Activity Listing

[SunsetRunner]

Is anyone else wishing for more activities to be listed.  For example, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), TRX, or Les Mills workouts.  I don't know, it just seems hard to find or create adequate activities.  

[CourtB]

Me Me Me!!!  I do several classes each week/month: HIIT, TRX, Personal training sessions, fitness classes, Insanity,etc...basically anything my trainer tells me too 🙂  I find it hard to really track these correctly as they are not in the activity lists -- Guessing without a heart monitor addon, these types of activities are hard to track calorie burn numbers -- I also noticed too that even if I do select a 'vigorious' activity from the list, the afterburn of calories isn't accounted for (ie strength training/weight lifiting I know has a post burn affect but I don't seem to get credit for that burn in my counts) -- I track what I can the best way that I can and just make sure my burn calories is more then my incoming calories

[patg]

I agree--I engage in activities like TRX suspension training, Les Mills Body Pump, RIPPED and I know a lot of other folks do as well.  It would be so much easier to track if these were included as activities.

[maramac]

That's what I was wondering.  If you do HIIT the best you can pick is calistentics??  I dunno anyone??

[Caper]

I am having simlar frustrations, though I have found a way to keep track of TRX / suspension training. From the activity tracking page (select "Log" from the topmost menu, then "Activities" from the options near the top of the Log page) you can add a custom activity by clicking on "create custom activity" near the bottom right of the page. (I'll bet you have all done that.)

My initial frustration was that the system would not let me enter the activity without entering calories (someone else mentioned this above). I found that if you click on the icon that looks like a stopwatch and a plus sign (top right corner of the "Log Activities" box (as opposed to entering the name of the activity in the "Common Activities" text box) the system presents a different entry dialog that does not require calorie entry. Te system will then assign the calories the Fitbit system calculated you burned during the time period you logged the TRX activity in to the custom activity. That won't be an accurate accounting of the calories that were burned, but at least it's a decent record of the activity. (It's fairly clever.)

It would be great if the system assigned a calorie estimate based on the type of exercise TRX / Suspension training is. Have any of you found an estimate of how many calories are typically burned during an hour (etc.) of this type of training?

[CourtB]

I found a website called 'fitclick' to help calculate calorie burn. Downside is you have look up each excerise as it really doesn't have per-say 'TRX for 30min' but every TRX move is listed. You just type in your weight and time spent on that excerise and it gives you a base calorie count burn. I did the math a couple of times and ended up pretty much with the same calorie count as picking 'calisthenics ' from the log list of activities

[Caper]

Very nice. Thank you for passing that along.

[slysam]

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@maramac wrote:

That's what I was wondering.  If you do HIIT the best you can pick is calistentics??  I dunno anyone??

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No, not unless the "Hiit" you are doing is made up of calisthenic exercises like pushups, pull-ups, etc. "Hiit" does not describe an activity, it describes more a structure of workout and intensity level. You can do "hiit" with just about any activity and the calorie burn will vary depending on the activity. If my "hiit" workout involves running, drills like fast feet and jumping jacks I don't log it--I just let Fitbit track it. There are some activities I need to log--stair laps, calisthenics, intervals on most cardio machines (other than treadmill and elliptical--but that will depend on the resistance settings or inclines used). I actually lof my heart rate monitor calorie burn. But in absence of a HRM, I would log the closest activity and choose the higher intensity rating if there is a choice. I.E. for hiit involving bodyweight calisthenics I would log: calisthenics, vigorous. For intervals on the stationary cycle--I would log the activity with the distance from the machine (I imagine it would be a fast pace--the calorie burn will have to do with the distance covered). It may under or overestimate for you, but I guess without a HRM that is just what I would do. It is better to slightly underestimate than overestimate. Usually the database calorie burn estimates are higher than my HRM estimates even for high intensity activities. But different people will have different experiences as there are so many factors in calorie burn.

[neesie]

There is an a fairly reasonable esitmate on www.myfitnesspal.com. I use it for things that fitbit doesn't cover like Les Mills Body Pump. It uses the activity, your weight, and duration. 

[mncastens]

It seems to me that the whole activity list needs updating. Common things like HIIT and TRX aren't listed, but be sure to log "Carpentry, outside house, installing rain gutters"!

[neesie]

MFP also has calorie burns for house cleaning if you really get desperate. Haven't checked for cleaning the gutters though.  

[maramac]

Yeah that's pretty funny.  I haven't been bothering logging the HIIT wo's that I do.  Most are a combination of things like jumping jacks, then pushups, then squats etc so it's a combination of fast feet and not moving feet.  At the end I'm drenched and it shows 3 activity mins hahaha.  That's ok though... I just don't bother.  At the end of the day I got double the foot steps, and at least triple the activity mins anyway, I can lose out on a few.  

[maramac]

But yeah, I definately agree.. that list needs to be updated.

Anyone have a Fitbit Force they are just going to keep?  

[Mary]

I tend to agree with slysam that HIIT isn't really an activity so it couldn't be in the database.  Same with TRX and Les Mills.  That'd be like listing 'treadmill' or 'dumbbell'.  There is too much variety.  

The activity list is actually very extensive and not something Fitbit makes.  You can click through it easily on a site like this.

https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home

[SunsetRunner]

LOL.  Carpentry and gutters!

[SunsetRunner]

I'm looking at calories burned just as much as steps taken.  If I take a spin class (e.g., Les Mills RPM), I get zero "steps" for that and no calories burned.  I know it's 500 - 600 calories, so I add the activity, but I don't add anything for the steps.  In a HIIT class, I can get over 5,000 steps in an hour, so that's a good count, but the calories don't match the high intensity of those steps.  I just wing it and add activities the best I can.