New Competitor

[DHew]

You're also the first person I've ever heard of say nine point caliper tests aren't accurate.

[oldnsedentary]

You're also the first person I've ever heard of say nine point caliper tests aren't accurate.

Body Fat Percentage Guide: Clinically Verified Pictures of Men and Women at 10%, 20%, and Up - PainDatabase Take a look. These people had actual Dexascans, which actually measures how much of their body mass is fat.

As for the calipers, IF your assessor is specially trained, and IF he has at least 200 practice runs that are compared to Dexascans and hydrostatic weighing, and IF he is using top quality equipment, and IF he took every measurement at least twice, and IF he used a tape measure to locate the measuring sites accurately instead of just eyeballing it, and IF the assumptions in the calculator about subcutaneous fat distribution happen to be accurate for your particular body type (have we nailed everything so far???) then the best accuracy for which you can hope is plus or minus 3.5%.

11% plus or minus 3.5% is 7.5% to 14.5%.

And that accuracy assumes all of the above IFs were true, which I highly doubt.

That sort of accuracy range is basically useless for your purposes.

A coach and a mirror are much more useful for your prep, anyway, as nobody is going to be measuring your body fat on stage.