this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2025
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Fitness and Health

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Give each other support and share their programs, progress and tips. Cardio or lifting. Sports or gymnastics we are all on a journey to improve.

Also we have heaps of tech that help us track our fitness metrics, so feel free to discuss the tools you use.

Everyone has a bad day now and then, just try again.

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Relevance of step counting? (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 2 weeks ago by milan@discuss.tchncs.de to c/fitness@lemmy.ml
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Hi there, for a few months now i own a treadmill for my desk. It does alot for my overall wellbeing, but reliably counting steps there is quite a challenge.

One thing that seems to come close is my old iPhone, but as climate in this room is getting hotter as spring approaches, this is not a fun solution. (phone will annoy in lighter pants)

Things that heavily over and undercount include:

  • Garmin HRM Pro (count way too low)
  • Fenix 3HR in pants (both directions depending on chosen pants and pockets)
  • Fenix 3HR on ankle (way too low)
  • Stryd Pod (oh well that exposes no steps at all, darn it)

I read from time to time how at least Apple finds step counting and goals to be a bad and lowprio metric. I see that at least the Athlytic app does not use steps but rather the heart for calculation of target exertion and reached exertion (eventho i wonder sonetimes if exertion is too high on the treadmill).

This leaves me with the question if i should just ignore that a stepcount exists at all. I wont be filling any rings while regularily wearing the Apple Watch at all anyway.

Is there some important metric i might be missing that would suffer?

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[–] InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago

IMHO, the important thing is the moving in itself.

If the step counting helps to motivate you, then by all means ignore this comment, it might be fine to keep counting them for you.
Whatever gets you moving is good.

Ultimately though, push yourself, not the metrics..?
YMMV, I tend to avoid most of the fitness technobabble because every other moment of my day deeply involves in tech in some way or another and physical exercise is my little haven away from it. If it helps you, by all means.

In the context of a fitness app, it's usually the exertion part of exercise that people wanna map, so measuring heart rate instead of steps can make more sense.
Using a desk treadmill, assuming you're also working at the same time, I imagine you're not full-on running, breaking into a sweat and a fitness app might under-recognize the exercise.
That doesn't mean this exercise isn't good for you, it's just more of an endurance thing than a high intensity one like the app is designed to measure.

As for metrics, maybe the treadmill has a "distance" traveled metrics of some kind?
That might be more relevant or motivating than step count.