Fitness Tracker and Excercise - Worth it?

yasminara

Is there a fitness tracker you find worth it? Should I just estimate in your opinion? If so what do you recommend?

Also, I like boxing, do you think it's safe under wraps or any other vigorous exercise?

Thanks!!

ScubaSteve1962

I use a Polar V800, it's worth for me. When doing cardio, I like to keep a steady heart rate, and having the advantage of not having to hold on to any handles to see it on the equipment is a great advantage. There are some other options that are not as pricey, there's the Polar Loop, A300 and M400, they all require a chest strap to get your heart rate while exercising. I didn't find a need to know my heart rate all day. From some others post Garmin seems to be a good choice also.

jbibas

I have a Polar Fit 4 and I really like it for my work outs (I don't wear it throughout the day generally speaking, although I did in the beginning just to see how much I was burning on a normal day). I generally have a calorie burn goal when I work out, and the tracker on the machine is always off by at least 100 calories, plus it is hard to estimate calorie burn during a strength training work out (MFP's pre-set numbers for weights tend to be off for me as well)

Upstate_Dunadan

I have a Polar M400 (with a H7 chest band and bluetooth stride sensor) and I wear them anytime I exercise (strenght training at the gym, Crossfit, and cardio workouts). I like using the HR information to gauge my workout intensity. I get feedback (based on HR) what time of workout I did (i.e. Recovery Training, Basic Training, Tempo Training, Maximum Training, and a bunch more) with some basic information on the value of each. I also get a calorie burn, which depending on what I'm doing is more or less accurate. The stride sensor, which syncs to the watch, provides valuable information about your cadence, which until recently I had no idea about. Now that I do, focusing on my cadence I think has really helped with my running. On off days, as active recovery, I will sometimes do steady state (Zone 2 heart rate) cardio. I like doing this on the treadmill, any my heart rate monitor syncs right up with the Treadmill (you don't really need the watch for this to work). Zone 2 cardio is a very easy pace, and to keep in that zone (and not try to go harder if that's what you normally do) without a HR monitor can be tricky.

Lot's of other perks of my M400 - Activity tracking with steps (don't really care about those on their own, but they count towards hitting activity goals), sleep tracking, inactivity alerts, etc. I've posted much more detail in a thread recently titled M400 if you want more.

rachelpoore

Polar ft4. I only really care about how long my work out was, heart rate and calories burned. As for all the other info in the high tech watches. I know how well I slept when I wake up, counting steps I would become obsessed trying to get more and more and this app does all the tracking. I like to keep it simple to keep it going.

yasminara

Do you need to have the watch on your wrist if you have a chest band? (Boxing wraps!)

Nuke_64

yasminara wrote: »

Do you need to have the watch on your wrist if you have a chest band? (Boxing wraps!)

No, but I'm not sure if Boxing will be tracked very well using a HRM. HRM correlate heart rate to steady state cardio activities like running and cycling. Although a fitness tracker may have a "Boxing" mode, its accuracy is dubious.

yasminara

Oh thank you!! I suppose for that training I'll just go with the estimate!

VegasFit

I've been using the Vivosmart for about two months now. I really like it. I take boxing twice a week and I put the wrist unit on my tank top strap while wearing the chest strap since obviously it doesn't work under wraps and gloves. I actually tweeted Garmin about this and they responded it should still give a good reading and it has.

yasminara

Oh @VegasFit, thank you! I'll look at that one as well! I love boxing so that is great to know.

Timelordlady85

i wear the polar ft4 for my cardio and anything that my fitbit can't really track such as strength training and wear my fitbit all the time for steps and staying active at my job which has me on my feet the whole time.

raven56706

Upstate_Dunadan wrote: »

I have a Polar M400 (with a H7 chest band and bluetooth stride sensor) and I wear them anytime I exercise (strenght training at the gym, Crossfit, and cardio workouts). I like using the HR information to gauge my workout intensity. I get feedback (based on HR) what time of workout I did (i.e. Recovery Training, Basic Training, Tempo Training, Maximum Training, and a bunch more) with some basic information on the value of each. I also get a calorie burn, which depending on what I'm doing is more or less accurate. The stride sensor, which syncs to the watch, provides valuable information about your cadence, which until recently I had no idea about. Now that I do, focusing on my cadence I think has really helped with my running. On off days, as active recovery, I will sometimes do steady state (Zone 2 heart rate) cardio. I like doing this on the treadmill, any my heart rate monitor syncs right up with the Treadmill (you don't really need the watch for this to work). Zone 2 cardio is a very easy pace, and to keep in that zone (and not try to go harder if that's what you normally do) without a HR monitor can be tricky.

Lot's of other perks of my M400 - Activity tracking with steps (don't really care about those on their own, but they count towards hitting activity goals), sleep tracking, inactivity alerts, etc. I've posted much more detail in a thread recently titled M400 if you want more.

strength training isnt good for polar stuff. There is no way to measure it.

ScubaSteve1962

yasminara wrote: »

Do you need to have the watch on your wrist if you have a chest band? (Boxing wraps!)

If it's just activities during training, you can get a sensor that works with your phone the HT7, and as far as boxing, that all depends on what you are tracking, most associate HRM with calories, but you still can track your heart rate and see a chart to see what was going on while doing said training, just disregard the calories . So yes it will work with boxing, that is until someone hits you in the chest, then all bets are off. :-D The sensor for Polar is the HT7

ScubaSteve1962

raven56706 wrote: »

Upstate_Dunadan wrote: »

I have a Polar M400 (with a H7 chest band and bluetooth stride sensor) and I wear them anytime I exercise (strenght training at the gym, Crossfit, and cardio workouts). I like using the HR information to gauge my workout intensity. I get feedback (based on HR) what time of workout I did (i.e. Recovery Training, Basic Training, Tempo Training, Maximum Training, and a bunch more) with some basic information on the value of each. I also get a calorie burn, which depending on what I'm doing is more or less accurate. The stride sensor, which syncs to the watch, provides valuable information about your cadence, which until recently I had no idea about. Now that I do, focusing on my cadence I think has really helped with my running. On off days, as active recovery, I will sometimes do steady state (Zone 2 heart rate) cardio. I like doing this on the treadmill, any my heart rate monitor syncs right up with the Treadmill (you don't really need the watch for this to work). Zone 2 cardio is a very easy pace, and to keep in that zone (and not try to go harder if that's what you normally do) without a HR monitor can be tricky.

Lot's of other perks of my M400 - Activity tracking with steps (don't really care about those on their own, but they count towards hitting activity goals), sleep tracking, inactivity alerts, etc. I've posted much more detail in a thread recently titled M400 if you want more.

strength training isnt good for polar stuff. There is no way to measure it.

I wear mine when strength training all the time, it tracks my rest periods, my heart rate during training. Its all about what you want it to track.

raven56706

ScubaSteve1962 wrote: »

raven56706 wrote: »

Upstate_Dunadan wrote: »

I have a Polar M400 (with a H7 chest band and bluetooth stride sensor) and I wear them anytime I exercise (strenght training at the gym, Crossfit, and cardio workouts). I like using the HR information to gauge my workout intensity. I get feedback (based on HR) what time of workout I did (i.e. Recovery Training, Basic Training, Tempo Training, Maximum Training, and a bunch more) with some basic information on the value of each. I also get a calorie burn, which depending on what I'm doing is more or less accurate. The stride sensor, which syncs to the watch, provides valuable information about your cadence, which until recently I had no idea about. Now that I do, focusing on my cadence I think has really helped with my running. On off days, as active recovery, I will sometimes do steady state (Zone 2 heart rate) cardio. I like doing this on the treadmill, any my heart rate monitor syncs right up with the Treadmill (you don't really need the watch for this to work). Zone 2 cardio is a very easy pace, and to keep in that zone (and not try to go harder if that's what you normally do) without a HR monitor can be tricky.

Lot's of other perks of my M400 - Activity tracking with steps (don't really care about those on their own, but they count towards hitting activity goals), sleep tracking, inactivity alerts, etc. I've posted much more detail in a thread recently titled M400 if you want more.

strength training isnt good for polar stuff. There is no way to measure it.

I wear mine when strength training all the time, it tracks my rest periods, my heart rate during training. Its all about what you want it to track.

thats true it measures it all. I use to measure it during strength training but i was told here on MFP that it doesnt give you the correct calories burned. For strength training, there is no way to do it and is only good for cardio

ScubaSteve1962

raven56706 wrote: »

ScubaSteve1962 wrote: »

raven56706 wrote: »

Upstate_Dunadan wrote: »

I have a Polar M400 (with a H7 chest band and bluetooth stride sensor) and I wear them anytime I exercise (strenght training at the gym, Crossfit, and cardio workouts). I like using the HR information to gauge my workout intensity. I get feedback (based on HR) what time of workout I did (i.e. Recovery Training, Basic Training, Tempo Training, Maximum Training, and a bunch more) with some basic information on the value of each. I also get a calorie burn, which depending on what I'm doing is more or less accurate. The stride sensor, which syncs to the watch, provides valuable information about your cadence, which until recently I had no idea about. Now that I do, focusing on my cadence I think has really helped with my running. On off days, as active recovery, I will sometimes do steady state (Zone 2 heart rate) cardio. I like doing this on the treadmill, any my heart rate monitor syncs right up with the Treadmill (you don't really need the watch for this to work). Zone 2 cardio is a very easy pace, and to keep in that zone (and not try to go harder if that's what you normally do) without a HR monitor can be tricky.

Lot's of other perks of my M400 - Activity tracking with steps (don't really care about those on their own, but they count towards hitting activity goals), sleep tracking, inactivity alerts, etc. I've posted much more detail in a thread recently titled M400 if you want more.

strength training isnt good for polar stuff. There is no way to measure it.

I wear mine when strength training all the time, it tracks my rest periods, my heart rate during training. Its all about what you want it to track.

thats true it measures it all. I use to measure it during strength training but i was told here on MFP that it doesnt give you the correct calories burned. For strength training, there is no way to do it and is only good for cardio

I have the V800 and I've notice that the calories burned during the strength training profile don't show up for MFP because they are not that much more than my BMR. If you have the one of the ones that doesn't have profiles unless you're trying to eat every calorie back, it shouldn't make that much of a difference.

Upstate_Dunadan

thats true it measures it all. I use to measure it during strength training but i was told here on MFP that it doesnt give you the correct calories burned. For strength training, there is no way to do it and is only good for cardio

The actual calorie burn will probably be somewhere between what MFP says and what your watch says. For example, if you rest a lot between sets and exercises, you're probably closer to what MFP says. If you're like me and rest very little between sets, do lots of super-sets (some with 2-3 minute jump rope sessions x 4 sets) or throw in a cardio finisher at the end (like HIIT on the Treadmill or Treadmill Hills) then the overall number will be closer to what your HRM says.

If you only use the calorie burn to gauge exercise intensity, don't use it to set your daily calorie goals (instead using TDEE) then it doesn't really matter if it's not accurate, as that same level of inaccuracy will be present in all your workouts, thus comparisons can be made between workouts of similar type.

yasminara

@ScubaSteve1962 I just hit a bag so I think I'm okay with the worry of a chest strap being ruined! I think that's actually good advice to get that if anything

Also...Thanks @upstate_dunadan that's good to know if it's even worth investing!

Upstate_Dunadan

With regards to boxing. If you are wearing a HR chest strap, and have it synced to your watch, you can always leave your watch off but nearby. So long as you're not too far from your watch and you lose the Bluetooth signal, they will stay connected. It doesn't have to be on your wrist to work.