I’m a sucker for new fitness technology, so when I was recently asked if I wanted to review a Skulpt Aim, I was pumped.
Haven’t heard of it?
I hadn’t either.
It’s “the world’s first device to measure muscle quality and body fat percentage”. It uses electrical currents to measure muscle quality and fat percentage. I was super skeptical at first, but then I read the fancy scientific explanation, and it seems to make sense. (This article in Sports Illustrated also does an incredible job at explaining it. Read it fo’ sho.) Since I haven’t really measured my muscle quality, well, EVER, I thought it would be extremely interesting and probably really eye-opening. (Apparently the original version of the device is being used in clinical trials to study patients with neuromuscular problems. Preeeetty fantastic. )
Voila. The front.
The back. Obviously.
So, to get started:
1) Spray a little water on the sensors.
2) Push the sensors onto the belly of the relaxed muscle. No, flexing doesn’t help. I already tried that. The device will lead you through testing each major muscle on each side of the body for a total body overview, OR you can do each major muscle individually.
The data is sent to an app on your phone. The app provides a breakdown of the muscle quality and fat percentage for each muscle on each side of the body, and also provides a snapshot of the body as a whole. You can compare your numbers to the chart below to make a little more sense of them. All in all, the higher your muscle quality, the more of your muscle is actually muscle and not fat.
Look at that guy on the end. What a show off.
My strongest muscles were my quads (not surprised, thank you running) and abs. ABS?! WTF. I’m baffled. My neck still hurts half the time I do any kind of core work on the floor and everyone always says it’s because I have a weak core and my neck is compensating.
My biceps are the weakest (lowest quality?) part of my body. Wah. It not-so-politely describes them as “needing work”.
Even though the numbers are pretty consistent each time, I’ve still spent about 157 hours testing my muscles with this device. It’s addictive. And if you’re feeling totally clueless about where exactly to place the sensor when measuring (like I was at first) there are videos on the Skulpt website showing exactly what to do for each muscle.
What I love about the Skulpt Aim:
-It tracks your numbers on a graph, so if you test your muscles a few times a month, you’ll see your progress plotted out. This makes it easy to compare month-to-month and see what’s working (or not working).
-You can do this at home. It’s a great alternative for testing your progress whenever you want.
-It has potential for injury prevention/detection. If an injury is present, the muscle quality will decrease drastically. If you see that, you can modify workouts as needed.
-Most importantly, you can figure what what’s working and what isn’t when it comes to your workouts. That information is so valuable…much more so than weighing yourself or judging how well your jeans fit (not that I ever wear jeans, LOLOLOL) . For example, for me, maybe my strength training classes just aren’t cutting it. If I want to boost myself up above “average” (where I am now) and into the “fit” category for more muscles, maybe I need to shift my focus.
-With that being said, it’s up to you to take the data and figure out what to do with it. Do you need to improve your nutrition to lose fat? Or do you need to begin strength training?
-Lastly, their blog answers a lot of questions I had initially, which I love. (I normally find company blogs totally lame.) Questions like How often should I use the Skulpt Aim? and Why should I even care about my muscle quality?
Are the numbers truly accurate? I have no idea. I’m not a scientist or a tech wizard. (I know, GASP.) But they do seem to make sense, and the idea behind it is pretty awesome. I just wish I had this months ago when I started upping my HIIT training and strength (as opposed to primarily running) so I could track the changes. I’m super excited to start now, though!
What do you think? Would you use this?
*I was sent this product to review. All opinions are 100% my own. Pinky swear.*
Did you test the right Glute and then the left glutes? Or to the right versus left hamstring? That would be super interesting information to see how your muscles are firing and if that will lead to biomechanic inefficiencies.
Yes! I meant to mention that. I totally had some deficiencies on certain sides for certain muscles. SUPER useful info!
Whoa that is pretty cool! My mom and I Always want to know our BF% but have no clue because we don’t know anyone who can use calipers to test us. Interesting!
I always wanted to know too, but never really felt like going somewhere to get it tested/getting the calipers! I had absolutely no idea what it would be. So fascinating! haha
Wow, that is super cool. I’ve been using the hand-grip thing at the gym that tells you overall body composition, but I have a hard time believing the numbers (or I’m living in denial, whatever). I think I’d be more inclined to believe the data if I could see a breakdown by muscle group. Like you, I’m sure there’s a huge difference between my quads (awesome) and my arms (lol).
I never really trust those gym machines either! There’s so much that goes into it…like, how can it know by just putting your hands on it? But who knows…I could be wrong! Yeah I def need to work on my arms, lol
Wow, that device and app sound incredible!!! I haven’t heard of anything like it but now need to figure out where I can get one.
Hey. Great review. I’ve been using an AIM for ~6 months now with pleasing results. I actually compared my recent reading with a DEXA scan to test it’s accuracy.
You can see the results here http://aferg.co/skulptreview
I’m a PT/bodybuilder/gym addict, so I’ve put it to good use!
I really like it. Its great for tracking my own and my clients progress without booking for a dexa scan. Plus not everyone likes having their body pinched with calipers. I compared it to a dexa and its pretty accurate. The muscle quality feature is also pretty cool.