121 days until IRONMAN 70.3 Chattanooga
Commentary
I didn’t actually get naked. I got Naked.
Naked is the brand name of a three dimensional body scanner. I’m sure it tells you all kinds of information, but I only got my body fat percentage from it today.
Body scanner by Nakedlabs
One of my coaches brought the scanner to the pool, so after swim workout a bunch of us lined up to get our bodies scanned. The percent fat analysis you get from this device is supposed to be better than hydrostatic weighing and almost as good as the Dexascan. When I say “supposed to be better” or “almost as good as” what I really mean is someone told me it was better or almost as good as. I haven’t checked out that claim yet, but probably will soon. And given the $1400 price tag, it had better be accurate!
So up to this point I’ve been using one of those home scales that tell you your fat %. It uses some kind of electrical current and a formula to estimate body composition. Fat is less conductive than muscle, so if a tiny electrical current has trouble passing through your body, you might get a call from Jenny Craig. The scale tells me my body composition is about 15% fat. No calls from Jenny yet.
I’ve become comfortable with that estimate of 15%. I don’t know yet if that is high, low or just right, but it’s just a number and needs interpretation. You can imagine my surprise when Trent read my results from the 3D scanner: 25%. TWENTY FIVE PERCENT? Actually, 25% is not so bad. If I’m carrying around forty pounds of fat, just think how much faster I would be if I lost half of that. My watts per kilogram would at least put me in the CAT5 level.
Just when I was getting comfortable with 25%, I received a text from Trent saying the machine was not correctly parameterized when I was scanned. In another week or two we will try it again.
Workout
I love swimming. It is my best sport of the three. Today’s swim included more time than usual in the diving well which is where we do our vertical torture; you might know it as vertical kicking.
Triathlon swimming doesn’t require a strong kick, yet we do a lot of kicking in our swim sessions. The reason we kick so much is to develop taughtness which is what gives the body a hydrodynamic form. So far, I have to believe that it is working. Lately I’ve been able to swim well with my ankles banded together.
Or maybe that’s due to buoyancy from the 25%. Until tomorrow…
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