Fitness and the Apple Watch

Fitness and the Apple Watch

This week Apple announced the release of the Apple Watch, which will be available from the end of April and it’s predicted that this will mean that 25 million smartwatches will be sold this year. There are of course many applications for the watch, but we’re going to look at what smartwatches can mean for fitness.

Always Tracking

Your watch will measure your activity throughout the day and show you how you’re progressing. You can set a target number of calories to burn and watch how you progress. It also counts anything more than a brisk walk as exercise and reminds you to make sure that you do at least 30 minutes a day (but we can do better than that!).

Keeps You On Your Toes

Our lives can be very sedentary, stuck behind a desk or plonked in front of the television, so another feature of the watch reminds you to stand up for at least a minute every hour, with a target of doing that for at least 12 hours a day.

Specific Applications for Specific Needs

At launch there are Apple Watch apps that can monitor you when you’re running, cycling (both on the road and on an exercise bike) or using a cross trainer. In future, we hope, someone will develop an app that can track you when you’re rowing. The good news is that it measures your heartbeat which will give you even more data when you’re working out.

There are, obviously, lots of smartwatches out there, but the release of the Apple Watch is expected to bring them into the mainstream. Also don’t forget that instead of smartwatches you can buy fitness trackers like the Fitbit and the Withings Pulse, which are specifically for tracking your activity and are usually cheaper than smartwatches.