The paper in your hand
Four pages, printed before you leave. Here is what each part of it is actually telling you.
Printed before you leave
Here is Bobby, a trainer, reviewing the report he just received from his own test. The walkthrough below is those same four pages.
The test measures three things directly: what you weigh on land, what you weigh underwater and the temperature of the water. Everything on your report is worked out from those, plus your height, age and gender.
Hydrostatic testing is based on Archimedes’ principle — the science of water displacement.
By comparing your weight on land with your weight underwater, we can determine your body density and calculate your lean mass and fat mass. This provides a highly accurate measurement of your body fat percentage.
It’s simple physics, proven science and one of the most accurate ways to measure body composition.
Page by page
At the bottom of the first page, you’ll find your Client History, including your body fat percentage and lean mass information.
When you return for future testing, your new results will be added here so you can easily compare your progress over time. This allows you to see not only whether your weight has changed, but more importantly, whether you’ve lost fat, gained muscle or maintained your lean mass.
Page 2 compares your body fat percentage with established ranges for your age and gender.
In the middle of the page, you’ll see a circled range representing a healthy target for your age group. Ideally, we want your body fat percentage within that range or lower, while still maintaining a healthy amount of body fat.
On page 3, this report also includes two small charts — one showing fat loss and the other showing muscle gain.
Both can lower your body fat percentage. Losing body fat decreases the percentage directly, while gaining lean mass can also reduce your overall body fat percentage.
The charts do the math for you so you can see how different changes in fat and lean mass could affect your body composition.
At the bottom of page 3, you’ll find your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). This number is unique to you and represents the calculated, not estimated, number of calories your body requires at rest to maintain essential or basic functions.
Your resting metabolism accounts for a large portion of your daily calorie needs. The remainder comes from your activity throughout the day — including exercise, work, walking, household activities and everyday movement.
On page 4, the report also provides examples of approximately how many additional calories you may burn during 30 minutes of various activities.
One of the most important numbers on your report is your RMR.
When fat loss is the goal, we generally don’t want to see aggressive calorie restriction that compromises lean mass. Losing weight and losing fat are not necessarily the same thing.
The goal is to provide your body with enough nutrition to help preserve your lean mass while creating an appropriate calorie deficit through a combination of nutrition and physical activity.
The goal isn’t simply to weigh less. It’s to lose fat while preserving — or ideally building — lean mass.
The client on this sample is invented and so are the measurements — nothing here is anyone’s real result.
Shown at Letter size on a wide screen and shrunk to fit on a narrow one, so on a phone it is a scale model of the paper rather than something to read. Pinch to zoom in on any page, or open this page on a laptop to read it at size.
One report tells you where you stand. It takes two to tell you whether what you are doing is working — and the second one is only comparable if the conditions match. Similar time of day, similar hydration, no food in the two hours before.
When you do compare two reports, read them as a pair: fat mass down and lean mass holding is the result you want. Both falling together is the outcome worth catching early and it is the one the scale alone will happily hide from you.
