off at an angle, and the calipers are also on a 45-degree angle here. So I'm not measuring it straight, it is 45 degrees. My hand is also at 45 degrees. I take the measurement And there we are.
