Apple Watch Your Personal Health and Fitness Hub
Apple Watch has been widely credited with saving two lives: that of a teenager and 62 year old respectively through its heart rate monitor feature. Furthermore, its built-in GPS can enable runners to map a run route and monitor their progress throughout.
Apple’s Health app integrates seamlessly with several fitness applications and services such as Nike Training Club, Strava, HIIT Timer and Headspace.
1. Activity App
Apple Watch’s Activity app is one of its standout features, offering fitness tracking to its wearers and providing them with an overview of their daily progress towards closing Move (red), Exercise (green) and Stand (blue) rings. As you make progress toward these rings, the closer they get to being closed off – leading to achievements earned each day as you stay active!
The app also turns your daily data into long-term trends. For instance, you can compare trends from 90 days ago against those from 365 days earlier to see whether your activity level is increasing or declining.
Personalization is another great feature of the Activity app. For instance, when you are close to reaching an achievement it will offer advice and suggestions as to what steps can help you meet that goal. Furthermore, each ring’s goals can be reached differently, such as going for walks instead of working out or getting up and moving around during meetings.
Compete against friends within the Activity app by tapping their name and tapping “Challenge”. Each challenge runs for one week and the person with the highest point total will win an award in their Activity app.
Your iPhone allows you to view past Activity data by opening the Apple Watch app and tapping History, Workouts, Awards or Sharing. If you would like a more in-depth view, however, try opening the Workout app instead and tracking workouts with third-party applications that support this feature – this way you’ll be able to track time elapsed, distance traveled, pace and heart rate data that will appear under History and Workouts views of Activity app.
2. Workout App
Frequent exercise is key to staying healthy, lowering risk for heart disease and cancer, improving lung function and increasing longevity. Unfortunately, not everyone knows how or what types of exercises can benefit their bodies. Workout and fitness apps provide detailed instructions on how to perform various activities as well as motivating users to form good habits; some even come equipped with AI coaches that act like personal trainers providing tips for building strength and stamina.
Apple’s app for fitness offers an expansive library of at-home and gym workouts organized by body area and intensity level, and users can even tailor the exercises specifically to meet their own individual needs. Plus, their Daily Coaching feature can prompt users with exercise reminders throughout the day to keep on track and reach their goals!
Nike Training Club provides users with a similar experience, giving them access to at-home or gym exercises and customizing workouts according to body area and intensity level. Furthermore, Exertion measures the intensity of each exercise based on heart rate – as well as providing motivational awards that encourage users to cultivate healthier habits.
Other third-party workout apps to consider are Strava and Peloton. Strava is designed for use with any GPS-enabled smartphone or wearable device and provides numerous features designed to encourage physical activity like running and cycling, with the latter two also supporting stationary bikes compatible with its app. While most features of these apps do not require FDA approval, some may interact with data from medical devices and must adhere to health, privacy, and security policies for compliance.
3. Health App
The Apple Watch comes equipped with its Health app, providing access to an expansive database of sensor readings. Packed with features that may prove beneficial, but at first it may seem overwhelming – start here to get your bearings!
One of the first things you should do when setting fitness goals (using either the Activity app or Health app), is setting fitness goals. By telling it which metrics matter to you and which metrics it should focus on. Plus, it will keep track of your progress over time to show you just how much more fit you’ve become over time, giving a sense of achievement along the way!
The Health app features several other useful functions as well, including monitoring blood glucose levels and recording symptoms. Furthermore, it can show your cardio fitness level using data gathered by watch sensors.
This watch can also remind you to stand up, helping combat sedentary behavior. Additionally, its walking steadiness feature utilizes an accelerometer on your watch to monitor how steady your walking pace is and help prevent falls.
This app also allows you to store all your medical records in one central place – an invaluable feature for those living with multiple conditions. Furthermore, it can even send this data directly to doctors so they are kept better informed on how your treatment is progressing.
4. Sleep App
An effective night of restorative rest is integral to overall wellness. To improve the quality of your slumber, lifestyle changes may be required, including tracking sleep using wearable devices or apps – one way is tracking it with wearable devices or apps; some even offer sleep quality analysis, alarm options (including smart alarms that alert in light sleep phases) and tools like white noise, stories or guided meditation as part of this service.
No matter the tool or app used for sleep tracking, it is crucial that realistic goals be set when trying to improve your slumber. By tracking over an extended period, tracking your sleep can reveal patterns such as when and why you awaken in the middle of the night – providing a more complete picture of your habits that you can then share with medical professionals.
The Sleep App on Apple Watch features numerous tools to help you track and monitor your restful slumber. The app’s intuitive user interface offers clear analysis of your nightly rest; setting personal sleep goals allows for notifications when those goals have been reached; Wind Down mode offers help relaxing before bedtime; sleep focus feature encourages deeper slumber; gentle haptic wake-up alarm ensures no disturbance; the data collected through this application can also be shared with Health App on iPhone;
5. Notifications
The Apple Watch is an impressive device with many capabilities that extend far beyond fitness and health monitoring. Not only can it monitor your heart rate and track activity levels, it can make phone calls and send reminders; plus it connects directly with Apple Pay mobile payment service!
Notifications app is designed to give a comprehensive view of notifications from apps on both iPhone and Apple Watch, organized into groups by app for easy management. If too many notifications become overwhelming, you can adjust them by opening Notification Center or Lock screen and tapping Show Less; additionally you can customize how notifications are delivered such as order of appearance and quick actions (if available).
Apple Watch Series 4’s most revolutionary new feature was one which encouraged its users to take more breaks from sitting throughout their day. The app will remind users to move around and stand up every hour for at least 12 hours; when closing your “stand ring”, a celebratory dance will play on your wrist!
Apple Watch Series 10 users can now utilize a new feature known as Cycle Tracking to monitor their menstrual cycle and stay informed as to when their next period should start, as well as keeping a record of symptoms, expected start dates, ovulation times and conception chances if trying for pregnancy.
At the same time, though it’s fantastic that people can now collect and curate so much more health data than ever before, it can also be daunting. Some experts have expressed concern that taking printed pages of calories burned or steps counted into doctor offices might prove more burdensome than beneficial.
