Dancing?

[JenFB]

Thinking of getting back into belly dancing classes. Any suggestions on which would be more accurate: Leave my Fitbit One on and let it count whatever it does as I dance, or leave it off and just find a good average calorie burn for dancing to enter manually?  

[Jabrat]

why not leave your Fitbit on - I can dance around the house and get all kinds of steps with my Fitbit One and my calories are right there - maybe not the active like I would like them - but when I want my active up there - I hop on the treadmill and can get 60 full AM by going 3.8 and on up on the treadmill - many ways to get the calories burned and steps together !  I have a Fitbit One and it accurately counts whatever I do !

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@JenFB wrote:

Thinking of getting back into belly dancing classes. Any suggestions on which would be more accurate: Leave my Fitbit One on and let it count whatever it does as I dance, or leave it off and just find a good average calorie burn for dancing to enter manually?  

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[slysam · Accepted solution]

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@JenFB wrote:

Thinking of getting back into belly dancing classes. Any suggestions on which would be more accurate: Leave my Fitbit One on and let it count whatever it does as I dance, or leave it off and just find a good average calorie burn for dancing to enter manually?  

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Leave it on and log it for "belly dance". It is actually in the exercise database. I find it is presently easier to search the database on the phone app--the search doesn't work on either of my web browsers for me.  The category is something like: "General, Greek, Middle eastern, hula, flamenco, belly, swing". It use to say "dancing" but that seems to have been deleted. I could only find it because I remembered it included Greek and Hula, so I used that as my search term.

My reason for this advice... I do 'belly dance' a lot and do other types of dance. I find that it is variable how well my Fibit One can track dancing. It really depends on the style and type of movements. It does okay with traveling steps, hops, jumps, spins, etc. It does not do well with very soft, fluid or isolated movements. I've worn my fitbit while belly dancing, taking a Flamenco class, taking a Hula class and for all three it would count very few steps in the hour + long class. Something like maybw 1000 steps when I was stepping a lot throughout 6-90 minutes. And it is usually at a light activity barely aabove sedentary level. I log these dance styles. But I would still wear the fitbit because it may pick up some of the steps (especially if doing traveling steps). You don't et double counting if you log, what you log overwrites some of the fitbi data mainly calorie burn (but if you log a step activity like walking it may change the steps). 

With dance, it depends on the type. My One does fine with Zumba and aerobic dancing and not so well with the types I mentioned previously. 

[haflagirl]

I'm new to the fitibt (hi everyone!) but not at all new to belly dance. I own a studio and yesterday was my first teaching day with the fitbit. I chose to keep it on because I couldn't find dance anywhere in the activity database (but I didn't use my phone for it, which has been suggested). 

Because teaching dance can be kind of stop and start throughout the class it's hard for me to honestly gauge how long I danced durng a one hour class and intensity varies with each class' difficulty level. There's some talking, some keeping the students dancing while I go around and offer correction, and things like that. Several of my warm-up drills involve short travling sequences, so by the end of a four-day class plus running back and forth in the studio to check students in, I clocked almost 10,000 steps. I teach two more classes tonight and will see how the steps work out. So far though I think I'll keep it on unless it seems to underlog what I'm doing by a lot.

I'll be taking part in a 4 day intensive soon so if I find the log for belly dance and that seems more favorable I'll probably go with that and leave the fitbit off since I'll be the student again, not the teacher.

Hope that helps!

[slysam]

It use to be in the database as it's MET chart title. It was something like "Greek, Flamenco, Hula, Middle Eastern and Folk dancing". I use to search hula a greek as the short cut to finding it. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be in the database anymore. I could only find one option "dancing'. I am not sure why but there seem to be a lot fewer activities. I would suggest if you have a clip on fitbit (one or zip) to try wearing it on your hip or in the center of your hip line (either front or back). I have clipped mine to my underpants during performances so it wouldn't show in a costume and it picks up activity for the faster portions of a routine (not so much for the slower parts or upper body intensive parts). But you can find a decent estimate if you use an exercise caculator that adjusts for your age and weight and look up the Greek, Hula, etc listing (though I find it assumes more vigor than standing isolations and less than full on dancing but maybe it averages out okay for a class or seminar).

[haflagirl]

I have the flex, which is hard to wear on my hip unless I maybe wrap it around my hipscarf in classes. I think for performances I'll just have to find an online source for calories burned during belly dance. Performances are usually more intense than teaching anyway. 🙂

[NelliNile]

It does not log belly dance, or other dance, accurately, or even a little bit. I've danced for many, many years, as a professional, and while it loves to track my steps while walking, I get almost nothing while dancing. 168 steps for 90 minutes of intense dance = 0. I'm not happy with fitbit. It doesn't matter what I do: belly dance, ballroom, waltz, foxtrot, as far as it's concerned, unless I'm walking up and down the street I'm not exercising. I might keep using it another week or so just to keep the habit of walking twice a day, but it does not track activity accurately. I'm very disappointed with this device.

[Rhiannyn]

After reading all the other comments, and knowing that after teaching 3 hrs of American Tribal Style® belly dance/week... it records as 11 minutes of activity, for the entire week. Really? Walking doesn't count as activity... let alone dancing for 3 hrs.  Perhaps they need to make a revision to their program, so that it does record more accurately.

I have the Fitbit HR-Charge, and not sure if maybe some of the more expensive Fitbits do a better job of recording all activity?

[MariamV]

Hello everyone! 

I've always liked learning new and exciting things. In my personal opinion, twerking is a great option. Yeah, you heard it right! 

So, if you're up to the challenge how about a good session of twerking to tone those muscles while learning new dance moves?  Twerking involves twisting and jerking movement of the hips that improves lower body flexibility. This workout is meant to tone your core, glutes and thigh muscles.

Let me know if you do any other dancing! 

[mccallgg]

I had an 1hr long belly dance class last night and my Fitbit didn't log any exercise automatically. Thanks for the rundown on the manual input because I was getting upset 😅

[DavideFitbit]

Welcome to the Fitbit Community forums, @mccallgg!  

Fitbit devices have a finely-tuned algorithm for step counting. The algorithm is designed to look for intensity and motion patterns that are most indicative of people walking and running. Not all the activities are tracked automatically, but if the workout is not tracked automatically by the device, you can always log the activity manually to get the information for calories on your account. 

Have a great day!