The Importance of Body Measurements

Want to hear a quick story about the importance of accurate body measurements? I’ll take your silence as a yes 🙂

My audiences frequently ask me “is __________ good?” You can fill in the blank with anything, like dairy, Crossfit, P90X, etc. My answer is always “is it working for you?” If the person asking the question answered “yes”, then inevitably, I say “in that case, yes, it’s good.” This always gets some laughs, but there’s a salient point in there: are you tracking your results?

Original source: here.

In this article, you will learn:

• What body measurements are we talking about?
• Why are body measurements important?
• How often you should be measuring

What Body Measurements Are We Talking About? 

Just so we’re all on the same page, let’s address the question of what body measurements we’re talking about.

We’re talking about whatever is relevant to you:

• If you want to see improvements in your body fat levels, measure your body fat (not just your weight). I elaborate on this point more in this article, and this video.
• If you want to see improvements in strength, measure your strength in the key movements where you want to improve. A lot of women tell us that they want to improve their upper body strength. When we ask them what they mean by that, they say that they can’t do a single pushup. In that case, the pushup becomes our main body measurement. If a person has the goal of being able to do a chinup, then that becomes our measure of strength.
• If you want to reduce your lower back pain, then your body measurement becomes the frequency (how many times per day/week you feel it), duration (how long does it last?) and intensity (how bad is it, on a 0-10 scale?) of the pain.
• For our clients whose goal is to have overall, complete well-being, we measure body composition, plus symptoms, using a very thorough, 321-symptom questionnaire, and occasionally, blood chemistry. If you’d like to have these measurements done, you can see if you qualify, by filling out this 1-minute questionnaire.

You get the message, right? Measure what is relevant to your goal. The importance of body measurements is in giving you direction towards your goal.

The Importance of Body Measurements

There are 3 basic reasons why taking accurate body measurements is so fundamental.

Reason #1: Certainty 

I know generally speaking how a certain exercise, nutrition and supplementation program will work for a person. But I’m not happy with “generally speaking” or “pretty sure.” I want 100% certainty. Doing measurements gives us that certainty. We know we’re on the right track.

Reason #2: Individualization 

Everyone is a unique individual. As I preach in my articles, books, and speaking engagements, there are 7.2 billion people on the planet. Does it make sense for all 7.2 billion to follow the exact same exercise, nutrition and supplementation program? No.

Again, to the point earlier, we know roughly speaking how a certain person will respond to a specific exercise, nutrition and supplementation protocol, but we want to know exactly. Not “roughly speaking.”

Case in point, when your doctor puts you on a medication, he doesn’t just say “take this medication. See you later.” Instead:

• First he measures your blood chemistry
• Then he puts you on the medication
• Then he asks to see you again in 3-6 months to get your blood chemistry again to make sure that you are having the desired results from that medication.

Well why don’t professionals in the fitness and nutrition world apply the same scientific method to their clients?

To give you another example, high intensity interval training is all the rage in the fitness industry right now. The message is “do shorter workouts, but at a higher intensity, and you’ll get faster results.” And it works. No question that it works. But it doesn’t work for everyone. And what if you are in the minority for whom interval training doesn’t work? Do you persist with it, even though your body isn’t showing the results that you expect? If that’s the case, you’re following a religion. You’re not following science.

A few years ago, I had a client who was doing interval training. I measured her before she started the program, and I measured her again after 2 weeks of doing intervals. Her body composition didn’t change. So I tried the opposite: low intensity, higher-duration walking, as opposed to sprints. Body fat dropped like a beauty. No other changes in her strength training or nutrition. Only one variable changed.

And yet, if we had persisted dogmatically and blindly along the path of “interval training is ALWAYS better than anything else”, we wouldn’t have gotten the necessary results with this client. Why didn’t intervals work for her? I don’t know. I don’t have the explanation for it. But I do know the bottom line: they didn’t work for her. So in her case, the worst thing I could have done was continue with the interval training. Hopefully this example illuminates the importance of body measurements.

I’m using the example of interval training vs. steady state, but the principle applies to anything. Should you eat/drink dairy? I don’t know, but let’s try it, and see what your body tells us. If your body starts to experience symptoms that it didn’t before, then let’s take it out. If you have no changes in your symptoms, and body composition continues to improve (assuming that fat loss is a goal), then stick with it.

As Winston Churchill once said “no matter how elegant the methods, occasionally you have to look at the results.”

Reason #3: Progress 

Taking body measurements are not just a 1-time thing. They should be done on a regular basis to gauge your progress. You want to see if you’re able to establish a trend based on the data of 3 or more measurements.

After all, if the measurements are moving in the right direction, keep doing what you’re doing. If the measurements are not moving at all, or moving in the wrong direction, change what you’re doing. It really is as simple as that.

The other benefit of tracking progress is that it gives you a goldmine of information about specifically how your body responds to different exercise, nutrition and supplementation stimuli.       You can read all the books and articles that you want about those topics, but nothing will give you as much insight into your own body as your own logs. Which brings us to the very important point of record-keeping.

Whenever you take body measurements, you should write them down, and next to your measurements, you should actually write down what you did since your last measurements. This way, if you want to come back to the same kind of program a few years later, you’ll already have the best blueprint in the world on what works for your body.

Reason #4: Speed of Results

When you measure on a regular basis, you tend to get results much faster than when you don’t measure.

Why? Because whatever program you’re on will stop working eventually. You’ll reach a plateau. But how do you know when you’ve reached that plateau? If you just rely on your eyes, it can take 2-4 months to visibly see that progress has stopped. But I don’t have those kinds of patience. I want to know way sooner, so that we can switch to something more effective ASAP.

When I tell clients that we’ll measure their body fat every 2 weeks, they frequently ask “will I see results that quickly?” The answer is that with their eyes, they won’t see it. But with our tools (calipers and measuring tape), they will. Body fat losses are not really visible with the eyes until 1-4 months down the line (depending on a person’s height, where they store fat, etc.). Again, I don’t have enough patience to wait that long. I want to know now whether something is working or not. Because if it’s not working after 2 weeks, I don’t want to wait 3 months (for the lack of progress to be visible with the eyes) to change things.

What taking body fat with calipers allows us to do is to take individualization to a new level, by correlating the location of fat, to someone’s hormonal profile. I elaborate on that much more in my article on biosignature. Another lesson in the importance of accurate body measurements.

How Often Should You Be Measuring? 

How often you measure depends on which measurements you’re taking. Remember that if you take body measurements yourself, don’t be alarmed if you see small changes. Everybody is different, and fitness levels vary from person to person. So the next time you take body measurements for yourself, and you see even the slightest change – celebrate the win!

Here are some guidelines:

• If you’re a complete beginner, measurements of strength can basically be done 1-2 times per week. The more out of shape you are, the faster you’ll see progress. And with strength, you progress very quickly as a beginner.
• If you’re more advanced, progress will come slower, so you should measure your strength less frequently (like once every 2-6 weeks).
• If you’re very advanced, you’ll typically only measure your strength once every 2-6 months. Personally, I only really push my strength tests in official powerlifting competitions (here’s a video of my deadlift, squat, and bench press), 1-2 times per year.
• Body fat should be measured once every 2 weeks. Any changes you see when measuring once per week could be flukes. When measuring once every 3 weeks, you may be wasting time.
• We measure our clients’ symptoms once every 4-8 weeks.
• We look at blood work once every 6-12 months.

Some people wonder “what about BMI?” That’s not something I’d measure for reasons that I talk about in this article.

When you take body measurements later in the day, it might be slightly less accurate because the body tends to hold water as the day progresses – especially around the waist. If you’d like us to take body measurements for you, and see where you stand, click here to fill out a quick questionnaire to see if you qualify to do it with us.

Taking Body Measurements the Right Way

As stated earlier in the article, taking accurate body measurements is important for measuring progress, but what body measurements to take will depend on your fitness goals. These are the most common body measurements a fitness professional will record with a measuring tape:

• Left and right calf: The best way to measure the calf muscles is to measure the widest point of the calf. If you are taking body measurements standing up, make sure someone else is doing it for you. If not, it’d best to do it sitting down.
• Chest: Getting accurate body measurements of the chest requires standing and measuring after an exhale.
• Left and right upper arms: There are many ways to measure the upper arms with a measuring tape. With your arms relaxed at your sides, relaxed and bent, or flexed and bent.
• Left and right forearm: To take accurate body measurements of the left and right forearm, you need to bend the elbow and measure the thickest point.
• Hips: Taking body measurements of the hips is tricky. Most people assume it is around their hip bones when it should be measure around the largest point around the butt.
• Neck: Measure the largest point of the neck. If you have an Adam’s apple, measure over it.
• Shoulders: While standing, have someone measure as a straight line the largest points of the shoulders across the chest with a measuring tape. It can also get measured around the body as a girth measurement.
• Left and right thigh: Measure the widest point of the upper leg, right below the butt while standing.
• Waist: To measure the waist, measure the middle of the abdomen between the bottom of the rib cage and the top of the hip bone while standing.

Taking body measurements is a simple exercise that produces a lot of data throughout your fitness journey. Once you have identified and quantified your fitness goals, you can develop a plan to transform your body and take body measurements to reach these goals.

It might be frustrating not seeing immediate results with the eyes but by getting accurate body measurements, we can see the small changes adding up. These small improvements will keep you motivated to accomplish your goals.