Product Review: FitBit Surge

Mayfield (OH) Country Club, No. 2

I walked 18 holes at Mayfield (OH) Country Club with my FitBit Surge - the maiden voyage for the golf feature on the activity tracking device. The results were both interesting and encouraging.

FitBit Surge Golf Feature

My FitBit came pre-programmed with several daily goals, including 10,000 steps and 10 flights (of stairs). The number of flights is determined by elevation increase. Only once have I had to log “extra” steps at the end of the day or take the stairs for no reason to reach those numbers. This tells me that I lead a fairly active life and should probably raise one, if not both, of these goals.

Teeing off before 9 a.m., I had probably reached both of the aforementioned goals prior to 11 a.m. By the end of the round, I had accumulated 14,291 steps and climbed the equivalent of 44 flights of stairs (440 feet of elevation gain).

As you can imagine, the information didn’t end there. Thanks to today’s technology, I also know that my average heart rate was 96 beats per minute and I topped out at 130 bpm (twice). No doubt the peaks came while climbing the hill to No. 9 tee and the hill following my tee shot on No. 15.

Those two hills combined (carrying 22 lbs. in equipment) gave me one minute in the cardio zone, while the rest of the round had me in the fat-burning zone for 188 minutes. In all, I burned 1,370 calories - a little more than 7 calories per minute.

In comparison, today I ran on the treadmill for 16 minutes at 6.5 mph. According to my FitBit, that session burned 215 calories (13 per minute) and resulted in 2,701 steps. My average heart rate was 157 bpm with a momentary ceiling of 170 bpm. Of the 16 minutes, 14 were spent at the peak zone, with 1 minute in the both the cardio and fat burn zones.

All in all, I’d rather be golfing. That said, a quick trip to the gym is much easier to fit into my day than 4 hours on the course. Nice to know that the upcoming winter months here in the Midwest won’t have to drain my fitness level.

For more information, check out www.fitbit.com.