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I'm a weight-lifter and a prospective customer, and I'd buy everything in a second IF fitbit did something relatively simple; added the ability to manually input data for specific activities such as weight-lifting. Currently, you can only add "duration", yes?
Weight-lifting isn't something that Fitbit can accurately track because it tracks motion and not exertion/force. And that's fine. I honestly don't need to know how many calories I've burned because my goal -along with most weight-lifters- is to add weight (which is nice that I can use the scale and keep track of food/calories consumed).
So if Fitbit added fields whereby I could input the name of a specific exercise, ie. "Biceps Curl", then the weight, ie. "400lbs" (I can has dreams!) then mutiple fields for the sets and reps "20x20x15x15" then it'd be an instant love-affair. This would help motivation and allow me to see long-term progress all in one place. I'd be a loyal user. And I know a lot of fellow weight-lifters who would love to have an All-in-One platform to track their progress, especially with the clean Graphs and Charts that FitBit offers.
So no fancy adjustments to your accelerometers are needed, no projected calculations of how many calories may have been burned as a result of exercise X, just plain old graphs and charts providing the ability to track daily weight-lifting routines. Please and thanks!
I can certainly understand why fitbit doesn't register activity such as bicycling, but am disappointed that during the weightlifting portion of my excercise program (especially for curls, military press, situps, bench press) that fitbit doesn't appear to register elevated activity. Clearly, my arms are moving at a rapid pace during these exercises and the duration of the workout is sufficient to show activity. Would think that this would be an easy fix. It would clearly document a more accurate picture of daily activity.
Sure your arms are moving but your Fitbit has no idea if they are just flailing around or if they are moving heavy weights.
Also, from the lable you picked it looks like you have a One. Since it isn't an arm worn device it would have no idea your arms are moving. (A Flex or Force might show more, but in reality you would need to log weight lifting activities manually to get proper credit.)
No intention here for fitbit to understand that weights are being lifted....... 'arms flailing around' as you described it IS activity (and actually oftentimes very active activity).
I would love to be able to track my weightlifting progress. A mix of strength training, running, and improving my diet was the key for me to losing 45 pounds. As of now Fitbit only does two of those well.
I agree. I have been wearing my fitbit pretty muich non-stop since getting it and really like idea of an overall fitness accessory. I have used Mapmyrun in the past to track my running. Fitbit addressed this by adding gps tracking for running/walking. Although with Mapmyrun, I was also able to connect a third party heart rate monitor to more accurately asses calorie burn during running. I also took to wearing the monitor during lifting sessions to get a calorie count. I have also used the apps BigLifts2 and Multiyear weight training to track my lifting progress. Integration of a sets/reps scheme for a lifting prograsm would be a welcome addition and keep everything together in one spot.
I've only had my FitBit for a week, courtesy birthday present from my brother. I like most aspects of it but don't like spending 1 to 2 hours lifting weights with a fair degree of intensity and seeing "0" very active minutes recorded by the FitBit. I'm learning to live with that and just kind of mentally factor in the extra calories burned at the end of the days when I lifted as opposed to burned energy running or on the elliptical trainer.
Ive just started a new thread related to this here but I've sorta fudged a solution that might work: I have a cheap heart rate monitor (the round your chest type) that I ware as I've had some heart rate issues related to some perscription medication. I've been using that to time and monitor my work out and add the actvitiy in later as "weights" and then manually adding the calories based on my heart rate tracker.
Yeah I know its a faff and it does mean you have to shell out another £30 but so far it looks like the best option until the next gen fitbit (with built in heart monitor) come out.
Yes - need the functionality to log exercise, sets reps and weights.
I suggest the same is true of interval training on a treadmill.
Does anyone from Fitbit ever read these and do anything with them?
I wouldn't have thought it would be that difficult to add some spreadsheet-type of functionality. Failing that some freeform text would help to record it but you would lose the ability to compare previous sessions.
Now that some of the newer devices have incorporated a heart rate monitor, it is far more practical to track non-step based activities (weightlifting in my case), and its effects on you recommended caloric intake. It would be extremely useful to be able to track individual activities within workouts and to be able to look back at past performance.
For Example (to clarify my request):
Barbell Bench Press - 135 lbs., 3 sets x 10 reps
Barbell Back Squat - 200 lbs., 1 set x 8 reps
1 set x 5 reps
1 set x 3 reps
Lastly, it would be very helpful, if this request were pursued, to maintain a database of personal records on exercises so a user could monitor their progress in various physical activities (heaviest weight lifted in bench/squat/deadlift, lowest time running a mile/5k/marathon, etc.). This would go A LONG WAY towards making Fitbit my one-stop app for all things fitness.
Thank you for allowing your users to post feature requests and for taking the time to evaluate this idea.
Yes. SparkPeople has a weight training tracker, it would not be that hard to implement I think. In addition to records of PR's, I would like if it would graph the weight out on a trend line or something too.
But we definitely need a weight training tracker. I'm still using paper and pencil for this and I dn't like my stuff being in 2 places.
This would be the one feature that would centralize my entire health program. As it is, I track my weight lifting with Gym Buddy and use that app to time my lift sets for HIIT; would love to have all of the data housed within one ecosystem.
It's not even a hardware update request as much as it is either a database within the app, or a separate Fitbit Lift app that could potentially link a record to the activity logged on the Surge. There are a ton of lift apps on the market, either buy up an existing or just model after it.
Since the Charge HR now has heart rate tracking, is there any way you could integrate that into the "Weights" activity, instead of simply estimating a certain number of calories burned for every minute spent lifting?
As it goes right now, I'm just not logging workouts, because I feel like the gigantic number of calories estimated for an hour of weight lifting is grossly overestimated.
I would love to see it integrate with other apps. I use JEFIT for weight lifting workouts and love it. Would love to pull my workout data into Fitbit so it could be uploaded to my wellness site for insurance credit. I've bee looking at the Fitbit API to see if I can make a tool to do that.
Just came across a very interesting weight training tracker called the Beast sensor. It tracks reps, weight lifted, total volume, predicts one rep max, rep speed, personal bests, historic for each exercise, looks great. I wish Fitbit would add the same more serious analytics for the One and other devices for those of us who weight train. http://www.thisisbeast.com/en/product
I would really appreciate a weight training feature - a countdown timer for interval training with start and stop and notification of the next exercise - so i can set up a routine on my phone, sync my fitbit and then leave the phone in my locker. Tap three times to start and it buzzes and says "start set one arm curl 8x80lbs" tap again and it counts down 60 seconds amd then says "start set two arm curl 8x80lbs" and so on through the workout. Somethimg like that. Even if because of memory issues i had to keep the phone with me, that would be better than having to pull it out all the time.
Hello, I just got my FitBit One about 2 months ago and have been loving using both the device and the app for almost all of my fitness needs. I say almost because there is one key feature that I am suggesting that FitBit consider adding to the iOS/Android apps. Set/rep/rest timer logging functionality for strength training. I am aware that it is possible to log a weight training session overall to calculate calorie burn, but the function I'm specifically referencing is more just being able to perform a set of a certain exercise, log the weight I used, choose the reps I completed and then have a rest timer start and alert after a chosen amount of time to let me know when to start my next set.
This is not a new concept. There are a few apps I would like to reference from the iOS App Store that I currently use for this type of functionality. JEFIT is one of them, the other is called Fitlist. These apps are good at what they do but I would much rather be using the FitBit app for EVERYTHING health and fitness rather than 70% of it and the other 30% having to go to these other apps. Plus, I'm sure that logging these types of things in the FitBit app would result in more accurate calorie burns and also could have some resultant extra functionality built in (rest timer alert could vibrate a Flex/Charge/Charge HR/Surge to let me know when the timer is up and to start a new set).
Thank you for listening and I sincerely hope that this will be seriously looked at and considered!
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