Spinning not counting as an activity

[pmurray10]

Hi, did you figure this out?  I spin as a regular form of excercise and so far I have not been able to:

- get accurate active minutes - yesterday after a 50 min. class it registered 0

- add steps

- add the exercise and total my burn to a reasonable number

thanks for sharing anything you have learned.

Moderator edit: Clarifies subject.

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hey there @pmurray10! It's great to have you in the Community.

I moved your post into its own thread so that you can get a better response.

Because of the way that spinning works, it is very difficult for a Fitbit to recognize the activity. The trackers use a combination of speed and movement to determine if you're walking or doing other types of activities. 

Whenever you're spinning, your hands are not really moving around and your speed is not changing because you're on the same place. This explains why the tracker is not counting steps, active minutes, nor properly calculating your burned calories.

The best way to go about spinning would be to log it manually into your account. To manually log an activity please follow these steps:

1. Log into your fitbit.com account.

2. Go to the log exercise section.

3. Scroll down and either select a common activity or search for one. If the activity is not in our system, create your own by clicking the Create custom activity text that appears below the search field.
4. Enter the activities information. You can even enter the number of calories burned, if you know them.
5. Click Log. Your activity will now be visible and editable in the Activity History area.

I hope this clarifies the situation and is helpful! Let me know if you have any questions. 

[USAF-Larry]

@pmurray10, which Fitbit tracker do you have?

[pmurray10]

Thank you. I can live with adding this manually, but it is a drag since it is a big part of my exercise routine. What is very discouraging, is that my active minutes don’t seem to be reflective of my actually being active. My fitbit read 11 active minutes for 2 days - one of which that I did nothing more physical then walk to my car and then the next I spun for 45 min. and no change.

Do you know how I would go about exchanging this?


Moderator edit: Removed personal information.

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hey @pmurray10! Thanks for your reply.

It's important to note that active minutes are counted whenever an activity that the tracker perceives as intense (due to the amount, speed or rhythm of movement) is continued for at least 10 minutes. Less than that, or even a considerable pause during those first 10 minutes, will cause the tracker to not count active minuted.

As for the Fitbit recording active minutes when you were on the car, it could've been because the movements of the car, or your hand movements when steering, made it believe that you were doing a considerably intense activity. It can be easily overwritten by logging a manual driving activity. It can be done in the same way I mentioned above, just make sure to select 'Driving' and to log it on the day and time you were in the car.

I hope this clarifies the situation! Feel free to let me know if you have any more questions! 

[adahmen]

I do this but it doesn’t give me any active minutes when I do even though it records my heart rate as elevated 

[Colinm39]

@adahmen  What was left out of the earlier moderator post was that each active minute must be at least 3 times your BMR.. In another forum I have shown in this link what happens..

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@adahmen wrote:

I do this but it doesn’t give me any active minutes when I do even though it records my heart rate as elevated 

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