Using Fitstar on the Fitbit Blaze

When Fitbit purchased the fitness app developer Fitstar, they promised us that Fitbit and Fitstar would become fast friends. A little over a year later, Fitbit's newest model - the Fitbit Blaze - has Fitstar built-in.

What is Fitstar?

Fitstar describes itself as a personal trainer in your pocket. Fitstar is a separate app you pay a monthly subscription to, in order to get access to their workouts, coaching, and fitness plans.

The idea behind Fitstar is a simple one, have a multitude of short workout programs that you are capable of doing in your own home without the use of any expensive equipment. Each program has multiple exercises you do in quick succession in order to workout specific muscle groups or with specific types of exercises.

You can get a Fitstar Basic account for free. However, that only gives you access to a few select workout plans that they offer and only lets you do two workouts every week.

What does this have to do with Fitbit?

Good question. The short answer is Fitstar and Fitbit are completely compatible. So if you have both the Fitstar and the Fitbit app on your phone, Fitstar workouts will log on your Fitbit dashboard as exercise. However, even if you don't have a Fitstar account, you can do some of the Fitstar workouts whenever you want with your Fitbit Blaze.

How does Fitstar work on the Fitbit Blaze?

The Fitbit Blaze has three Fitstar workouts built-in to the device.

• Warm it Up
• 7 Minute Workout
• 10 Minute Abs

Each one of the workout programs leads you through a series of exercises, with little animations on the Fitbit's screen to let you know what is coming up next. You only do each exercise for 30-60 secs depending on what it tells you, with quick 7-10 second breaks in between.

At the end of each workout your Fitbit Blaze will give you a breakdown of your total time, calories burned, average heart rate and your max heart rate. The calories burned and the heart rate information will be updated to your dashboard the next time your Blaze syncs with the Fitbit app. However, one thing that seemed to be oddly missing from the dashboard after completing the Fitstar workouts, was counting the time as active minutes. This seems like an oversight on Fitbit's part, but it does show up in your exercise statistics so all is not lost.

We will give you a breakdown of what is included each Fitstar workout on the Blaze.

This workout program is meant to warm you up before continuing on to a more intense workout. The program is about eight minutes long and in our experience will raise your heart rate a little to start get that blood pumping. The exercises included in this program are as follows:

• Cat and cows
• Reverse shoulder rolls
• Inchworms
• Alternating knee raises
• Open hip sqauts
• Lunging Calf Stretches
• Standing Pigeons
• Toy Soliders

This is an overall body workout that - much like it name suggests - takes seven minutes to complete. The idea is to do each exercise as hard as you can in the time allotted. Most of the exercises have a time limit of 30-45 seconds in this one. The exercises included in this program are as follows:

• Jumping Jacks
• Wall squat hold
• Pushups
• Crunches
• Bench dips
• Elbow plank
• High kness
• Lunges
• Side plank pushups
• Side plank (left)
• Side plank (right)

This is meant to blast your core into shape and like its name suggests it only takes 10 minutes. Much like the 7 Minute Workout, the exercises are supposed to be done as hard as you can go for the of 30-60 seconds allotted for each one. The exercises included in this program are as follows:

• Bicycle Kicks
• Elbow plank
• Straight leg lifts
• Russian twists
• Mountain climbers
• Rest
• Superman planks
• Side plank (left)
• Windshield wipers
• Side plank (right)
• Bicycle kicks
• Mountain climbers

Are you using Fitstar? If so, let me know how you like it. If not, what would it take for you to start?