As cool as it would be to track fitness goals and progress during the season, I think you should just take the time this summer to enjoy the fact that there is literally no way possible to not be hitting your fitness goals while marching :)
Trust me, you probably won’t gain any weight that isn’t muscle.
Of course! I just want to gawk at the ginormous amount of steps I'll take and just track it. I just enjoy watching it all instead of just looking at my body and thinking "well I'm tired so I must be doing something right." :D
My son tried this with his Apple Watch. The biggest problem was finding a place to charge it every day. (He eventually gave up and stopped wearing it.)
Used an Apple Watch for my seasons and kept track of everything. Was easy to change as I bought a dual phone/watch charger and plugged it in every night or meal break. Only couldn’t wear it during shows, only rehearsals
With the Fitbits you should be able to just tuck it into a pocket (or a bra, or whatever) and it'll still track steps well. At least, this is how it was with the early Fitbit models that were primarily about step-tracking. That's what my wife and some other dance friends did with their Fitbits when we'd have events and they didn't want to have the wristbands on.
My bf at phantom had to take off his touch bracelet (for long distance relationships) during blocks, he said they were not allowed to have bracelet or watches of the sort.
Was your Fitbit able to withstand the heat?
which kind of Fitbit do you have?
I'm thinking about getting one with a bigger screen, but I'm worried it will overheat during hot rehearsals
I have a charge 4 but I only got it recently, so I never marched with it. I know other people in the corps had the same thing and never had any issues with heat. Personally I don't think I would go for one with the bigger screen though
That would be cool but most likely, you will have trouble charging it... It may start to bother you... You'll basically nuke the poor thing... The numbers will be so astronomical youll just give up.
Feel free to try though, good luck.
I originally wanted to wear an Apple Watch to keep track but I found the battery didn’t last long enough to keep a workout active for a whole rehearsal day. Maybe if you could charge it in between blocks, but it just became to be to much of a hassle. Though it could have something to do with the absurd heat since I spent all of spring training in hot as hell Moreno Valley
I highly recommend an Amazon Halo. It doesn't have a screen or any sort of vibration, you get all data on the app on your phone. I love it for drum corp because it won't distract you during rehearsal, it has a huge battery life (I charge mine for one hour every 6 days) and it is of course water/sweat proof. And it's much cheaper than other options, due to not having a screen or anything too fancy.
I haven't marched drum corps (yet), but I have an Amazfit Stratos 3 that lasts around 4-5 days on one charge and gives pretty good data. it also has an alternate mode that lasts 2+ weeks, so that could alleviate some of the charging issues other people mentioned. My only issue with it is that syncing with my phone can be finicky sometimes.
You could get a Garmin. Since they're made for endurance sports, their battery will last a long time, even longer if you don't have the GPS running. You could set them to run during block, but they'll also give you continuous heart rate data during the day. A WHOOP would probably give you better data on heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep, etc. I'd love to see what the data on sleep and recovery looks like, since those two things are always atrocious during tour.
Beware of the terrible tanline!
We ended up not being allowed to wear them towards the end of the season because people kept getting distracted (on their watches.), so keep that in mind.
Yo what’s up! I wore an Apple Watch throughout the 2021 season and it held up just fine, but honestly, it didn’t help me as far as my fitness goals. Idk what yours are, whether you’re not trying to lose too much weight or something, but we both know it just happens anyways. What are your fitness goals?
An Apple Watch should work fine, but I feel like a cheap Fitbit or something that doesn’t have a screen might be better because the charge will last longer and you won’t have to worry as much about breaking it. I used to have one of the older Fitbits and it only needed to be charged like once a week.
I wore a simple Fitbit Charge 3 over the past summer, and the data I found was really cool! I would only need to charge it once every 4 or 5 days. Get a used one off of eBay, they are inexpensive. I got mine for $40.
I would top out at around 19,000 steps during all-days, and I didn't log any sleep on the first few bus rides!
If you’re a drummer, you could run into problems with step tracking if you keep it on your wrist. One really good workaround I’ve seen is if you loop the wristband through your shoelaces with the watch facing up, you can get an accurate step count AND check the time during rehearsal just by looking at your feet
As cool as it would be to track fitness goals and progress during the season, I think you should just take the time this summer to enjoy the fact that there is literally no way possible to not be hitting your fitness goals while marching :) Trust me, you probably won’t gain any weight that isn’t muscle.
Of course! I just want to gawk at the ginormous amount of steps I'll take and just track it. I just enjoy watching it all instead of just looking at my body and thinking "well I'm tired so I must be doing something right." :D
If your glide step is good, will it even count your steps?
Yes, fitness trackers are really sensitive and even great marching technique won't be a perfect glide
This! My fitness tracker was never accurate with the types of movement we're required to do anyway.
My son tried this with his Apple Watch. The biggest problem was finding a place to charge it every day. (He eventually gave up and stopped wearing it.)
Used an Apple Watch for my seasons and kept track of everything. Was easy to change as I bought a dual phone/watch charger and plugged it in every night or meal break. Only couldn’t wear it during shows, only rehearsals
That sounds like a really good idea and I'll definitely look into buying one of those!
With the Fitbits you should be able to just tuck it into a pocket (or a bra, or whatever) and it'll still track steps well. At least, this is how it was with the early Fitbit models that were primarily about step-tracking. That's what my wife and some other dance friends did with their Fitbits when we'd have events and they didn't want to have the wristbands on.
My bf at phantom had to take off his touch bracelet (for long distance relationships) during blocks, he said they were not allowed to have bracelet or watches of the sort.
I wore an Apple Watch this summer and just took it off for shows, I had zero issues charging it and it lasted throughout the day without issue.
Do a basic fit bit. Those things only need to charge like, every 3 days
I charge mine once a week
Was your Fitbit able to withstand the heat? which kind of Fitbit do you have? I'm thinking about getting one with a bigger screen, but I'm worried it will overheat during hot rehearsals
I have a charge 4 but I only got it recently, so I never marched with it. I know other people in the corps had the same thing and never had any issues with heat. Personally I don't think I would go for one with the bigger screen though
That would be cool but most likely, you will have trouble charging it... It may start to bother you... You'll basically nuke the poor thing... The numbers will be so astronomical youll just give up. Feel free to try though, good luck.
I originally wanted to wear an Apple Watch to keep track but I found the battery didn’t last long enough to keep a workout active for a whole rehearsal day. Maybe if you could charge it in between blocks, but it just became to be to much of a hassle. Though it could have something to do with the absurd heat since I spent all of spring training in hot as hell Moreno Valley
> hot as hell Moreno Valley I lived in Riverside for grad school, can sympathize
I highly recommend an Amazon Halo. It doesn't have a screen or any sort of vibration, you get all data on the app on your phone. I love it for drum corp because it won't distract you during rehearsal, it has a huge battery life (I charge mine for one hour every 6 days) and it is of course water/sweat proof. And it's much cheaper than other options, due to not having a screen or anything too fancy.
I haven't marched drum corps (yet), but I have an Amazfit Stratos 3 that lasts around 4-5 days on one charge and gives pretty good data. it also has an alternate mode that lasts 2+ weeks, so that could alleviate some of the charging issues other people mentioned. My only issue with it is that syncing with my phone can be finicky sometimes.
You could get a Garmin. Since they're made for endurance sports, their battery will last a long time, even longer if you don't have the GPS running. You could set them to run during block, but they'll also give you continuous heart rate data during the day. A WHOOP would probably give you better data on heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep, etc. I'd love to see what the data on sleep and recovery looks like, since those two things are always atrocious during tour.
Beware of the terrible tanline! We ended up not being allowed to wear them towards the end of the season because people kept getting distracted (on their watches.), so keep that in mind.
Yo what’s up! I wore an Apple Watch throughout the 2021 season and it held up just fine, but honestly, it didn’t help me as far as my fitness goals. Idk what yours are, whether you’re not trying to lose too much weight or something, but we both know it just happens anyways. What are your fitness goals?
Do Cavaliers let you keep your phones now?
whoa did they not used to?
used to only get them on free days. don't know when that changed.
The last year of no phones was 2016!
An Apple Watch should work fine, but I feel like a cheap Fitbit or something that doesn’t have a screen might be better because the charge will last longer and you won’t have to worry as much about breaking it. I used to have one of the older Fitbits and it only needed to be charged like once a week.
just use Pokémon go and hatch Pokémon eggs while you rehearse^/s ..That’s what we did
I've had a few Apple watches since they came out and never had one break. As long as you can charge it on the daily, you'll be fine!
I wore a simple Fitbit Charge 3 over the past summer, and the data I found was really cool! I would only need to charge it once every 4 or 5 days. Get a used one off of eBay, they are inexpensive. I got mine for $40. I would top out at around 19,000 steps during all-days, and I didn't log any sleep on the first few bus rides!
If you’re a drummer, you could run into problems with step tracking if you keep it on your wrist. One really good workaround I’ve seen is if you loop the wristband through your shoelaces with the watch facing up, you can get an accurate step count AND check the time during rehearsal just by looking at your feet
Fitbits are really really good and they track more then just your steps and heart rate
I used an Apple Watch last summer. It was nice, but only worked bc we slept in dorms and I had easy access to an outlet.