13 Reasons Why the Apple Watch May Be Your Best Fitness Tracker

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Whether you need incentive to hoist yourself off of the couch or you’re an avid exercise enthusiast, fitness trackers can be an effective incentive to push yourself. But finding one that’s effective for you may be a challenge. If you ignore subtle reminders to get going or don’t actually track your activity, your fitness monitor isn’t doing its job.

If you’re considering getting a fitness tracker, consider the Apple Watch as an option. You may find that the effectiveness of the Watch in tracking your fitness may make the extra expense a worthy investment for your health.

After wearing my Apple watch for four months, I can vouch for its effectiveness as an fitness tracker. I was a fan of my Nike FuelBand  but I’m giving that up for fitness tracking on the Watch.

Here are 13 reasons why the Apple Watch is so effective:

1. Activity and Workout Apps

Apple Watch has two native apps to help you track your fitness: Activity and Workout. Activity tracks your movement throughout the day and encourages you to stay active. Workout tracks your exercise in real time, helping you see how hard you’re working and giving you incentive to push your workout harder.

2. Different Types of Activity Are Tracked

Maybe you do your workouts first thing in the morning, then sit all day. Good, but not great.

The Activity app encourages you to move throughout the day by tracking your movement in three ways:

1. Stand – Stand one minute each hour for 12 hours each day
2. Exercise – Set a daily goal of how many minutes of exercise you want to get each day
3. Move – Set a daily goal of how many active calories you want to burn every day.

Try to achieve all three goals every day and you’ll be active throughout the day, get your exercise and move around more.

[note]For a moving story of how Apple Watch made a tech journalist more fit, read Jim Dalrymple’s Apple Watch: My most personal review ever in The Loop. [/note]

3. Visual Reinforcement

Throughout the day as you near your activity goals you’ll see colored circles fill up in the Activity app. Getting toward your goals is visible in a bright graphic that you see move every time the app updates with your movement information.

Open the Activity app and see the circles fill up. When the circle is complete you can enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done. When the circle spins because you’ve had an intense workout, you can feel the burn and the pride. When you see a gap in a circle, you may have the incentive to get up and move.

4. Complication

Apple Watch allows you to see information on your watch face from certain apps. This information, such as calendar appointments, sunset/rise times, temperature, etc. are called “complications.”

Activity is one of the complications you can add to watch faces that allow complications. One quick glance at your watch and you can see how much your circles have filled for the day.

Press down on the circles to open the Activity app to see more information about your activity and watch the circle fill up since the last time you check your activity. Warning: checking your circles can be addictive, but hey, that’s all the more encouragement to move!

5. Reminders

Apple Watch has a gentle but noticeable way to remind you to stand once an hour. You get notification and a tap on the wrist when it’s time to stand.

The reminder isn’t so strong as to be annoying but does alert you to your inactivity. Sitting at a computer, driving in the car, watching TV, sitting at your desk, all can be engrossing enough to make you forget to take a break.

The Activity app reminds you so you can take a physical and mental break from whatever you’re doing and get going. The reminder is to stand but you actually have to move to make your standing register. Standing in one place or lifting yourself out of a chair and sitting right back down again aren’t enough to satisfy the Watch.

But just one minute of activity fulfills the stand requirement of the Watch. How hard can that be to accomplish?

6. Progress Reports

The Watch gives you Progress Reports throughout the day, giving you added encouragement to achieve your goals. Nearly at your goal? Push a little harder to get there.

You also get Progress Reports at the end of the week with encouragement to set your Move goal a bit higher. If hitting your Move goal is too easy, then maybe you should try to push yourself a wee bit more.

7. Achievement Awards

If you’re goal oriented, you’ll appreciate the awards you can earn for your Activity achievements. Shoot for goals such as the Perfect Week in one, two or all three categories. Earn badges when you complete a perfect month of achieving all three goals every day or after 100 days of reaching your Move goal.

8. Workout App

The Watch doesn’t just give you incentive to move with the Activity app, it gives you information about your workouts with the Workout app. Launch the Workout app as you begin to exercise to track information such as:

• Elapsed time
• Distance
• Calories burned
• Heart rate

The Workout app has exercise categories for:

• Outdoor/indoor run/walk
• Rowing
• Elliptical
• Indoor/outdoor cycling
• Stair stepper
• Other

I use the Other category for racquetball. I’m hoping that Watch OS, due in the fall, will add racquet sports as a category.

You can set your goals for workouts based on time or distance, or just set an open workout. Your Watch taps you gently when you’ve achieved milestones (such as one mile) and your goal. Yea!

9. Heart Rate

Apple Watch measures your heart rate so you can see how hard you’ve been working out. You can:

• See your average heart rate during a Workout
• Measure your heart rate any time in Glances by swiping up from the bottom of your watch face then swiping to Heart Rate
• Use the Workout app to monitor your heart rate constantly

Compare your heart rate with other people you’re exercising with to see who’s working hard and who’s slacking off!

10. Dig Deep into your Workout Data

Use your iPhone to get more information about your fitness data from your Watch. Your Activity app on your iPhone can give you information about each Workout you do with your Watch. Learn information such as calories burned, average heart rate, time spent working out, etc. see which awards you won that day, how many steps you took, and the distance you traveled.

11. See the Big Picture

Your Activity app on your phone also shows you your Activity over time. Open the Activity app to see your Activity circles for the month. Tap on the circles for any day to see your activity for the day. If you’re seeing lots of incomplete circles, it may be time to kick it up a notch.

12. Integration with Other Apps

Your Apple Watch Activity data can be used by other fitness apps such as Addapp and MyFitnessPal to give you better insights about your fitness. By not having to enter your data manually you’re saving yourself time and giving yourself more incentive to stay fit.

You can also use other fitness apps on the Apple Watch, if Activity and Workout aren’t your favorites. Check out Tech Crunch The 22 Best Apple Watch Health And Fitness Apps.

13. The Apple Watch Does So Much More Than Track Your Fitness

Yes, the Apple Watch does cost more than most other activity trackers, but it does so much more too. If you’re wearing a tech device on your wrist you may as well have it do more than track your fitness. You can have it notify you of phone calls, text messages, emails, etc. Better yet, you can even answer the phone, make phone calls, send and receive text messages, and more using your Watch.

=> See, The 8 Surprising Ways I’m Using My Apple Watch

Your Thoughts

Have you ever considered using a fitness monitor? Which of these reasons would be most compelling for you? Would you like to be more active? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!