What do Fitbits actually do....

Soldato
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Was in the gym this morning with the Mrs and she said she wanted a Fitbit. Fair enough I thought but I asked her what for and she said to track her exercises and HR and calories.

Now I don't really know much about these kind of devices but we only do a small amount of cardio in the gym where I'm led to believe a Fitbit could give us HR read outs and steps taken. The rest of our time in the gym is split between various racks, free weights, weight machines etc so i'm unsure what, if anything, the Fitbit will be able to report back to her that is going to be of use.

Take today for example (excuse my ignorance if some of the exercise names are incorrect or don't make sense!)

5 min incline run to warm up.
4 sets sumo deadlifts
4 sets curtsy lunges
4 sets single leg glute raise
4 sets high and wide leg press
4 sets low and close leg press
4 sets leg press calf raise
3 sets bodyweight glute bridge raise
4 sets single leg hamstring curl

Exercises vary between shoulders, arms, chest etc over the course of the week.

What beneficial information would a Fitbit give her that is going to help if we take the above workout as a example?

I'm not against getting one for her but if it is going to be a glorified HR and step counter then i'd rather not. I'm guessing the device doesn't know when you're doing squats, or using a leg press so unsure what its going to other than count false steps during these kind of exercises.
 
My wife bought me one for Christmas last year but I got her to take it back.. My body and I knows how hard i'm exercising or not so i don't need a device to tell me so..

I use MapMyRun when i go running just to keep track of distance, time and pace but not heart rate. I've never used anything in the gym either. Do you really need a heart monitor to measure when you are doing calf raises, for example?

That's exactly my line of thinking on them.

She said one of the main reasons she wanted one was to know how many calories she was burning so she knew what her calorie deficit was. But am I right in thinking none of these kind of devices will give her that information (accurately)? Or is it more magical than I thought?
 
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