Does cross country skiing count as steps?

[mmlohre]

Pretty much put the question in the subject, just curious if xx-skiing will be counted as steps or not. Thanks!

[Dominique]

You will likely get different results depending on the style (traditional vs. skating), because of the different impact, but neither is step-based. This should be logged manually. It's in the database:

[pjuls]

How do I access the database?

[Dominique]

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@pjuls wrote:

How do I access the database?

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Just enter a few letters of the activity you are interested in mind (eg. "ski" for skiing) and it will show you everything that matches. For instance, if you enter "cro", it will also show you CrossFit.

Note that the activity database is currently being overhauled/simplified, though this mostly affect old users who were used to find activities that are no longer there (eg. "snow shoveling").

If an activity is missing, you can create one yourself, using the Compendium of Physical Activities Tracking Guide.

[westerwick]

I've done some rough analysis of how the Fitbit One responds to cross country skating.  It depends also on your style and terrain.  I am primarily a V2 skater, so find that it registers about 30% of the effort that I put in compared to running because it doesn't seem to care at all what you do with poling.  V1 skating seems to go at about 40 to 50% depending on how steep, and if you get to climb something steep, which is primarily herringboning, it registers about right.  It seems to have a lot to do with how well you glide, which is why the disparity with V2 and V1.  Unfortunately, this penalizes good skiers who stay flat on their skis and who glide well.  It gives you even less for going down, but I figure that if I start and stop in the same place that evens out.  I've also found that it works best if you keep it low in a pants pocket.  If you have it in a jacket pocket and have good form by keeping your shoulders and hips square, it penalizes you for that too.  Since the apparent cadence is lower, even though you are burning 15 calories a minute and sweating like a pig going up a hill below freezing in a T-shirt, it often doesn't give you automatic credit for vigorous activity.  You may have to do your own subjective calibration.

The one thing it seems to do well is register hills.  I judge my workouts by how many times I climb the roughly 100 m high hill on our local course, so I end up with few steps and a lot of stair equivalents that come reasonably close to the hill climbing.  I figure it is running about 75% of the actual elevation gain, and again the better skier who glides well and does a V2 up a long hill gets penalized.  We generally have a lot rougher stuff to deal with in Colorado, so this may not be as applicable for skiers in flatter terrain.

It is really a pain to log manually, but until they improve the accelerometers and find a way of determining skier skill and style, I don't see much way around that.

[TandemWalker]

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@mmlohre wrote:

Pretty much put the question in the subject, just curious if xx-skiing will be counted as steps or not. Thanks!

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I agree with the other replies you received. However, I think a lot has to do with the type of tracker you're using. I suspect that the wrist-type will compensate missed steps with arm movements. I don't have a Surge yet but I am seriously surfing the Web to find out as much as I can about it. With eight sensors, three of which are dedicated to fine tuning motion detection (accelerometer and gyroscope to detect movement, magnetometer for rotation, essentially rendering a 3D image of your movements,) I am wondering just how well it would work for skating, skiing, snowshoeing, not to mention dancing.

Personally, many of my wokouts are NOT step-based; and I don't find the manual logging to be a pain or labourious at all. It only takes a few seconds. 

    TW     

(If this tip solved the problem for you, please mark this post solved, as this will be helpful to other users experiencing similar issues.)

[pjuls]

The wrist tracker does not register arm movements in cross country skiing.  I think it registers arm movement in conjunction with step impact during activities.  Since there is litttle or no impact with skiing it does not register accurately.  I now remove the wrist tracker, use Map My Walk on my iPhone and log the activity.  

[TandemWalker]

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@pjuls wrote:

The wrist tracker does not register arm movements in cross country skiing.  I think it registers arm movement in conjunction with step impact during activities.  Since there is litttle or no impact with skiing it does not register accurately.  I now remove the wrist tracker, use Map My Walk on my iPhone and log the activity.  

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And which model do you wear?