|
Home / Exercising / Fitness tests / Body & exercise tests / Muscle / Bioelectrical Impedance
Bioelectrical impedance
Introduction
More accurate than callipers, Bioelectrical Impedance is an effective way to measure bodyfat.
|
What is the point?
Knowing an athlete's body fat percentage is important - in most sports, a higher level of body fat will reduce performance. The most commonly used methods to measure bodyfat are callipers, Bioelectrical Impedance, and water tanks.
With water tanks prohibitively expensive to use, and callipers notoriously inaccurate, the best compromise is Bioelectrical Impedance.
They works by measuring the resistance of body tissues to the flow of a small electrical signal - as the current flows more easily through the parts of the body that are composed mostly of water (such as blood, urine & muscle), it is possible to predict how much body fat a person has by combining the bioelectric impendence measure with other factors such as height, weight, gender, fitness level and age.
What do you need?
- A Bioelectric Impedance Analyzer
How do you do the test?
Depending on the device, you will either need to have a pair of electrodes placed on one hand and wrist, and another pair placed on the ankle and foot (usually opposite sides of the body), or simply stand on two foot plates. |
 |
What results you'll get :
Regularly measuring body fat is a good way to ensure that an athlete's diet and training programs are working together effectively.
What is being measured again?
This is an accurate and easy way to measure an individual's total body fat.
|
|
