If she’s not working, you can find her sipping a glass of wine, traveling, spending time with her family, or a combination of all three. Embrace the freedom of ditching your phone and get fit quick with the best fitness apps for Apple Watch. Because of the great set of features and ease of compatibility for people already in the Apple world, https://www.producthunt.com/products/unimeal Apple Watch Series 9 was our pick as our favorite smartwatch. When you pare great hardware with great apps, there’s so much you can do, especially in the fitness space. We test fitness trackers against a validated pedometer and on a known 1-mile loop.
- Metrics such as active heart rate, calories, steps, and distance are tracked, too, and demo videos are also available on the watch, though trainer audio is not.
- For the gym-goer—or home gym user—who’s looking for a workout tracker with a comprehensive library of exercises, there’s Jefit.
- Unlike a lot of other premium products, Nike Run Club allows access to all its features without subscription or in-app purchases.
- Helping my recovery after an operation by tracking progress day by day; simple to use and easy goals.
- It’s a template-based app, meaning you can choose (or create) a plan for your workout and then save it for future use.
- Its companion program for the Apple Watch adds the convenience of recording movement from your wrist, so athletes can leave their phones at home.
The 11 Best Free Workout Apps
If you have concerns about the appropriateness of a new exercise routine or suspect that you may have a health condition, see a medical professional. And if an abnormal heart rate is a health concern for you, don’t rely on an activity tracker to help manage your condition. Fitness trackers can give you a better idea of how you move your body throughout the day. They’re useful for people who want to set goals to increase daily movement and gain a better picture of their activities.
What fitness tracker do you use?
That’s why we put each app to the test before including it in our guide. We’ve tried these apps ourselves to see if they’re easy to use, fun, and worth the money you need to pay in subscription fees. However, for strength workouts, Centr is an excellent option, especially as you can filter classes by the equipment you have at hand. It’s also important that the workouts themselves are effective. There are also handy features like Strava Beacon, which are designed to keep you safe, by allowing your friends or family members to track your live location on a run. During testing, we found the instructor-led workouts to be engaging and motivating, and also enjoyed the whiteboard workouts, which show you the entire workout so you can follow at your own pace.
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Not only is the GPS tracking pretty accurate, but there is a social element that separates it from most other free cycling apps. The app supports freestyling your workout too, which is a nice touch; I was able to start a blank workout and add exercise types and reps/sets as I went. Hevy also worked nicely with my Apple Watch, which meant I didn’t have to hold—or keep checking—my phone the whole time. If you like to decide whether it’s leg day based on how you felt when you rolled out of bed, you probably won’t like this fitness tracker.
Bike Ride Tracker: Bicycle GPS
The Inspire 3 has a flexible silicone band that closes with a plastic buckle and tang (think of how you fasten a belt buckle). While this is not uncommon for fitness trackers, it sometimes took a few tries to close — this is one instance where the slim design of the Inspire 3 may be a drawback. The band doesn’t lay flat like, say, that of a thicker Apple Watch SE, and the tang is a bit flimsy, causing it to not stay in place when adjusting on the wrist. But let’s be honest – it’s still built for serious runners and cyclists. Your Motmot pet lives in your app and needs daily movement to stay healthy & happy… The weekly battles are based on effort percentage, not fitness level, so players of all fitness levels can play fairly together.
Runance counters this by offering many of the same features as traditional fitness apps, such as route tracking, tempo and heart rate monitoring, balanced with a new approach to customer privacy. No email is required to log in or make an account, no health data is shared with third parties, and no email or fitness data is shared or sold for marketing purposes. The free app fills an important niche in the data-hungry world of fitness trackers and provides more peace of mind than some of its larger competitors. In the age of technological innovation, gone are the days when your trusty wristwatch could only tell time. Today, it’s evolved into the ultimate fitness companion, providing you with a personal trainer, workout statistics, and fitness challenges, all in sync with your iPhone.
This easy-to-use tracker is comfortable to wear all day and provides accurate measurements, without too much clutter on the homescreen. MyFitnessPal stands out with its comprehensive approach to health management; it is a good option for anyone interested in tracking fitness and nutrition. It worked great for me as well up through this last iOS13 and Apple Watch OS version then it’s been broken.
The apps you need to watch movies and TV on your phone
Some rely on heart rate, for instance, while others factor in accelerometer data. The Fitbit Inspire 3 was the most accurate fitness tracker for step count and near the top of the rankings for every other test we performed. The touchscreen display is only 1.5 inches tall but is simple to navigate, thanks to its sharp colors and easily readable text and icons.
Health Coach
When you wear your Apple Watch, its Strava app can log workouts from start to finish, displaying your stats—time, pace, distance, speed, and heart rate—on screen as you go. After you finish, the wearable will show a summary of your session and sync this information back to your phone as soon as you return to its range. In total, Strava will track eight different types of activities, from those morning jogs or afternoon bike rides to hiking and skiing. Videos are viewed on a smartphone and controlled through your watch with pre-recorded guidance from your trainer.
tips and tricks to master your Apple Watch
This is a real nuisance since in our house, 3 other people workout in the gym with HIT workouts and are constantly comparing calories burned/heartrate/etc. So either I can track my heart rate on Zwift through the Apple Watch Zwift app, which is spotty at best (connects/disconnects/connects/disconnects), or use the Apple Workout app. All of the workouts can be done from home, and for most of them, you’ll only need one set of dumbbells. The app has loads of on-demand classes you can try, including yoga, Barre, and mobility, as well as different challenges to join to keep you motivated. Once you’ve chosen your program, you check in once a month to keep track of your progress.
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We’ve tested Fiit with and without equipment or chest strap monitors, and every class we’ve sweated through gets a huge tick from us. Sorry to be late to the party here, but Josh’s article, as well as many of the comments here, seem to point out a common misconception (in my experience) about activity tracking on the Watch. I think there have been one or two revisions since I got this almost 8 years ago.
Unique among trackers we’ve tested, the Apple Watch has a wheelchair option, which tracks pushes instead of steps. It also has a strong battery life; it’s advertised as lasting 10 days, and during our most recent test, in 2025, it lasted 8.5 days, including near-daily recorded workouts and auto-detected activity. In our tests of step count accuracy, the Fitbit Inspire 3 was off from our pedometer readout by just 0.32% over a two-day period — the best of all the fitness trackers tested.
Round Health
We are both healthy seniors so we don’t have a need for more measurements – but frankly wouldn’t trust the data these apps might report. The app’s competitive edge lies in its ability to turn workouts into interactive experiences through challenges and leaderboards. Strava’s subscription costs $11.99 or $79.99 per year for the full version, which includes more features, perks and data.