Activities with lot of hand movement

[lordcase]

I am a juggler and also do poi, these all involve a lot of hand movement, waving, catching, circling.

It seems the fitbit (I own a charge 3) doesn't really know how to treat this, as the steps count is going up in an unrealistic fashion.

Also the screen is being turned on and off again a lot of times.

What settings would you recommend using for these activities? The calories tracking would be important, as well as HR, but the steps counting is way off.

Any plans in adding such auto-recognised activities? Or some activity that resembles this that can be activated somehow for the duration of my training? I do this for hours every day

[MakMak]

Hi, @lordcase! Unfortunately, none of the activities where you might get extraneous steps (also biking) remove steps for you for that time period. The only suggestion I have for you is that you might consider strapping the tracker to another part of your body. For example, you could attach it to your leg, either using the band if it is long enough or a rubber band or something else. That way you would still get your steps and heart rate, but wouldn't get all the extra hand movements.

[lordcase]

Thanks Makmak!

I see now that it also registers (most of ) the activity as active minutes.

Do you think I could track/log the whole thing as an excercise? If yes, what kind?

[MakMak · Accepted solution]

You definitely could. If you're more worried about getting your calorie burn, I wouldn't worry about it at all, but if you're looking for an accurate step count, you could try the adjustment I suggested.

What you can do to track it is just call it a "workout." Then once you sync into the app you can go into the workout and rename it to the activity you were actually doing (use the pencil icon). To the best of my knowledge, the activities are mostly just tracking things based on your heartrate and the names are for your own benefit. There might be a little difference in how they calculate active minutes, too.

[lordcase]

Do you mean I should "log" it or "track" it?

Sorry for the newbie questions, probably this is all in the manual somewhere?

If I understand correctly, logging is done in retrospect while tracking is in real time. The latter would be better for me so I don't stop in the middle of it (like just now i did to reply to you 🙂 ). But if i choose track in the app, there is only run, walk and hike.

So the only option is to do the workout and the log it afterwards?

[MakMak]

You're exactly right! I would say *track* it, since that actually factors in your heart rate for calorie burn. *Log*ging in the app gives you an estimate of calorie burn given the information you've input about your body. If you do choose to log after the fact, it overwrites your calorie burn for that period. You can also go into "log previous" in the app and log specific activities. The log you're thinking of is for using the phone's gps as you go.

[lordcase]

haha, ok, so please give me a step by step on this 🙂

i am standing in my living room, poi in hand, fitbit on wrist, phone nearby with the app

do i, as a FIRST step:

- select track excercise in the app on the phone and then stopwatch in the top right, then select track at the top? but there i only see run, hike, walk

OR

- select track excercise, then press stopwatch and select log at the top? there is no simple "workout" at the moment, but i can select anything and then renameit?

OR

- just start the excercise and then go to the log and log it?

[lordcase]

ah oh ok i think i get it... ou mean start tracking on the fitbit... just wound you can swipe right 😄

[MakMak]

You've got it! Start the tracking on your Fitbit!!!