The Apple Watch has become ubiquitous for activity tracking, but a significant portion of its health and fitness capabilities remain underutilized. Beyond simply closing the activity rings, the device offers a wealth of features designed to enhance training flexibility, improve recovery, and provide more insightful data. This article explores settings, built-in tools, and strategies to help users maximize their workouts and health tracking experience.
Giving Your Rings a Rest Day
The Fitness app’s core functionality revolves around the three activity rings – Move, Exercise, and Stand. While many users diligently adjust their daily goals, fewer are aware of the ability to vary these targets by day. Apple Watch now allows users to schedule different ring targets throughout the week, including lower goals on designated rest days. Goals can also be temporarily adjusted for a single day, a useful feature when traveling or experiencing changes in routine. These options are accessible within the Fitness app, under the Activity Rings view and goal controls.
Beyond the Wrist: Alternative Wearing Positions
Although designed for wrist-worn use, the Apple Watch can still accurately track movement when worn in alternative positions. Certain workouts, such as weightlifting with wrist wraps or kettlebell training, can make wrist placement uncomfortable or impractical. In these scenarios, wearing the watch on the upper arm or ankle can improve comfort and step detection. While this may necessitate a longer strap, tracking accuracy generally remains consistent.
Streamlining Workout Access with List View
The default app layout on the Apple Watch utilizes a clustered grid, which can be cumbersome to navigate during physical activity. Switching to List View presents apps in an alphabetical list with clear labels, making them significantly easier to access mid-workout. This option is found at the bottom of the app launcher after pressing the Digital Crown.
Crafting Custom Interval Workouts
The Workout app provides robust support for custom workouts with structured intervals. Each workout type offers a configuration option allowing users to define timed intervals, rest periods, or fixed-length sessions. While setup can be performed directly on the watch, configuring workouts via the iPhone is generally faster and more convenient.
Racing Against Yourself: Route Comparisons
For runners and cyclists who frequently repeat the same routes, Apple Watch offers a compelling feature: race comparisons. After completing a route multiple times, users can initiate a “race” against their previous or best performance. During the workout, the watch displays real-time feedback indicating whether the current pace is ahead of or behind the comparison effort.
Tracking Workouts Without the Watch
Recent iOS updates have introduced the ability to record workouts directly from the iPhone, even without wearing the Apple Watch. Outdoor activities leverage the phone’s GPS for accurate tracking, while indoor workouts are monitored by time. Pairing an external heart-rate sensor with the phone allows for the inclusion of heart-rate data, ensuring comprehensive tracking even without the watch present. These workouts contribute to overall training metrics.
Connecting to Gym Equipment via GymKit
Indoor running accuracy can be significantly improved by directly connecting the Apple Watch to compatible gym equipment. Many commercial treadmills support GymKit, enabling seamless synchronization of speed and distance data with the watch. This feature must be enabled within the watch’s Workout settings. When supported equipment is detected, the watch pairs by simply tapping it against the machine’s reader.
Brief Charging Before Sleep for Consistent Tracking
Sleep tracking requires the watch to be worn overnight, and newer models charge rapidly enough that short charging sessions are often sufficient. A few minutes on the charger before bed can provide enough power for overnight tracking, facilitating consistent sleep data collection without disrupting daily routines.
The “Other” Workout: Capturing Unrecognized Activity
Apple’s predefined workout types don’t encompass all physical activities. Tasks like yard work, heavy lifting, farm labor, or snow shoveling can be physically demanding yet barely register on the Exercise ring due to irregular movement. Starting an “Other” workout in the Workout app forces continuous heart-rate tracking and logs the time as active exercise, rather than relying on motion estimates. This is particularly useful for activities that elevate your heart rate without significant movement, ensuring a more accurate reflection of your overall exertion.
Focusing on Key Metrics with Favorites in the Health App
The Health app tracks a vast amount of data, often exceeding what most users can realistically interpret. To avoid information overload, it’s beneficial to focus on a small set of metrics that reflect your individual health trends. Utilizing the Favorites feature in the Health app allows you to highlight essential data points such as resting heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), sleep duration, cardio fitness (VO? max), weight, or body fat percentage (if using a smart scale). Favorited metrics appear prominently on the main Summary screen, transforming the Health app into a concise and readable dashboard.
