FitBit

Starting where I am

March 15, 2022

I love the proverb: If there’s somewhere you need to be, you need to start walking. And the only place where I can start walking? …is right where I am now.

I’ve written a smattering of stuff about my training over the years. Once, in college, (age: 20) I was briefly in shape thanks to several semesters’ of effort put into Taekwondo. But in all that time since, I’ve always done well when someone else tells me what to do. “Do this today at this class. Come back for more.” I’ve also done well following the pack. There was an epoch where I was riding my mountain bike excessively, but I really got in shape when I started meeting up with others and trying to keep-in-sight people much better than me.

Last year, as the sun disappeared in a Pennsylvania grey winter, I began plotting a way to take what I had experienced when a seriously dedicated friend of mine had been planning my training, and turn it into something I could use in a self-directed fashion. I’m not a professional athlete and I don’t want to train like one. And on the other hand, simply “living my life” being active when I find those opportunities arising is not enough. I need some planning. So I’m working on that. Today, I’m just talking about the first piece of my plan: Tracking activity.

I have an older FitBit. It works fine, it’s not fancy-schmancy… but critically, I refuse to pay them monthly for extra bells-n-whistles. So this tracking sheet lets me take some notes about what I did each day, and to simply copy down the totals of time from the 4 zones that that FitBit tracks. Simply having the tracking system encourages me to be more mindful about activity—for example, it’s rather nice today, and I’ve a run in mind for later this afternoon.

The next piece of the puzzle is to begin working in activities that are more strenght-training in nature. A QM session, (there is one there on Tuesday,) some simple free-weight exercises, some bouldering, etc..

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Targeted-heart-rate workouts

June 24, 2015

(Part 26 of 72 in series, My Journey)

A while back I mentioned I’ve been experimenting with a FitBit HR and an intentional, designed, fitness program. I’ve been playing with this more. I originally didn’t like that I couldn’t just redefine all the zones to the HRs that we’re targeting.

Most, tradition/common workout programs I’ve seen have just 3 heart rate (HR) zones based on a maximum HR which is simply computed based on your age. The plan I’m working with from Mike, is significantly more complex. (Details for another post I suppose.) Anyway, the plan calls for very specific workouts, for example: “17 minutes in Z1”.

I noticed on day one, that the FitBit only has one “custom zone” that you can configure. So, I’ve begun manually setting the “custom zone” to the goal HR before some of the workouts. Once I plug in the specific Z1 lower/upper numbers, I can then set off on the workout.

On the device, there is an icon-based display that shows you quickly if you’re below/in/above the target zone. Normally, the icons refer to one of the FitBit’s built-in zones. But it turns out that if you set a custom zone, then the icon status is for your custom zone. Ok, now THAT’S useful!

The above screen grab is from a morning run where I had the custom zone set to my specific Z1 values. The graph shows the FitBit’s default zones (blue/”under”, yellow/”fat burn”, orange/”cardio”) and it overlays my custom zone as the hatched band. The bar graph even adds a value for the time in the custom zone.

In this example I set out to perform, after warming up, for 17 minutes in Z1. …and BAM! 16 minutes in Z1 by it’s measure. Now that’s a targeted workout.

Aside: The tail end of the graph was a strong-run-out, 1/4 mile. My opinion is that the FitBit sucks at picking up highend HR. Either that, or I’m a machine, and can run an 8 minute mile pace at a 151HR. …and it’s not the latter of those two.

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