Fitness Geek

Apple Fitness+ makes it easier than ever to get in shape. So you should have no problem smashing your New Year’s resolution. Right? Wrong. The sad fact is, despite the best of intentions, most New Year’s resolutions fail. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I know...

Apple’s VO2 max metric measures the performance of your heart and lungs when you push yourself to the limit. Up until now, though, it’s only been useful to serious fitness fanatics. No wonder Apple buried it in the Health app, where most users never found it. But...

Apple Watch is a great swimming companion, offering highly accurate length counts, pace measurements and stroke recognition. But the benefits to swimmers don’t stop there. You’ll find plenty more useful swim stats in the Fitness app on your iPhone. Strokes Per...

Over the past 12 months, Apple quietly assembled an elite team of fitness trainers from around the world. Bound to secrecy, they’ve been moving across the country to start new lives in Los Angeles, without even being able to tell their friends exactly what they’re up...

Apple Fitness+ will enter a crowded market when the service launches later this year. Established players like Peloton and Adidas already have a significant head start. But Apple is in great shape to give them a run for their money. Fitness+ is a logical next step for...

At first glance, the Apple Watch Workout app seems pretty simple. You just tap the start button and get all sweaty. But there’s more to it than meets the eye. A lot more. You can customize its layout in hundreds of different ways, changing the text size, position,...

If you’ve let your fitness slide during the lockdown, you’re not alone. The Activity app’s constant nagging to close your rings is not very helpful when all the gyms are closed and you’re stuck at home. Skipping workouts for a few months is understandable under the...

As a fitness writer and app developer, there’s just one thing I’m hoping to see at WWDC next week: a major upgrade to HealthKit. Don’t get me wrong. I think Apple’s health-tracking framework is great, but there’s so much more it could do. Moving HealthKit to iCloud...

Apple Watch supports a huge selection of workout types, but most of the popular ones, like running and swimming, you probably can’t do right now thanks to the coronavirus lockdown. Fortunately, if you delve a little deeper, you’ll find plenty of Apple Watch home...

Your fitness doesn’t need to suffer just because you’re stuck indoors during the coronavirus quarantine. In fact, now is the ideal time to start working on your six-pack. The lockdown won’t last forever. If you put in the work now, you’ll be looking like a ripped...

You don’t need to go to the gym for a great workout. If you’re stuck at home during the coronavirus outbreak, you can still work on your summer beach bod. If you’re itching to exercise indoors, you can get started — and maximize your gains — using Apple TV fitness...

The Health app on your iPhone acts as a central repository for all your workout data. Not just activity from your Apple Watch, but from third-party apps, too. That’s great, because it gives you the freedom to use any workout app you want, safe in the knowledge that it...

Bodybuilders have given us more than their fair share of memes. Who can forget “sun’s out guns out” or “do you even lift, bro?” and one of the all-time weightlifting classics, “Don’t skip leg day.” But unless you’re a dedicated gym rat, you might be wondering what...

While most workout gadgets estimate all the calories you burn during the day, Apple Watch does something different. It uses a metric called Active Calories, which is always lower than Total Calories. And that’s actually a good thing. Here’s why.

Strava is a brilliant app for sharing your workouts and analyzing your fitness activity. But its Apple Watch app is not so great. That’s why I prefer to use Apple’s built-in Workout app and then view my data afterward on the Strava website. The trouble is, up until...

Before iOS 13, if you wanted to sync Apple Watch workout data with Strava, you had an excellent option: a brilliant third-party fitness app called HealthFit. Unfortunately, Apple’s strict new rules in iOS 13 broke the app’s syncing functionality, leaving Apple...

Apple Watch has always tracked your daily physical activity with its three iconic Activity rings. That’s great if you just want to focus on hitting your daily goals. But what if you want to see your progress over time? iOS 13 solves this with Activity Trends, an...

With the holidays behind us and a new decade just getting started, New Year’s resolution season is officially here. If you want to make amends for your seasonal overindulgence and get in shape for the Twenties, here’s our essential guide to nailing your New Year’s...

The Apple Watch Activity app sets us three daily goals, for standing, exercise and movement. The first two are the same for everyone: Stand for a minute during at least 12 hours of the day, and do at least 30 minutes of exercise. But the Move goal is different. For...

Apple is sending us mixed messages this Thanksgiving. On the one hand, it’s encouraging Apple Watch owners to get active with the Thanksgiving Day Challenge 2019. But on the other hand, it’s serving up new episodes of Apple TV+ shows a day early, so we can collapse...

When you finish logging a workout with Apple Watch, you can gloat over all your hard work in the Activity app on your iPhone. This provides all kinds of useful charts, maps and trends to show you how you’re doing. But what if you logged that workout by accident? Or if...

The Apple Watch running cadence setting arrived in watchOS 5, but if you didn’t notice, you’re not alone. It tends to get buried in the myriad stats Cupertino provides for runners. Plus, there’s a lot of confusion about what it actually means and whether it’s useful....

Remember when every sports apparel brand needed an app to be cool? Ten years ago, the Nike+Apple partnership was in its ascendency, while Under Armour and Adidas were splurging millions acquiring fitness apps like MyFitnessPal and Runtastic. Back then, brand owners...

Fitness tech startup Form launches its first product today: augmented reality swimming goggles. You might think AR sounds like a bit of a gimmick for swimmers. I certainly did. My Apple Watch already does a pretty good job of logging my swimming workouts, so I didn’t...

WWDC is less than a week away and there are already plenty of rumors doing the rounds on what new features Apple has in store for iOS and watchOS. Dark mode, a refreshed Reminders app and a new Find My app all look set to make an appearance. But will Apple also be...

If you diligently close your Activity Rings every day in the hope of getting ripped like The Rock, you are going about it all the wrong way. Apple’s Activity app focuses on cardio conditioning and burning calories. Which is great for losing weight, but irrelevant if...

Summer is almost upon us.* If you’ve been training hard all winter to look awesome in a Speedo on the beach, then you can totally skip this post. Still here? That’s cool. Because in this post we’ll look at five awesome ways your Apple Watch can help give your body a...

If you’ve been wearing an Apple Watch for a while now, chances are you have built up a huge amount of data related to your health. But do you know what it all means? What exactly is that wrist-mounted technological marvel trying to tell you? All those different stats...