You have the Fat Track II, I just got mine. I was wondering about some stuff, mostly related to how hard to pinch. I follow the instructions and there seems to be a slight amount of pain involved when doing the pinch. I essentially pinch and then clamp the calipers down until I feel like they are “tight” this sometimes hurts sometimes not, then I press the button… is this the proper way? The pain I experience isn’t excruciating and when I had my BF measured years ago, the people taking the pinches would pinch about as hard as I am…
Do a search for the two-part body comp article by Jason Norcross. All of your questions and more will be answered.
Yes, that is fine. Just make sure you do it the same way everytime.
Joel
unless you have some specific reason you need overall absolute accuracy, how hard you pinch is much less important than pinching consistenly with the same pressure every time you measure.
Presumably, absolute accuracy is not what you really care about, you just want to know if the fold is getting bigger or smaller, hence consistency in how you measure every single time is critically important(same spot measured with a ruler every time, same time of day/week, upon wakening, average of three measurements in etc…)
Is the fat trak 2 not spring loaded?
I’d be pretty suprised if any calipers intended for use by consumers were not spring loaded or had some sort of locking mechaism to take the guesswork out of pinching.
They are “spring loaded” however, its really based on your pinch strength for these things. They are as accurate as Lange calipers (1mm) if used properly… I’ll just make sure I do it the same way. Its like my Tanita scale; it sucks for accuracy but its alright from a relative standpoint. The Tanita says 29%, the calipers say about 15%. The mirror says about 15ish %.
Thanks for the info…
Isn’t the fattrack II both spring loaded and digital?
I just got mine in mail today and it’s fairly easy. You just close the caliper with your thumb on the button and it beeps when you are pressing hard enough. Key for repeatability seems to be doing it slowly so you can stop pressing right when it beeps.
I think you press the button when you’ve got a good skinfold. The pressure you use to press the button doesn’t seem to be adequate if you don’t have a really good skinfold already pressed down with your fingers. For instance, if I didn’t have a good skinfold and just relied on that, my measurement would be 2x of what it is when I’ve got some skin clamped down with my fingers.
ahh, I see. You are talking about how hard to pinch the skinfold then.
I guess I never considered squeezing it till it hurts, I just grab some and hold it there.