The more complex apps, however, will often offer a subscription service, with significant annual or monthly fees. You’ll need to weigh up the cost against potential savings on gym fees or yoga classes, for example. Your Apple Watch has the ability to measure your heart rate and will track it during your workouts. However, it doesn’t really provide any insights into your heart rate, how it changes over time, and what that data might mean.

Best for time-poor reformers: 30 Day Fitness Challenge

Below, I’ve highlighted my seven favorite third-party apps for Apple Watch, including options for fitness tracking, entertainment, navigation, and more. The latest Apple Watch models ship with tons of useful apps built right in. These include apps geared toward health and fitness, safety, travel, note-taking, communication, and much more.

How to choose the best fitness tracker

This app is the quintessential tool for those who obsess over every pea and carrot they consume. You just tap a few times on your Apple Watch, and your 200-calorie snack is logged faster than you can say “guilt-free indulgence”. Far too many apps are geared towards runners and cyclists, yet water dwellers are a little less catered for. Sure, successive governments may be intent on making leisure centres and community pools a thing of the past, but MySwimPro is a great tool for those pining for a paddle.

Foldable iPhone Production Stalls Amid Hinge Issues

  • Couch to 5k was the pursuit of many throughout 2020 while the world was in lockdown.
  • The GPS only models require a nearby iPhone to receive calls and texts.
  • It features full integration with the Health app so you can track your training history and progress across all devices.
  • In most cases, fitness trackers are waterproof and will survive showering, running in the rain and a dip in the pool or sea.
  • And if you feel like you need some extra assistance, you can upgrade to premium for full guidance and one-on-one support from certified trainers.
  • Still, Apple Watch integration is a no-brainer, making it easy to quickly reference a trail map and make informed directional decisions in real-time.

Be sure to check out our guides on how to download Spotify playlists to your Apple Watch and how to get a Spotify student discount, so you can get this music streaming service for less. You can leave your phone at home or in your locker, and it will just work. SmartGym is available on the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. If you change something on one device, it automatically updates all the others. Enter your email below and we’ll send confirmation, and sign you up to our newsletter.

Q. How many miles make up for 10,000 steps?

Strava is one of the best fitness apps for outdoor adventurers, cyclists, runners, and hikers. With its leaderboards, maps, and more, it’s one of the most popular workout apps in the world. The Apple Watch companion lets you quickly start recording your workouts, with at-a-glance data on your splits, time, heart rate, and more. Use your Apple Watch to track your movement, journey, and energy expenditure as you run, then upload your efforts for the world to see.

You can also buy premium titles like Sudoku, 2048, Hangman, and more. Another classic take, play this mini retro version of Space Invaders right on your wrist. It’s a simple, fun arcade game with support for controls using your Apple Watch Touch Screen or your Digital Crown. You can track up to 12 habits at a time and categorize them as negative or positive. For example, you can track exercise as a positive goal and smoking as a negative goal.

The best iOS 26 tricks I’ve found to power up your iPhone including iOS 26.5

It’s definitely worth doing if you want to be able to better compartmentalize your digital experiences, shutting out work at home and removing distractions while working. Apple has several pre-configured Focus modes that you can’t replicate with custom modes because there are unique activation features included. The main feature in Reduce Interruptions, Intelligent Breakthrough and Silencing, can actually be applied to any of your custom Focus modes.

Best Apple Watch apps: Health and Exercise

The Sleep Focus is a unique one, because it is tied to Apple Watch sleep tracking. The schedule that you set up for the Sleep Focus determines when your watch tracks your sleep, when your alarm goes off in the morning, and when you get a “Wind Down” notification to prepare for bed. It takes a few extra steps, but Focus modes can be set up to only show you specific apps. Under the Customize Screens option, you can choose a Home Screen page to show when a Focus mode is active. Reduce Interruptions can be customized to expressly allow or silence specific apps and people, and using this feature will override AI-based sorting for those selections. Reduce Interruptions can be a good compromise between all notifications on and Do Not Disturb.

You can see this on the Apple Watch during your workout, and there is also a short text description to help you ensure you’re doing the move correctly. The level of detail provided by the app is fantastic and keen gym-goers will spend many a happy hour diving into their stats and planning workouts. Adding this app to your watch is a no-brainer, since it’s free and could save your bacon if you find yourself in trouble in the great outdoors. What3words divides the world up into 57 trillion 3m squares, each of which has a unique three-word code assigned to it. If you’re lost or hurt and can’t see a landmark that will help describe your position, then simply giving the three-word code for your location will help your contacts or the emergency services find you.

best free fitness app for apple watch

What is the difference between the GPS and GPS + Cellular models?

You can make contactless payments and control a phone’s music player, but offline integration with services like Spotify or Deezer is absent. It packs a responsive, clear and colourful AMOLED touchscreen plus a side button for easy navigation. The small screen does limit the stats you get on your wrist; you have to fire up the app to dig deeper. But it’s among the most comfortable to wear, particularly in bed, thanks to the silicone strap and peg-and-loop closure. It’s big, rugged and durable, built from top-tier materials and a super-bright, toughened display. All the tech means it’s thicker than the Fenix 8, generally heavy and definitely won’t suit those with daintier wrists.

best free fitness app for apple watch

iPhone Air

As you complete major milestones, you’ll unlock well deserved achievements to help stay motivated and focused on the goal. Watch to 5K is available on the App Store for a one-time fee of $4.49. Strava has long been the map app of choice for off-road mountain bikers and joggers of all terrains. It syncs with pretty much all GPS watches and head units and is pretty great at making solo running social through its friend features. The clear interface excels on the small screen, showing all the info you need about your run, but it’s the added extras – particularly the guided runs – that make Nike Run Club stand out. You can do training sessions where elite athletes like Eliud Kipchoge or Mo Farah talk you through the intervals, or relax with runs produced in partnership with mindfulness app Headspace.

Search code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests…

Like most apps on this list, AllTrails is not native to the Apple Watch –- it started life as a web service and has been active on smartphones for some time. Still, Apple Watch integration is a no-brainer, making it easy to quickly reference a trail map and make informed directional decisions in real-time. Rather than trying to be a jack of all trades, it focuses wholly on strength training, weightlifting, and bodybuilding. Its colorful and clean interface is easy to navigate, and it comes equipped with a database of over 240 exercises, many with animations demonstrating proper form and technique.

Health is an entire ecosystem, and the apps on your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch should be a reflection of that. Of course, with the sheer number of health and fitness apps available, finding some good ones can feel like a workout in itself. Workout allows you to track a wide range of workouts directly from your Apple Watch, including running, walking, cycling, swimming, strength training, dance, and more. New workouts are added with each new version of watchOS and you can create custom workouts. The app will show the elapsed time of your workout, your heart rate, calories burned, and you can see which heart rate zone you’re currently working in. AI is all the rage these days; a plethora of tools shoehorn it into every area of life, for better or worse.

Focus is a productivity timer you can use on your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch to help you break down big tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks. These ‘Focus Sessions’ help you stay focused and on track, tackling one task at a time while taking regular breaks. There’s also a task manager and even stats to help you keep track of your work and how productive you are, which helps to keep you motivated. The unimeal reviews independent Watch app lets you control sessions on your wrist and track progress throughout the day, keeping the distractions of your phone at arm’s length.