Mark Ottobre from Enterprise Fitness explains how to measure body fat using 12-site skinfold calipers. You need Harpenden calipers, not plastic ones, and must zero the dial and calibrate on a solid surface before each measurement.
Welcome to the skinfold series. My name is Mark Ottobre, owner and director of Enterprise Fitness, and in these video series I'm going to be teaching you how to do skinfolds correctly using a 12-site measurement with your clients and giving you tutorials. So the first thing you're going to need is the Harlepin calipers. So a question that sometimes comes across is, can you use plastic calipers? The answer is most certainly not. You cannot use plastic calipers. You do need to spend some money and use proper calipers. These are the Harlepin calipers. Just little things like even the quality of the springs and how they spring back. So before we get into actually how to measure, some simple things that you want to know is when you do go to measure, you always want to make sure the dial is on zero. So let's just pretend right now the dial is off zero, just off to the side. So I'm gonna put that on zero, I'm gonna look above, make sure that's on zero now. And then to calibrate my calipers, I'm gonna grab something that is solid. So So like this table, I'm going to let go for 2 seconds, 1, 2, and then I'm going to grab. And you'll notice I don't just let the calipers go, I gently bring the calipers together, and now it's exactly on zero. When handling the calipers, you'll notice when I do this, I don't ever let the calipers go. You don't want to hear a spring noise. It always needs to be you grab and you keep a little bit of resistance, maybe 1 to 2%, your hand on the calipers. So now let's get into the actual sights, starting with the first one.
