Body Fat Scales: Athlete vs Normal?

missdoomcookie
missdoomcookie Posts: 21
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi folks!

We're having a Biggest Loser challenge at work, and one of our measures is body fat % (yay, so much better than scale!). A guy brought in a handheld body fat % calculator, and it had two modes, one normal and one athlete. He no longer has the instructions. Does anyone have a good idea of who should use athlete, and who normal?

I might be the sort of person who falls unfortunately between the two. I train about 10 hours a week for competitive pole (pole dancing) sports, but I'm certainly not a pro athlete. However, I do have a substantial muscle mass. I did both for comparison, and I'd certainly like to be able to believe in the athlete setting because it was definitely kinder. Both numbers were higher than the hydrostatic body fat test I did recently, but the athlete was a lot closer.

Replies

  • jwdieter
    jwdieter Posts: 2,582 Member
    This is a somewhat interesting read on bioimpedence fat measuring:

    http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=218
  • FredDoyle
    FredDoyle Posts: 2,272 Member
    Can you google the make and model?
    It's a rare day I can't find a manual on the net.
    Oh, and thanks for the link jwdieter.
    I've always treated the fat% on my scale as simply a trending device. It's not accuarate.
    It may as well change from red to orange to yellow.

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