Globe and Mail reporter Dave McGinn receives a DEXA scan at Push Pounds Sports Medicine in downtown Toronto on April 9. DEXA scans measure a person’s body fat and muscle percentages.I am lying on my back in a brightly lit room in a Toronto sports medicine clinic as a scanner slowly moves from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Five minutes later, I will have more numbers about my body than I ever thought I wanted or needed.
It’s especially popular among bodybuilders who want to achieve perfect muscle symmetry, and weekend warrior runners who want the exact same amount of muscle in their left leg as they have in their right. The scans provide a snapshot of how well a person is eating and staying fit – fat and muscle mass can be influenced by lifestyle, after all – and the data provide the feedback to help people change their behaviour, Majidi says.
their body composition and improved their numbers, like a kid returning to an arcade psyched to beat his high score, Germann says. “Once you have a baseline value, then you can better understand whether changes are meaningful,” Gabel says.For one, it says nothing about cardiovascular fitness. For that, Majidi recommends a VO2 max test, which measures how much oxygen your body absorbs during exercise.