Because of its onboard sensors and hardware, it can track a variety of different workouts accurately — including your distance, heart rate, and calorie count.
You can even set calorie, time or distance goals for certain workouts in the Apple Watch Workout app.
Unfortunately, if you’ve tried resetting a set goal in the Workout app, you might have figured out that it isn’t quite as easy as it seems.
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Contents
- The Problem
- Change a Goal in Workout
- Changing Fitness Goals with the Activity App is easy
- What You Can Do
The Problem
You may have set it intentionally, or you may simply have noticed a calorie, distance or time goal show up for a workout without any direct input.
Either way, you’ll notice that this workout goal is incredibly persistent. Even if you try to change it, it’ll likely reappear the next time you open the Workout app.
That’s due to a couple of reasons.
When you use the built-in feature for starting a new workout with an open goal, for example, it’ll start a new workout with that goal rather than edit the goal for the current one.
Similarly, the Workout menu will prioritize the workouts that you do most often — with their previously preselected goal attached.
Change a Goal in Workout
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a baked-in option for manually resetting goal types on established workouts.
This has been well-noted in various Reddit and Apple Support forum posts. There’s no single feature or button to reset individual workouts (or all workouts) back to a single calorie or distance goal.
On the other hand, there does seem to be a workaround for “resetting” your workout goals. Here’s how to do it.
- Open the Workout app.
- Scroll around and find your preferred activity.
- Next to the activity, there should be a three-dot in a circle icon. Tap on it.
- Change your goal type for your preferred activity to Open / No Goal.
Of course, at this point, it’s worth noting a couple things. Namely, this might not seem to work at first.
This isn’t necessarily “resetting” your workout calorie goal. As we mentioned earlier, it’s simply creating a new workout of that same type with an open goal. Because of the way the Workout app learns and remembers preferences, you might need to repeat the above steps several times.
According to some users with this problem, you just need to repeat the workout with an open goal two or three times for it to appear as a priority option in the Workout menu.
In other words, for the current version of watchOS, you’ll need to reset the calorie goal for an activity a few times for it to “stick.”
But the Apple Watch should eventually learn your preference for an opened goal for that particular activity type (with the appropriate distance or calorie goal).
Changing Fitness Goals with the Activity App is easy
Here is How you can change your “Move” daily goal on your Apple Watch.
- Press the Digital Crown to start up the home Screen
- Scroll and Select the Activity App
- Use Force Touch and Press Down on the Display
- Tap on Change Move Goals
- Adjust the Goal Using +/- Buttons
- Tap Update
You can change the any workout calories by using the steps above.
What You Can Do
It’s not clear why this is, but Apple could change it in a future version of watchOS.
If you’d like a “goal reset” feature in a future version of watchOS, you can submit feedback to Apple and ask for it at this link.
Mike Peterson
Mike is a freelance journalist from San Diego, California.
While he primarily covers Apple and consumer technology, he has past experience writing about public safety, local government, and education for a variety of publications.
Pocket-lint is supported by its readers. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more
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- Everything you need to know about the Apple Watch and its fitness features
- Rings, Workouts and Challenges explained
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(Pocket-lint) - The Apple Watch is a great device to help you improve your fitness, whilst also offering smartphone notifications. Whether you're hoping to get fit through running, cycling, swimming or various machines at the gym, or whether you are just trying to motivate yourself to get off the sofa, Apple's wearable does plenty more than alert you to a new message or email.
This feature covers everything you need to know about the Apple Watch and its fitness features, from making sure you select the right workout and changing your Move, Exercise and Stand goals, to competing with friends and using third-party fitness apps with it.
- Apple Watch tips and tricks: Hidden secrets of WatchOS revealed
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How to track your exercise with Apple Watch
Apple Watch fitness is primarily centred around three rings: Move, Exercise and Stand. The target is to complete each ring every day. Complete all three and you complete the day, get seven in a row and you get a perfect week. Complete a Ring and you'll get a spinning Catherine's wheel firework indicating you've done well, while at the end of the week you'll also get notifications if you've had a "perfect week" or for other achivements.
All you have to do is put the Apple Watch on and it will start tracking you.
There are a number of ways of keeping track of your rings throughout the day. You can opt for dedicated Activity watch faces, or you can choose an Apple Watch Complication if you want to be a little more subtle.
What are the Apple Watch fitness targets and how do you set them?
All three of the Apple Watch rings are customisable - though this wasn't always the case. The Exercise Ring (green) is set at 30 minutes a day by default, while Stand (blue) is set at 12 times by default.
Exercise doesn't need to be running, swimming, or a HIIT session though. It can be as simple as walking quickly, but you'll need to be walking briskly to complete the exercise ring if you choose walking as your activity.
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There are virtual awards for completing set tasks, such as completing a new "Move Record" or a "Perfect Week" and there are also monthly challenges that award you further badges for doing certain activities.
The monthly challenges are typically multi-event tasks to encourage to you stay active across the month. Previous Challenges set by Apple have included performing a set number of workouts, doubling your move goal a specific number of times, or doing a certain number of workouts for a set time across the month.
How to manage your alerts
The Apple Watch delivers various daily notifications from reminding you to stand up in a given hour or telling you to take brisk walk for a number of minutes in order to complete a Ring, to messages of encouragement.
The alerts are designed to trigger you to move and therefore complete your Rings, but being told a brisk 14-minute walk is all you need to complete a Ring at 11PM on a rainy Wednesday can be irritating.
How you respond to these notifications is up to you. They can be dismissed or turned off completely if you find them annoying. Head to the Apple Watch companion app on your iPhone > Scroll down to Activity > Set your notification preferences.
Share performance with friends
You can agree to share your Rings with your friends and family so you can see how you are doing compared to them - devices like Fitbit also offer this kind of feature. It won't work for everyone, but a bit of friendly competition never hurt anyone in our book.
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It's possible to add multiple friends and choose whether or not to get alerts when they complete Rings or do exercise. To start sharing your activity, open the Activity app on your Apple Watch and swipe right to left to get to the sharing page. Scroll down and tap on Invite a Friend and follow the instructions. You can also setup sharing in the Fitness app from your iPhone by tapping on the Sharing tab in the bottom right and tapping on the person icon with the "+" in the top right.
TIP: Choosing to share your activity with friend may sound harmless but we've been able to determine when people we've shared data with are on holiday (a different time zone means different activity patterns), when they've overslept, and when they've stayed out partying. So, think twice before you accept or invite people to share your Watch data.
How to challenge a friend to a Competition
For those needing a little more of a push, there are Competitions. You can opt to compete with a friend or family member over a seven-day period to see who is most active. You'll earn a set number of points, up to a maximum of 600 points per day. The person with the highest score at the end of the week wins the badge. Warning: There's a Total Wins section so if you lose, you'll be constantly reminded.
Competitions can only be one-on-one, but you can have multiple competitions running at the same time with different people. From our experience, winning is all about stealth exercise. If you want to catch the other person out, waiting until 10pm to put in that 10km run is normally a good winning tactic.
Set up: Open Fitness app on iPhone > Go to the Sharing tab in the bottom right > Tap on person icon in top right > Select contact to compete with > Press Compete with [contact name]. The challenge starts the next full day.
How to pick the right Apple Watch Workout
Apple Watch offers a bunch of preset workout options including Outdoor Walk, Elliptical, Stair Stepper, Pool Swim, Open Water Swim, HIIT Workout, Outdoor Cycling, Indoor Cycling, Rowing, Hiking, Yoga, Cross Training, Cooldown, Outdoor Run, Indoor Walk, Traditional Strength Training, Core Training, Mixed Cardio, Functional Strength Training, Indoor Run, Dance, Pilates, Tai Chi, and plenty of others. Picking the right one is vital to the Apple Watch understanding what you are doing.
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Workouts are all available via the Workout app on the Apple Watch, which can be accessed as a Complication or via the app screen. The Apple Watch will also recognise you're doing a workout after 10 minutes of activity and automatically suggest starting a workout for you, though it isn't flawless.
There is also no backtrack option, as there is with devices like Fitbit, so if the Apple Watch fails to recognise your Workout, you won't be rewarded. We've also made the mistake of selecting Outdoor Cycle instead of Indoor Cycle only to do 30 minutes of exercise and get no closer to our Move target so pick right. If you use Apple Fitness+ or apps like Fiit, the workout type is automatically selected for you, depending on what you're doing.
Tracking Workouts: Open, Calories, Distance, Time
The Apple Watch orders the workout list in the Workout app based on what you do and each workout option features further settings to help you sculpt what you are doing. For example, you can set the pool length when using the Pool Swim workout.
Depending on the Workout you select, you can choose an Open Goal, or you can choose to work towards a specific goal by tapping the three dots on the Workout card you're choosing. The specific goals include Calories, Distance and Time, but Distance isn't available as a goal for an Indoor Cycle or Elliptical, for example.
Set your target and the countdown begins. The Apple Watch delivers different stats for different workouts, though in most cases, you'll get time, active calories, BPM, average speed, and distance travelled. In workouts like Yoga, you'll simply get active and total calories, along with your heart rate, while in workouts like swimming, your stroke will be automatically recognised based on your hand movements.
Open the Apple Watch companion app > Scroll down to Workout > Select Workout View. From here you can customise the type and order of metrics shown for each workout.
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HELPFUL TIPS: Swipe left to right on your Apple Watch to end or pause a workout (although Apple Watch will also auto-pause if you stop to cross the road for example). Swipe right to left to access Apple Music. When swimming, turn the Digital Crown to unlock the display and pause or resume your swim workout by pressing the Digital Crown and side button together.
Tracking heart rate with Apple Watch
Within the Apple Watch companion app on your iPhone, you can opt in or out of the Apple Watch tracking your heartbeat within the Privacy section. If you opt in, the Apple Watch will track your current heart rate and monitor for issues, but it will also feedback data on how it's changing as you are doing exercise.
You can also access your heart rate data with the dedicated Heart Rate app on the Apple Watch. It will allow you to take your heart rate reading at any time, but also works in the background to monitor your resting heart rate and walking average. The Apple Health app on the iPhone allows you to delve deeper into the data.
Using the ECG feature
On Series 4, 5, 6 and 7 Apple Watches there's also an ECG feature that can take electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) readings. Apple's ECG app can tell whether your heart rhythm has atrial fibrillation (an irregular heart rhythm) or a normal sinus rhythm.
Getting a reading is as simple as placing a finger on the Digital Crown of the watch and waiting 30 seconds. ECG data will then be collected from the Watch electrodes and displayed in the Health app, which in turn can be shared via a PDF report with your doctor. Apple claims the test is 99 per cent accurate.
Fitness app on your iPhone
The Fitness app on your iPhone is where all your Apple Watch fitness data ends up. It is also where you'll find Fitness+, which you can read all about in our separate feature. You'll find your daily performance, historical performance data, all your workouts (which can be filtered by specific workout too), your sharing status and find all badges you've earned. There are three tabs to navigate: Summary, Fitness+ and Sharing.
Summary goes back as far as you've been wearing the Apple Watch, recording your Move, Exercise, and Stand totals when you wear it during that time. You can't edit or erase the data. It's also where you will find all your workouts, Awards and Trends.
As mentioned above, Trends compares your last 90 days of activity with the last 365 showing Move, Stand, Stand Minutes, Exercise, Distance, Cardio Fitness, Walking Pace and Running Pace at the top with an arrow on the left and a summary below. If you're doing the same or better, your arrow will be up. If you aren't doing quite so well, your arrow will be down.
Beneath the Workouts section in the Summary tab you'll find a list of the last three Workouts you've done. You can tap on Show More to see all your workouts for the recent months, or All Workouts for your entire history. Tapping each individual Workout offers all the metrics for that particular Workout.
As an example, for swimming, it details active calories, total calories, distance, total time, average heart rate, number of lengths and pool length. It will also show you average pace with stroke splits. For running, you'll get splits, a map of your run, and data including elevation gain, average cadence (steps per minute). During your running workout, the Apple Watch will also show rolling kilometres so you can see your split for the preceding kilometre to see if you're on track.
You'll also see any workouts you've done using a third party app, like Strava, Nike Run Club, Peloton, FIIT in the workout summary, if you have synced your Apple Watch to work with these apps.
Under the Awards section of the Summary tab is where you'll find the badges you've earned, as well as see what you have left to earn.
The Fitness+ tab gives you access to workouts from top trainers if you sign up. It is a subscription service, similar to FIIT, and it is powered by the Apple Watch. Your rings feature at the top of the screen when you do a Fitness+ workout, allowing you to see your progress during the workout. For some, there is also something called the Burn Bar that helps you see how much you are putting in compared to others who have previously done the workout.
Sharing meanwhile, allows you to manage how you share your data with your friends, including whether to mute their notifications, remove them completely, or compete with them in a seven-day challenge. You'll also get a break down of how they've been active when they've worn their Watch.