Rock and indoor climbing

[FredeOnTheRocks]

Hey community,

I am a new here.
It would be very nice if somebody would help me out with my questions. I am a passionate climber (outdoors and indoors for training), I do yoga and if its not raining I from time to time cycle to my work. I realised that during the pretty heavy climbing training yesterday, not so much "activity" was logged. I had chosen the function "workout" to log my climbing training. I would think to burn much more calories for example when climbing. And it would be nice if the altitude difference covered would be measured as well and taken into account.

So here are my questions: does it matter if I choose another training-function, for example stair-climbing, pilates? Or is that only to  give it a name? How does fitbit actually calculate calories? (To be honest, for me that is not so important because I really don't need to burn calories, on the contrary, I need to get them. In fact I need to build up muscles!)

Thanks for your support. Curious about your answers!

[t.parker]

I used to track it as "Workout" and later change the name to "Rock climbing" (I was using Ionic). Here's some of my experience in using Fitbit when climbing. The activity itself - it doesn't matter how you track it. The calories depend on HR and in climbing you work a lot with your wrists which makes readings rather inaccurate (in my case way too low, sometimes reading nothing, just seeing two dashes). Later, I switched to PolarH10 chest strap but I had a problem with the sensor on my chest (when you need to "hug" a slab and something bulky sits on your chest it's bit weird :D). Now, I use PolarOH1 which is worn on my elbow. This gives me accurate readings (I use it between climbs to control my resting). There were more issues. One of the problems was that if you don't use GPS then you have no access to your data (downloaded TCX is empty, no HR, no elevation, nothing). For indoor climbing, you won't use GPS. I don't remember if there was elevation gain/total ascent implemented, which is something I use a lot.  For outdoor, I found out that it was not a very robust device (I don't recommend crack climbing when wearing Fitbit) so I stopped wearing it at all when climbing outdoor (ideally, supporting external HR sensor would be good and just keep the watch away from the rock). I found it rather useless when tracking climbing.

[LZeeW]

Hello @FredeOnTheRocks and a warm welcome.  I think the most important thing to help do the best job of tracking your activities is for you to read this Help article: How do I track my workouts with my Fitbit device? 

You will find that Yoga and Pilates and Outdoor Cycling all have their own exercise shortcuts.  You can put your top seven in your favorite order, but they are all there on your Versa 2 with a few more taps.

Fitbit uses heart rate based algorithms to calculate calorie burn.  They are proprietary information.  I am not on the Need To Know List of how that part works. 😉

The Workout shortcut is the best choice for any activity that doesn't have its own shortcut.

Finally, your Versa 2 isn't going to be able to give you an elevation change during your rock climbing.  It has a relative altimeter that detects a 10 foot change, but it needs to be in one constant movement.  Like going up the stairs.  Sorry.

Feel free to ask more questions.