Activity and Workouts on Apple Watch: Ultimate guide

How do you get the most out of the Activity and Workout apps on the Apple Watch? With this ultimate guide!

Out of the box, your Apple Watch can count your calories and steps, track your workouts, and even monitor your overall activity throughout the day. Whether your goal is losing weight, doing more cardio, monitoring your health for medical reasons, or living a healthier life, the Apple Watch and its built-in Activity and Workout apps can help you out.

Getting started with Activity on Apple Watch

It's important to understand how the Apple Watch looks at health and fitness. Instead of counting steps or flights of stairs, the Apple Watch tries to get a complete picture of your overall fitness activity. That includes not only measuring calories burned but making sure you're moving around on a regular basis and getting in some brisk activity each and every day.

Set goals and track your progress with Activity on Apple Watch

Setting goals is the key to measuring success and the Activity app on your Apple Watch lets you quickly see your progress towards your goals at any time you'd like. The three areas your Apple Watch tracks — move, stand, and exercise — are each represented by a colored ring in the Activity app. The closer you get to completing a specific goal, the closer the ring will get to completing itself. Apple Watch also lets you scroll down to view a little bit more of a data breakdown if you choose.

How to set up and use Activity Sharing

If you like to workout with friends or find a little healthy competition between you and someone else essential to achieving your fitness goals, the Activity app can help you out. When you enable Sharing on your iPhone and Apple Watch, other people can view your progress and compare and challenge themselves to work out as hard or harder than you, and even send you taunting messages along the way.

How to set up and use Activity sharing on Apple Watch

How to mute Activity reminders

With the Activity app, you will get daily — often hourly — alerts reminding you to stand up, get moving, and do a bit more exercising to meet your goals. Sometimes, though, you're stuck in a car, on an airplane, or otherwise stationary for hours and hours and just can't do your routine. You can silence these reminders altogether or even just for a day.

How to track and manage workout sessions with Apple Watch

The Workout app that is built into your Apple Watch lets you track a lot of common workout types from outdoor running and walking to indoor stationary equipment such as an elliptical. Starting a workout is easy. When you're done your workout, it will automatically be logged in not only the Workout app but the Activity app and the Health app on your iPhone.

How to customize workouts in the Workout app for Apple Watch

By default, your Apple Watch will show you some different metrics during a workout. Things like duration, heart rate, distance, calories burned, and more, can all be displayed during a workout. You if want to change what metrics you see during your workouts, you can head over to the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and customize it to your liking.

More help with Apple Watch?

Want even more help with your Apple Watch? Be sure to check out all the helpful links below. If you have a specific question, feel free to drop a question in our forums, no registration required, or shoot us an email.