Many fitness enthusiasts and sportspeople like to use gadgets and gizmos to measure and analyze their workout regimen. The amazing fitness bands are indeed a revolutionary thing in the world of healthcare, sports, and fitness. More importantly, they serve as a channel of motivation. But how effective are these gizmos for activities like rollerblading?
Can fitness bands like Fitbit track activities like Rollerblading? Well, Fitbit is great for activities like walking or running which require you to count your steps. It can also help you track your sleep cycle and calorie intake. However, it is not as efficient for non-step activities like rollerblading.
Yet many rollerbladers use FitBit to analyze their workout sessions. Fitbit works on your arm movements and steps you take. It may not provide many accurate results for rigorous activities like rollerblading. A better idea would be to log for these activities separately through MFP. These logs can override the Fitbit count during your specified timeframe to synch properly. Here is how Fitbit can help with your workout session.
More About Fitbit
You can find different types of Fitbit trackers in the market. The basic version can cost you around $60 and tracks steps taken, distance traveled, and calories burned. You can get Fitbit One for about $100 which provides additional analysis for stairs climbed, quality of sleep, and hours of sleep.
There is a wristband version by the name Fitbit Flex [source]. You can get this for again $100. This new version is an upgrade on the previous one with many new features such as tracking of standup paddleboarding. Fitbit Flex seems to be the ideal of all Fitbit versions for the rollerbladers for many of its promising features including the very active minutes option.
How does the device work?
The Fitbit works great for recording steps. Some of its newer versions of register activities like paddleboarding. Surprisingly, you can measure activities like rollerblading with your Fitbit quite effectively in terms of distance traveled and calories burned. But again, the movements are calculated as steps and the numbers are turned into calories burned.
Generally, the distance is calculated from the steps, and stairs climbed are analyzed by an altimeter used in the device. Sometimes you may get some funny readings. For example, a 15-mile bike ride on a bumpy road may show up as 40 floors climbed. Fitbit translates elevation change into floors climbed.
The display of Fitbit shows six different readouts including steps, calories burned, distance traveled, stairs climbed, current time, and the recent activity flower [source]. Fitbit does not show your progress tied to a specific goal. You cannot see your Active Score, however, the recent activity flower may provide a cryptic guide regarding your performance.
Counting the Steps
Fitbit is ideally a step-centric device that can effectively measure the steps taken. Even for rollerbladers, the distance covered is calculated on the basis of steps taken and calories burned. You can check your activity overview from the dashboard.
The activity list reflects the steps taken, distance covered, and floors climbed. However, all these stats revolve around simple step activities like walking or running. Some Fitbit versions do indicate the calories burned during non-step activities like paddle boarding or rollerblading to give an idea about your efficiency.
With that said, you can manually log the non-step activity in the others. You can check your active score on the Fitbit website but you do not get the same on your mobile app or on the device itself.
Calories burned
You can track your active calories burned during different activities. Fitbit estimates the number of calories burned each day even during non-active hours based on your speculated metabolic rate. It adds the calories burned during active hours to calculate the total calories burned throughout the day.
You can manually log calorie counts for a specific custom activity not previously listed. Once you enter the activity for a day or a given period, the estimated calories burned will increase for that day. It will also change your Active Score as well as the active time log on your Fitbit device.
Fitbit comes with a timer to help you record the starting time and ending time for an activity. It can help you track the time of your rollerblading session. You simply need to start the timer when you hit the rink and turn it off as you are done with your session.
For more effective results for calories burned during rollerblading, you can enter a new activity, either select the activity from the database (only in some versions) or enter a custom entry. Enter the start time as well as the total time. This will give you the total number of calories burned.
Calories consumed
Fitbit can help you track what you eat. Using the device, you can log the food you intake by selecting from a list of products. The daily calorific consumption provides a general guide about what to eat and whatnot.
You can use the feature to maintain the correct weight for rollerblading and get some motivation to make more careful choices regarding what you put in your belly. If you fail to maintain an appropriate weight, a nasty fall during rollerblading may turn into the worst nightmare breaking more bones and hurting more ligaments under your own body weight. Further, unusual weight may interfere in maintaining balance while rollerblading.
The Fitbit also provides a quick list of the foods you consume more often. Further, you can group common foods into a meal to make logging easier. When you add a new food the total calories consumed during the day change.
Fitbit also provides a wireless scale that automatically combines your activity and weight into a single dashboard. An easy way to track your muscle mass for some extra dose of motivation.
Sleep tracking
Regarding sleep tracking, Fitbit can help you analyze your wake-sleep cycle. How does that connect with rollerblading? Well, a healthy sportsperson needs to have minimum hours of sound sleep to perform their best. Isn’t it?
Fitbit sleep tracking is a novel feature that can record the times when you wake up in between sleep during the night quite accurately. You have to wear the device on the wrist with a special wristband to keep the tracker in place.
Overall, Fitbit is a nice tracker for registering your non-stepper habits and similar activities. If you do not mind doing manual logging of custom activities, the Fitbit will work well. On the upside, you get a wireless scale to help you maintain the correct weight for activities like rollerblading.
Related Questions
How can I use Fitbit during Rollerblading? Fitbit is quite easy to use. It is a thumb-sized light-weight device that you can clip to your belt or tuck in your pocket while rollerblading. The latest version of the device comes with a wristband so you can easily wear it on your wrist by closing the clasps. It also has better tracking features for the sport.
How does Fitbit evaluate my rollerblading performance? When you wear Fitbit during rollerblading, it considers your movement during the workout sessions as steps. So, the miles you cover translate into your step count. In other words, the step count reflected in your Fitbit display after the workout gives you an idea about the distance you have covered during the rollerblading session.
How can I watch my progress towards a specific activity like rollerblading? The newest version of Fitbit comes with five indicative lights. The lights turn on when you tap twice on the display. An inactivity for a while will make only one or two lights show. Three lights mean moderate activity. Four lights indicate you are about to achieve your goal. Five lights identify that you hit your goal or activity for the day. You can also use the very active minutes feature for a step-based goal.