Accu-Measure Fitness 3000 Personal Body Fat Tester
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List Price: Our Price: $5.24 You Save: $14.75 (74%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Health Care See more product details |
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Customer Reviews of Accu-Measure Fitness 3000 Personal Body Fat Tester
Customer Review: These are not good calipers
Summary: 2 Stars
A fitness manual referred these calipers to me as the cheapest most accurate self-measurement body fat % device out there. The fitness manual has been correct about just about EVERYTHING else except these. I've lost around 6-10 lbs of fat (15 lbs total) and at least one pant size and yet my caliper reading has not changed at all. I do multiple readings just to make sure, with different amounts of skin pinched off, and still don't see any significant change in reading on the calipers. The advertisements for this that it is the ideal way to measure body fat is true for calipers in general, not this one specifically. In general, calipers are almost as accurate as submersion in water (which works because fat floats muscle sinks), but the drawback is that you need to go to a special facility to get the submersion test done. Unlike this calipers which measures only one skin fold on your stomach, other calipers measure skin folds on multiple parts of your body (you usually do 4 different places each time) for their accuracy. In short, I would recommend sucking up your anxiety over letting someone else measure you and get a real set of calipers or you won't be able to tell for sure if you're losing weight from fat or muscle.Customer Review: You get what you pay for.
Summary: 4 Stars
It's not the highest quality caliper on the market, but what do you want for less than ten bucks? The click part worked fine with mine. What I think a lot of people don't realize is that taking body fat measurements with a caliper isn't an exact science by any stretch of the imagination. The more experience a person has at taking them, the more accurate they tend to be, and I was shocked when the booklet that arrived with the caliper gave only one place to take the measurement. I'm a personal trainer and purchased this particular caliper because I had one client that was just adamant we measure her body fat percentage. I rarely do it and even when I do I measure it in four different places at least twice, sometimes three times.
In the end, I knew what I was getting myself into and got the quality of product I expected. I figure that if that caliper with its one recommended site measurement gets you a number within 5% of your actual body fat percentage, you're doing pretty well. If you really want to know what your percentage is, see a professional and do something like hydrostatic underwater weighing.
Customer Review: Didn't work for me.
Summary: 3 Stars
This body fat tester is designed to evaluate your body fat percentage by measuring just one spot (an inch above your Anterior Superior Iliac Spine, or hip "pointer"), with this thickness then being cross-referenced against the included table to arrive at a percentage reading. Actually, two tables are included: one for men and one for women. The tables seem to be created from a cross-section of average men and women. Most likely, if you gain fat like an average man or woman (stomach first for man, hips/butt first for women is my guess) then this would give you a roughly accurate reading. Unfortunately, neither me nor my wife get fat like normal people (nor do we do much else like normal people, for that matter.) Needless to say, I'm a little overweight, yet it told me I was "lean," and my wife is also a little overweight and it told her she was "borderline obese." I haven't had it checked yet, but my guess is that a professional using a more expensive device and several areas of body fat "pinching" would arrive at a much more accurate reading. Hope this helps.Customer Review: Awesome Cheap Tool
Summary: 5 Stars
For a while, I was considering buying one of those crazy, expensive $80+ scales, but in the end, decided that this caliper was a much more cost-effective approach that was just as accurate.
The tool works exactly as promised, with the clicker that indicates the proper amount of pressure to apply to get an accurate reading. It also comes with a little chart that indicates your approximate body fat percentage, based on the measurement and your age. However, if you take a quick look on Google, there are other methods that allow you to calculate your body fat percentage more accurately by measuring more points on your body. There's one method that takes 3 points, your chest, abdomen, and thigh, that you can measure yourself, as well as other methods involving up to as many as 10 points, which require a friend's help, as many of the spots are unreachable by yourself.
Anyways, this is a great product, it works perfectly, and allows you to track your body fat percentage easily, in a matter of seconds each day.
Customer Review: Inexpensive and effective
Summary: 5 Stars
I wanted a product that could give me reliable and consistent measurements of my body fat to keep track of my progress. After messing around with it a little while I was able to get good repeatability of my measurements.
I did a search and have been using the "Jackson/Pollock 4
Caliper Method" which takes folds near your belly button, above your hip, your triceps, and thigh. Obviously you cannot do this method yourself as taking your triceps measurement would be impossible. You can also do this same measurement without the triceps. Look online for a calculator and good pictures of exactly how to take the measurement.
I'd give this only 4 stars because of the lack of good information about different methods, but it's so easy to just search online. The hardware itself does its job well. Once you get used to the click mechanism it is very easy to get repeatable measurements.