NIR - How Accurate is it for Body Comp? - Personal Trainer Community - Forum

[Joe Cannon MS CSCS]

I have not seen many recent studies of the accuracy of near infrared interactance (NIR) for body comp. Does anyone have data on how it stacks up against BIA, skinfolds, hydrostatic etc?

My main concerns about NIR stem from the following:

1. The tester asking questions about how often per week a person works out? It appears to be based on the assumption that the more one works out, the thinner one will be.

2. Body comp taken from the arm may not be representative of the rest of the body.

Feel free to weigh in. All "2 cents" are appreciated!
Joe

[muscletrainerdh-NSCA CPT]

Hey Joe,

I picked up "Applied Body Composition Assessemnt" by Vivian Heyward when I was at Can-Fit-Pro a couple of years back.

Her review of NIR was not to flattering. The copyright of the book is 1996, so pretty old, and more to the point, I'm sure you've already read it. LOL

Anyhoo, She brings up your similar concerns, especially when it comes to the bicep measurement, as a bicep caliper measurement is rarely used in skin fold assessment.

She also states that the equations given with the Futrex 1000 and 5000 have been reported to have unacceptable prediction errors by other researchers.

It would be interesting to see if there are any more recent findings on this method.

If I come across anything, I'll post it here.

Dave

[Joe Cannon MS CSCS]

Thanks Dave. Yes Ive read some of Vivian's books. their was an artile in the NSCA journal this month that compared various body comps after creatine use and they found that NIR accurately depicted fat free mass. thats what got me to wondering about it. thats the latest Ive seen on NIR lately. the studies listed on Futrex's website are somewhat old also whcih makes me wonder as well.
the search for answers continues....
Joe