Tracking exercise vs using my Garmin Vivosmart

dinsmoorc

I go to the gym 5+ days a week. I mostly do cardio on an eliptical and bicycle. I wear my Garmin Vivosmart fitness tracker and put it in my pocket so it picks up some of the motion from these exercises. Should I also be logging these exercises or just taking the value of the steps? I've been consistently doing the latter. Am I neglecting any of the fitness benefits?

nicklippa

Hello I use the Garmin vivofit with a HRM to track my cardio exercises and while I enjoy the sync with MFP, I don't like how it labels an activity and does not let you edit them. For Example, I'll do Elliptical and it comes through on MFP as YOGA so I have to delete the YOGA and manually enter my activity.

Now in answer to your question, if you keep the vivosmart in your pocket during elliptical or bike or treadmill, then log the excercise, your actually duplicating the activity and it could give you a false sense that your doing more than you are. If you wear a HRM with the vivosmart, it won't count your steps but it will log the calories burned. Calories in a cardio workout is what you want, not the steps. You want steps when your walking.

I hope I made sense.

dinsmoorc

Thanks. I mentioned that I put it in my pocket. I do that because the motion actually causes steps to register. They aren't 1:1 but some fraction for sure. About 45 minutes will generate about 3500-4500 steps. Due to that I've not been logging the activity. Does that change your opinion?