How to Track Your Workouts With AppleWatch
However you exercise, you may eventually reach the point where you want to track them so that you know how many calories you burn, how far you travel, and what heart rate you gain during exercise. All of this is very easy to follow if you have an Apple Watch.
Of course, you can track your workouts with other devices. Dedicated activity trackers such as those from Fitbit and Garmin, as well as smartwatches from Samsung and LG, can track your fitness activities. If you have an Android phone, an Android Wear watch may be your best bet as it can work in conjunction with the watch to store and display exercise data. But if you have an iPhone, the Apple Watch is your natural partner as it sends your data directly to the Activity and Health apps on your phone, where you can view information and track your progress.
With your watch, you can view and record statistics for a variety of workouts, such as running, cycling, elliptical trainer, rowing and swimming ( Apple Watch Series 2 and 3 can handle water while swimming ; alas, Series 1 cannot). You can check your heart rate, calories, distance and elapsed time during and after each exercise. Then, through your iPhone, you can view historical data about your workouts. Here’s how to get the most out of your new gadget:
Initial installation
To get started, update your Apple Watch to watchOS 4.0 or later if you haven’t already. Make sure your iPhone is already running iOS 11 or higher. On your phone, open the Watch app. Click General and then Software Update. If the Watch app says you have watchOS 4.0 or higher, then you’re in business. If not, let the update download and install on your watch.
It’s time to hop onto your favorite machine or get ready for a healthy walk or jog. On your watch, tap the Workout app icon (with a running figure). Swipe down on the screen until you find the workout you want to do. Apple Watch offers workouts for indoor and outdoor walking, indoor and outdoor running, indoor and outdoor cycling, elliptical trainer, rower, stepper, swimming, and high-intensity interval training.
If you don’t see your favorite workout listed, you can select the Other entry, which calculates your heart rate and calories burned based on your physical activity. After you are done, you can give this workout a specific name to use again in the future. If you want to track any workout without setting a specific goal, just tap on the workout name. If you want to set a goal for a specific number of calories, time, or distance, tap the three green circles icon, select a goal, set the desired number, and then tap Start.
From now on, start a workout of your choice and your watch will count down and start tracking. If you look at the watch while exercising, you will notice that it displays metrics such as elapsed time, active calories (calories burned during exercise), total calories (active calories burned plus calories your body normally consumes) and your pulse. Once you’ve set a goal, the watch will tell you when you reach it. When you’re done exercising, swipe right on the watch screen and tap End.
The Workout app then displays a screen that displays statistics for the entire workout. Swipe down on the screen to view the numbers for your recorded metrics, including total time, calories burned, average heart rate, and your heart rate range. Tap Done to record your exercise.
Additional features to keep you motivated
These are the basics, but you can do more than manually start and record each workout. Want to train with a more hands-on experience? Ask Siri to start your workout. Say, “Hey Siri, start your walk outdoors,” or “Hey Siri, start your 10-minute walk indoors,” or “Hey Siri, start your 90 calorie elliptical trainer.” Siri starts training. When you’re done, just tell Siri to stop a specific workout. A few more options that you can customize according to your preference:
- You can track successive workouts and get a comprehensive summary at the end. Start your first workout. Swipe right on the clock screen before you finish. Click on the “New” button. Start your second workout. Before you’re done, swipe right again, tap New, and start your third workout. Continue this process until you have completed all workouts. When you’re done, stop recording your last workout. Your watch then displays statistics for each workout, as well as all of your workouts together.
- Need motivation to motivate you to exercise? Your Apple Watch also offers Smart Learning. This feature displays training tips and suggestions, presents monthly challenges, congratulates you on your accomplishments, and rewards you with virtual trophies when you reach your activity goals.
- Music can be another motivator. You can set your watch to automatically adjust your favorite playlist during your workout. On your iPhone, open the Apple Watch app. Click on the “My Watch” tab at the bottom of the screen. Swipe down and tap the Workout app. Click on the entry for the workout playlist and select a specific playlist. This playlist will now automatically start when you start a workout. Remember that you need a Bluetooth headset or speaker to listen to music.
Tracking your data
Now, let’s say you want to view your recent workout data. On your watch, tap the Activity icon (with concentric colored rings in a circle). The application shows your activity for the current day in the form of rings in a circle, as well as in the form of separate diagrams. The red movement chart displays the calories you have burned since the start of the day. The green exercise table shows how much time you spent exercising. And the blue stand chart indicates the number of hours you spent on your feet today. The app shows the number you’ve achieved for each of these three points, as well as your goal, or a target number that Apple Watch automatically sets based on your average daily value for each activity. The goal is to close the ring for each action, which means that you have achieved or exceeded your goal.
In addition to exercising while the watch is on your wrist, the app constantly tracks your physical activity and stress, just like Fitbit. So if you go for a walk, swim, ride a bike or row a boat, the app will automatically record your activity and add it to your statistics, even if you don’t start a specific workout.
To view your recent physical activity history, tap from the Activity app screen on your watch. Click on the Weekly Summary icon and you can see how you are doing this week. But you can travel much further in time.
Go to your iPhone and open the Activity app. The application shows your activity for the current day. Swipe right to go back to each previous day, where you can see all your daily activity and workout data. Swipe down on the screen to see the workouts you completed that day. Tap on a specific workout to view all of its data, including calories burned, distance, time, heart rate, and pace. You can travel as far as you used to use your watch for both training and general physical activity.
Too Much Data? You can filter the information to show only a specific workout. In the Activity app on your phone, tap the Workouts icon at the bottom of the screen. Click on the All Workouts link in the upper right corner and change the setting for a specific workout, such as Rowing, Elliptical Trainer, or Running. You can now swipe down and then right to view stats for that workout only.
Configuring data collection
To customize the metrics that AppleWatch records during a workout, first open the Watch app on your iPhone. On the My Watch screen, tap the Workout app and then tap View Workout. Tap a specific type of exercise, such as walking outdoors, running indoors, or swimming in a pool. Then click “Change”. You can now remove any existing metric, such as duration or distance, and add another metric, such as average pace or total calories. You can record up to five metrics for each workout.
Another option to keep in mind is that you can change the daily goal for the Move ring if you want to burn more (or less) calories. Tap on the Activity app screen on the watch. Click on the icon to change the target of the move. Click on the “+” sign to increase the number of calories, or “-” to decrease it. Tap Refresh.
Enabling the Health app
On your iPhone, the Health app can also provide information about your workouts. Click on the Health app to open it. The Today screen shows how much exercise and activity you did in a day, but with a greater breakdown than the Activity app. View your active energy (the calories you burn during activity), rest energy (the number of calories you burn at rest), the number of steps you take, the distance you walked when walking and running, the number of hours you stand, the number of floors you climbed, the number of minutes you spent exercising, and the number of minutes you spent on your specific workouts. The Health app also displays your heart rate data, including your average rate, resting rate, and walking speed.
As with the Activity app, you can swipe right in the Health app to go back in time and view statistics for each previous day. Tap on a specific item such as active energy, steps, or waiting hours to view your averages for the day, week, month, or year.
Finally, you can also track your workouts and activity using the many third-party apps available for your Apple Watch. Apps such as Nike + Run Club , Strava , Runkeeper , Gymatic Workout Tracker and Warm Up ++ can track and record your fitness routines. Information collected by these third party apps is also sent to the Activity app and the Health app (with your permission). You can always try these and other apps to see if you like them. But if you want your watch to track your fitness right away, the built-in Workout app is a free, simple and effective option.