Logging Activity when working as a massage therapist

[LucyK]

Hello There,

I am a massage therapist and can clock upto 6 hours a day working, not necessarily walking but using my body to create effective Deep Tissue techniques to help my clients which can often tire me out. Surely I am burning calories when doing this but I cant wear my Fitbit Charge HR when working so I would be greatful for any advice on how I can effectively log my activity when working?

Regards

Lucy

[RobertoME]

Hello @LucyK, welcome to our community. Indeed you are burning calories while you are doing your job. My best recommendation is to manually log an activity that can give you an average of calories burned during this time. This article will explain better how to log a manual activity. How do I manually log or record an activity?

Hope this helps and see ya later.

[MexiPinaNita]

I have the same question.  I thought about even putting the fitbit higher up on my arm and using a "medical tape" to hold it on.

[Lweidel]

I am a MT and I've been wearing my Fitbit on my ankle. I have it wrapped around and my sock holds it in place. I have the Fitbit charge 2, so I don't know how different it is. I figured in order to calculate my calories burned it needs my hr and my ankle can calculate that. As for steps, mine senses the movement so it's actually pretty accurate. Although I've wondered if it only calculates my one foot when it steps. But I'm not so worried about my steps in the massage as I am with my activity level. 

[RobertoME]

Hi there @MexiPinaNita and @Lweidel. Let me give you a warm welcome to the Fitbit Community. 

@MexiPinaNita If you have a tracker with a PurePulse sensor (Heart rate), is more easy for your tracker to pick your activity level and you can log a manual activity that will override the information recorded by your tracker to have more accurate information. For more details review my previous post.

@Lweidel thank you for sharing this information with us. Personally I do not like to recommend wearing the tracker in the ankle, since it was designed specifically for the wrist but if you're able to wear it on your ankle, I don't see any harm on doing this as long as you can keep it safe and don't knock it against any hard surface that could cause any undesired damage.

See you around and stay awesome!

[depepsi]

I wear my charge 3 on my upper arm when doing massages. I don't think it captures steps accurately at all. I used to wear my One on my ankle. Deep tissue is like a slow isometric Tai Chi, putting pressure on tissue until the restriction releases. It's a lot of upper body movement, and very little stepping. Doing massage (the really active part, not sitting behind the client's head working the neck scalp and head, would be more like actual Tai Chi.) Maybe that's what we should log, estimating for every hour massage we do 40 minutes of Tai Chi.

[Dog143]

I think Tai Chi probably comes closest to what we do as therapists although we are not just moving our bodies through space we are also connected to our clients and moving their bodies too... So maybe Tai Chi +....All I know 8 hours of massage in a 12 hour day is a Workout!