Best health and fitness apps for Apple Watch – iMore

The Apple Watch has fast become one of the most popular wearable devices around the world. One of the reasons for this is its ability to track health and fitness metrics. For a more customized experience, consider these also apps for Apple Watch.

• Activity
• Workout
• Fabulous Daily Motivation
• MyFitnessPal
• Strava
• Runkeeper
• SmartGym: Manage Your Workout

Activity

At the heart of Apple Watch is the now iconic native Activity app. Featuring three rings — Move, Exercise, and Stand, the app pushes you throughout the day to make progress.

The Move ring counts steps and shows you how many calories you’ve burned each day. Each week, the Watch makes a recommendation on whether to increase (or decrease) your Move goal based on the results of the previous week. Meanwhile, the Exercise ring is always set to 30 minutes. Complete this ring by doing activities at or above a brisk walk. Finally, there’s the Stand ring, which wants you to stand at least one minute during 12 hours each day.

The Activity app works together with the Workout app and the Health app on your iPhone to help you nail fitness goals and better your overall health.

Apple Watch and activity tracking: 5 things you need to know!

Workout

The official Workout app for Apple Watch lets you track specific kinds of activities, including indoor/outdoor walking, running, cycling, elliptical, rowing, swimming, yoga, wheelchair, and more. The app uses motion data from your device to tell you how many calories you burned, distance covered, and other data.

Once completing your workout, the data automatically syncs to the Activity and Health apps.

Activity and Workouts on Apple Watch: Ultimate guide

Fabulous Daily Motivations

This all-in-one freemium app takes a holistic approach to motivate you to be more productive. In doing so, it helps you to learn and maintain better habits over time. With millions of users, Fabulous – Daily Motivation offers integrated coaching that takes your fitness and diet to a new, fun level, using 7-minute workouts, mediation, power naps sessions, and more.

If you’re the type of person that needs some motivation to stay on track but not to the point where it gets to be annoying, Daily Motivation may be for you.

MyFitnessPal

Created and maintained by Under Armour, MyFitnessPal focuses on weight loss by helping you keep track of calories, steps, exercise, and more.

You can even scan the barcodes of the foods you eat to add them to your diet plan to track caloric intake. Many MyFitnessPal features are free, but if you want to get more in-depth, you will have to pay for some premium features. If weight loss and healthy eating habits are your goals, then check this one out.

Strava

Strava is the running app if you’re serious about tracking your runs and your progress. Strava tracks your distance, pace, speed, elevation gained, calories burned, and more. You can then share your runs on social media and connect with fellow running enthusiasts in the Social Training section of the app.

Besides being a running app, Strava also allows you to track cycling and swimming routines. Crossfit, gym training, kayaking, rock climb, surfing, and yoga are also trackable.

Runkeeper

Runkeeper is for runners who want to join a community and fully embrace running as a whole. You can track your runs, set goals for yourself, view progress, and view your routes thanks to the GPS integration. Runkeeper also lets you leave your phone at home, so you can just bring along your Apple Watch, and your data will automatically sync when you get home.

Runkeeper’s community is what keeps you going through all of your training. You can create running groups and challenge friends while tracking each other’s progress and cheering each other on. If you’re looking for a running app that’s part of a big community, then check out Runkeeper.

SmartGym: Manage Your Workout

Keeping track of your workouts at the gym is much easier with this freemium app that lets you ditch the piece of paper you’ve been carrying around. With Smart Gym, you can create and manage all of your routines, see your progress, and also keep track of your body measures.

On Apple Watch, you can use the app to keep track of your heart rate, distance, and calories burned. And yes, your session data counts towards your Activity rings mentioned above.

How does Apple Watch help you stay fit?

Do you have a favorite Apple Watch fitness app? Sound off in the comments below!

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