You Can Track Rest Time With Apple Watch Segments
When you lift weights, you usually want to do a set of the exercise, rest for a minute or two, and then do another one. While you can appreciate this by feel (just go when you feel ready), a timer can be helpful. It turns out that the Apple Watch’s Segments feature can do this with a simple double-tap.
Let’s talk about rest. The optimal rest time depends on the type of training. If you are doing light exercises that should follow one another quickly, you can rest between sets for only 30 seconds. On the other hand, if you’re lifting a lot of weight, you might want to wait 3-5 minutes between sets (maybe even a little more before attempting a PR).
If you are impatient, you may be tempted to take the next set too soon. Setting the timer to the minimum (say two minutes) can remind you to sit back down if that’s not enough. Or maybe you need the opposite: a timer that you can use to say, oh, it’s already been five minutes – time to get back to work.
How to Use Apple Watch Segments to Calculate Rest Time
The Segments feature in the Apple Watch is an underused gem, as the r/AppleWatchFitness subreddit always reminds me of. I recently came across u/Cultural_Rock6281 ‘s advice on using segments for temporary breaks , and it turned out to be a good one. This of course requires you to use the Workout app and start your workout when you start your actual workout, but once you start you just double-tap the screen to start a new segment.
Your overall workout timer will continue to run, but then if you’ve set up the views correctly, you’ll also get a segment timer that starts from zero when you double-tap. This is most commonly used to mark sections of a running workout, such as marking a segment every time you complete a lap on a track, but it will also be useful for timing your sets.
To set a rest timer, double-tap the screen before or after each exercise. (I recommend doing this early, as you usually end up in such a mood that you might forget to start the timer.)
But first, you must make sure your clock is set to show segment time. Here’s how to enable this view:
- Select the type of workout you want to do (perhaps traditional strength training).
- Click the button with three dots
- Click the pencil icon on an “open” workout (or whatever you plan to do)
- Click “workout types” and then “change views.”
- Enable one of the views that includes the segment timer, such as Metrics 2.
- Start your workout.
- Turn the crown to access the segment timer view.
And then when you run:
- When you start your workout, double-tap to start a new segment.
- Look at your wrist when you think it’s time to go again. (Remember that the exercise itself probably took about 30 seconds, so it would say 2:30 when you rested for two minutes.)
- Ready? Double tap to start a new segment and start your workout.
If you’re really up to date, you can start new segments as you start and end the exercise. Or you may prefer to start a segment only when you have completed the exercise and started your rest period. your call. (To learn more about what you can do with Apple Watch segments, check out our guide here .)