LivWell Spotlight: 5 Apple Watch workout tips

Our LivWell Spotlight series focuses on how health and technology overlap, covering ways to improve wellness with the right tools.

The Apple Watch is fantastic for tracking workouts. Here are some helpful Apple Watch workout tips to help you get the most out of a workout when it comes to setting goals and tracking your progress.

start and combine workouts

Open the Workout app on the Apple Watch to start a workout. Then you can scroll through the many options, including swimming, tennis, dance, high-intensity interval training, pilates and yoga. Note that certain workouts may be similar but not the same. There are options for both hiking and outdoor walking, for example.

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editing workout metrics

You can change what metrics appear for each workout. To do this, go to the Watch app on your iPhone. Got to Workout > Workout View. You can select each workout and adjust what metrics you will see on your watch while you’re working out.

Here’s a picture of the workouts:

And here’s what it looks like to change the metrics:

Set goals

You can set goals directly on the Apple Watch. Tap a workout and then select the three dots in the upper right corner. You can set a goal for your workout based on calories, distance or time. The watch will alert you when you hit your goal. This is helpful if you don’t want to keep checking your watch during a workout.

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tracking workouts

You can see all of the workouts you’ve done in the Fitness app on your iPhone. Tap Summary in the bottom left corner. Then click ‘Show More’ next to Workouts. You can even sort them in the upper right corner by tapping ‘All Workouts’ and then selecting the type of workout you want to see.

So if you want to see all of the workouts you’ve done for a specific activity it looks like this:

If you go back to the main page of the Fitness app, you can also click Activity at the top to open your past activity records month by month.

awards

The last of the Apple Watch workout tips is that your watch will give you certain awards for meeting goals the watch sets for you. You can track your awards in the Fitness app on your iPhone. There are even Limited Edition Challenges, including ones like Lunar New Year and Heart Month. In addition, the app will give you Monthly Challenges. These are specific to you based on your workout routine and history.

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If you follow friends in the app you can set up notifications to see when they earn awards or meet their goals. You’ll have options to reply to them to send a message like “Nice work!” or to compete with them for a week to see who wins more points by closing their rings.

Use those Apple Watch workout tips to score that next win!