When it comes to achieving your fitness goals, tracking body composition is key. Just stepping on a scale only reveals your total weight, not the all-important breakdown of how much comes from muscle versus fat.
A favorable body composition with a higher percentage of lean muscle looks toned and boosts metabolism, endurance, and overall health. Excess body fat, especially around the abdomen, is linked to increased risks of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease.
By measuring body composition — the proportion of fat mass to lean mass, such as muscle, bones, connective tissue, and water — you gain insight into the true changes beneath the surface as you dial in your diet and training regimen.
In this guide, we explain why measuring body composition should be your new fitness obsession, the most accurate ways to measure body composition, and tips for achieving that coveted lean, strong physique.
Understanding Body Composition
Put simply, your body composition consists of everything that makes up your total weight and takes up space in your body. This breaks down into:
- Fat mass: Essential fat that protects organs and non-essential fat stored in areas like the abdomen, thighs and arms. High amounts of non-essential body fat are closely tied to obesity and health issues.
- Lean body mass: Includes muscle, bones, connective tissue and water. Muscle mass plays key roles in metabolism, strength and physical performance.
- Other components: Things like organs, blood, and nutrients make up a very small percentage.
Your goal body composition depends on factors like age, gender, and activity level. In general, you want to achieve a balance with:
- Males having 10-25% body fat and 35-45% skeletal muscle mass
- Females having 18-30% body fat and 25-35% muscle mass
Of course, bodybuilders and fitness competitors aim for a more extreme ratio, optimizing muscularity with lower body fat levels during their competitive phases.
Why Tracking Body Composition Matters
Simply weighing yourself on a scale doesn’t tell the full story of your fitness progress. You need to measure changes in your body’s makeup to:
Assess Actual Progress and Make Adjustments
Has that healthy diet and grueling gym routine truly increased your metabolism-boosting lean mass? Or have you just lost some weight in water and fat? Measuring lean versus fat gives you an accurate pulse on your regimen’s effectiveness.
Ensure You’re Losing Fat, Not Muscle
When losing weight, you want to preserve as much lean muscle tissue as possible. Losing too much muscle slows your metabolism and causes that “skinny fat” look. Tracking body composition ensures you’re losing body fat instead.
Optimize Your Body for Your Goals
Training for muscle growth requires a very different approach than prepping for a physique show. By monitoring your composition, you can tailor the right mix of calorie intake and macro ratios to reach your specific goals.
Identify and Correct Potential Health Issues
Carrying too much body fat, especially around the abdomen, elevates disease risk factors like high cholesterol and blood pressure. By tracking fat percentage changes over time, you can adjust habits before serious issues set in.
Gauge Importance of Lifestyle Factors
Body measurements over time reveal the impacts of factors like sleep, stress, hormones, and muscle recovery on body composition. This allows one to address areas needing improvement.
While providing insight for the general population trying to get fit, athletes and physique competitors rely heavily on precise body composition measurements to make adjustments and prepare properly.
Top Ways to Measure Body Composition
If you’re serious about body recomposition, ditch the scale and explore one of these more accurate ways to measure body composition:
Skinfold Calipers
Using precise calipers to pinch and measure skinfold thickness in multiple areas, a skilled practitioner can estimate your approximate body fat percentage through calculations.
This is one of the most accessible and affordable options, though results can vary significantly based on the tester’s experience and technique.
Hydrostatic (Underwater) Weighing
This involves weighing you outside the tub, then being fully submerged in water to measure displacement and density, providing data to calculate your overall percentages of fat and lean body mass.
While highly accurate when done properly, this method requires specialized equipment, can produce errors if any air is trapped, and may feel uncomfortable for some.
Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA)
Sensors send tiny electrical currents through the body to measure fat tissue’s resistance to the flow versus lean tissue. Basic scales and handheld devices can provide raw data.
For optimal accuracy, medical-grade test equipment must be used in a controlled environment. Even hydration levels can skew results if not regulated ahead of time.
Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) Scans
These advanced scanners bounce two different X-ray energies off the body from varying angles, measuring the absorption patterns to differentiate bone, lean tissue and fat mass within the body.
DXA scans are considered one of the gold standards for accuracy, though their high cost and limited machine availability can be barriers. They also expose you to low radiation levels.
3D Body Scanners
By taking thousands of bodywide measurements using light waves or infrared sensors, 3D scanners create a point cloud image to extract body composition metrics like fat mass and distribution.
Increasingly commonplace at gyms and studios, these efficient tests provide highly detailed renderings yet may overlook some internal fat areas.
Air Displacement Plethysmography (BodPod)
The BodPod “egg” system uses the same air displacement principles as underwater weighing but with air instead of water. Measuring the air you displace provides accurate body composition data.
Although some models have higher price points, these futuristic machines are convenient, comfortable, and widely regarded as accurate.
Choosing the right method depends on your budget, access to equipment, and the level of accuracy you require. Utilizing a professional lab’s testing services for the most reliable body composition measurements possible.
Tips for Optimizing Your Body Composition
Beyond choosing the right measurement tools, you’ll need a plan to improve your body composition and achieve that sculpted physique continuously. Follow these tips:
- Focus on changing your body, not just weight. Building significant muscle while shedding excess fat takes slow, steady progress over time. Trust the body composition measurements rather than solely following an outdated scale weight goal.
- Lift to build lean muscle mass. Combined with sufficient dietary protein, regular resistance training stressing your muscles is proven to increase muscle protein synthesis and growth. The more muscle you build, the higher your metabolic rate to burn more fat.
- Prioritize sustainable calorie control. Drastic short-term crash diets tend to burn lean tissue along with fat. Instead, aim for modest yet sustainable daily calorie deficits of 300-500. This optimizes fat loss while preserving precious muscle.
- Progressively overload over time. Exercise regimens should gradually intensify over time through heavier weights, more challenging reps, new exercises, and modalities to continue stimulating growth responses.
- Get quality sleep and manage stress. High stress and lack of sleep disturb hormone levels and tissue recovery required for muscle growth and fat burning. Make prioritizing rest and relaxation non-negotiable.
- Don’t neglect cardio and HIIT. While lifting builds muscle, incorporating steady-state cardio and high-intensity interval training enhances cardiovascular fitness while burning additional fat. Aim for full-body benefits.
- Take progress photos and measurements. Have patience and celebrate non-scale victories. Photos and precise body measurements serve as motivation when your new sleek look starts to emerge over time.
The journey toward an optimal body composition for your goals requires consistency and discipline. But by tracking the right metrics and making lifestyle adjustments, you’ll start to see that scale number decreasing while revealing the toned, shredded physique underneath.