Working Out with the Apple Watch

In this lesson for the Apple Watch we look at the Workout app. We use the workout app when we’re actually working out such as going for a run or going for a swim or bike riding. When we use the workout app, the Apple Watch is more accurate in how many calories you burn as it relies more on your heart rate as well as the accelerometer and GPS in your Apple Watch to measure your workout.

Starting a Workout on the Apple Watch
To start a workout, you need to open the Workout app on your Apple Watch. When you do this, you’ll see a number of workouts to start. Just use the digital crown or scroll up and down to go through them. To start any one of them, you just tap on it. But before you do that, you may want to set goals for the workout such as calories burned or time.

Setting Goals for a Workout
Before you start a workout you may want to set goals for that workout. This may be a number of calories you want to burn, time, or distance if you are walking or running. Each workout is going t have their own goals. To access and change the goals, you tap on the ellipsis or three dots. When you tap on these dots you are bright to a screen that shows the different goals you can have for that workout. If you want an open goal, which means there is no goal, you tap on Open goal. If you want to workout for 40 minutes, tap on Time and set the time for 40 minutes. Whatever goal you set, when you start your workout by pressing Start, the Apple watch and the Workout app will tell you how far you are in achieving that goal. it will also alert you when you are halfway through that goal.

Changing from Miles to Metric
If you are running or biking and the distance goal is in miles and you want to set the goal for metric, you just tap on distance as you are going to set a distance goal. Now gently push down on the Apple Watch and then you’ll see two options; miles and kilometers. Just tap what you want to use. Then set you distance and start your workout.

Setting Music to Workout To
When you are working out, if you swipe to the left while in the Workout app, you’ll be able to start and stop your Music. Swipe again and you can elect the music you want to play while working out.

Workout Controls
When you are looking at your Workout app while working out, if you swipe to the right, you have more controls. You can lock the Workout app, so you don’t accidentally pause or stop a workout. You can also add a new workout, maybe you are done running and you want to start biking. You can also pause the workout and adjust the end of a workout.

Creating a New Workout while Workout Out
There are times when you may want to include a couple of different workouts during a workout. Maybe you are training to a triathlon and you are running, biking, and swimming. To do this, you start the first workout, let’s start with running. When you are finished with your run, you swipe to the right and Start a New Workout. Select biking and continue on with your bike workout. When you are finished biking, swipe to the right again and select swimming. When you are finished, stop the workout. The Workout app will look at all these workouts as one workout, but will keep all the data on the individual workouts you did, in this case running, biking, and swimming.

Using the Last Goal for a Workout
It you want to use the last goal for a workout, just tap the workout instead of tapping the ellipsis. When you do this, the workout app will countdown and then use the last goal you used for that workout. So if you are running a 5k, if you set the distance for 5K for your last workout, the goal will be 5k for this workout unless you tap on the ellipsis or three dots while choosing a workout.

See this Lesson in Action
If you want to see this lesson in action, take a look at the video above.