What do you find most useful to have at home?

X

XFatMan

New Member
I just want to see what you think would be most useful or important to have.

I'd go for the Body Fat Monitor because I find my body weight secondary and finding out the current heart rate isn't that difficult without a monitor. I do find it important to know the current body fat percentage - after all, most of us are after a low body fat percentage.
 
My Wife.
Actually you left out the most important thing that will actually make a guy get off his butt and do something about his situation:
the Mirror.
I can shrug my shoulders over those other things. I can't ignore an image.
 
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(quadancer @ Oct. 14 2007,09:12)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Actually you left out the most important thing that will actually make a guy get off his butt and do something about his situation:
the Mirror.
I can shrug my shoulders over those other things. I can't ignore an image.</div>
It was my intention to leave out the mirror. I just want to know which of the three items listed you would choose.
 
A heart monitor is unrelated to the other two, but I'd say it was probably more important, for obvious reasons.
Scales reflect water weight as well as LBM, so are somewhat unreliable in the short term.
 
All of the things I keep in my place are just for measuring gains and constraints. Tape measures, calipers (not bioimpedance), and a scale can tell you quite a bit, especially if you know how to use them and their accuracies. Measuring your heart rate is important. Rapid increases or decreases in waking heart rate are thought to be symptomatic of overtraining. But a monitor? Mmm. Just use a watch unless you've got nothing else more pressing to spend on. Mirrors are good and all - motivation and feedback there. But you said they're off limits. If I had to choose only one item, it would be this:

A digital camera.

If you take the pictures in the same lighting and color backdrop, pictures over time will tell you if you are gaining or losing bodyfat and whether you are gaining or losing muscle. Unlike a mirror, you can take full frontal pictures of your back by using the delay feature on most digitals. I don't know about the rest of you, but constantly looking in the mirror just drives me bananas after a while. Take the same pictures every two weeks (use the same lighting and poses!) and you can really notice what's going on with your body over time.

Crazy idea: Fill a deep jar or pipe 75-80% full. Graduate it. Mark the water line with permanent marker. Submerge your arm in it up to some identifiable level, like say to the acromion process. Mark that. Do it again in a month, or say, at the end of an HST cycle. Calculate volume change. Volume change = cubic inch change in your arm over one month. Its measuring the displacement of your arm like they do for engines.

&quot;Dude! You've got huge guns!&quot;

&quot;Thanks. They're 300 cc's.&quot;

or

&quot;That last HST cycle really paid off. I added 18 cc's to my right arm alone.&quot;

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(QuantumPositron @ Oct. 14 2007,18:52)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Crazy idea: Fill a deep jar or pipe 75-80% full. Graduate it. Mark the water line with permanent marker. Submerge your arm in it up to some identifiable level, like say to the acromion process. Mark that. Do it again in a month, or say, at the end of an HST cycle. Calculate volume change. Volume change = cubic inch change in your arm over one month. Its measuring the displacement of your arm like they do for engines.</div>
I actually do that every two weeks!
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[I'm taking part in a research experiment...]
 
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(quadancer @ Oct. 15 2007,09:48)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">We're certain of that, bro!
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Ouch!

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BTW, in case you thought I was kidding:

Right forearm -- 999 ml, 0.307 kg
Left forearm -- 832.5 ml, 0.256 kg
(measuring up to the elbow).
 
Hmmm...a piece of PVC pipe, 6 or 8&quot; about 3' long...use a threaded coupling with a cleanout on one end and you'd have a full-arm tube.
Nah, I'll just use pics. But that would tell the truth, the only exception being that it will measure in fatgain/loss along with muscle.
 
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(scientific muscle @ Oct. 15 2007,12:33)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I voted bodyfat calipers.

I need to get me some. My scale at home measues bodyfat through impedence in my feet, but it is terriby inaccurate.</div>
If you think your scale is inaccurate, wait'll you get your bodyfat calipers...
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I did some reading before I bought mine. Its not so much the calipers that introduce inaccuracy as it is the method itself and the consistency with which you carry it out. I've been taking my measurements every morning since mid September to get a sense of variability. The readings go up and down. Max to date is 7.2, min to date is 5.6, but I haven't changed my diet or altered my activity level. Chances are its just variability - in skinfold thickness, perhaps fluid movement, how awake I am when I take these things, etc. As for its accuracy, the only way to know would be to calibrate the calipers against a more accurate method. So I would have to take them with me to a clinic, use them a few times to get an average, then use the clinic's method and compare the two. Even better would be to do it several times. If I had the money to burn on that, I wouldn't need to buy calipers.

A friend of mine had me use the bioimpedance device on his scale. It said I'm 23.5 % bodyfat. I can see my abs. Perhaps all that mass is somewhere else...maybe I should look...lower?
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Maybe it's in your head, man.
Seems like everyone with those things gets a high reading. Hope no one killed themselves yet.
 
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