In the Fitness app on iPhone, tap Summary, then scroll to Trends to see how you’re doing compared with your average activity. It’ll track key stats like distance, average pace, calories burned, and heart rate in real-time, and let you view workouts in Apple’s Fitness app. This guide explores the top free fitness apps available in the iOS App Store, covering everything from HIIT and yoga to strength training and full-body workouts. All of them are either completely free or offer robust functionality without requiring a paid subscription. Heart Analyzer is an advanced heart health app that gives you a better understanding of your heart health.
Dropset: Gym tracker
There are bodyweight and stretching exercises, but we’d hazard this isn’t playing to Fitbod’s strengths. The Apple Watch is really well-used here, enabling you to enter the amount of weight and number of reps for each piece of equipment – so you can track improvement as you progress. Fiit is one of our favorite services, with top-quality videos and classes. It’s tougher than Fitness+ and more suited to those wanting to enter programs and plans than one-off classes.
Supported Features
It’s less beginner-focused than Fitness+, with longer, harder workouts. However, strength classes have options for no equipment, while Fitness+ generally requires a set of dumbbells. UK-based Fiit is now a global service – and it’s one of the best fitness apps out there. Guidance is delivered via visual and audio cues – so you can see what to do for each set. If you’re unsure you can tap the screen on your phone to review the move, which pauses the workout – making it great for beginners. We’re fans of the Nike Run Club app, with its emphasis on guided workouts – and its sister app Nike Training Club delivers an equally great experience for home-based workout regimes.
Pair These Apps With the Right Gear
But with the right apps, your wrist-borne personal health assistant can do so much more than you ever imagined. Try these 17 wellness apps for Apple Watch to up your health and fitness game. No matter where you’re starting, NTC’s worldwide community of fun, approachable trainers can help guide you to where you’re headed. After all, an app can help you work out, but it’s the people who help you show up. NTC provides intentional, progressive workout programs with specific nutrition, recovery, and mindset tips along the way. NTC’s wide range of Programs will help you make progress on your own schedule and at your speed.
Zepp Health (Amazfit)
Check out our guide on syncing your Apple Watch with Strava for all the details—and our verdict on whether /2025/02/14/mad-muscles-review-no-hidden-fees-just-full-access-to-everything-you-need/ the paid-for Strava tier is worth it. If you’re interested in Whoop but don’t want to add a secondary device, this will satisfy your curiosity—even if the data doesn’t seem quite as reliable. We polled the team at Candr Media, which includes Wareable, The Ambient, and Trusted Reviews, to determine our experts’ most-used Apple Watch apps. Finally, you can add repeats by first creating the sections you want (e.g., the work & recovery bits), and then, once that’s done, you choose to create a repeat and specify the parts/number of times.
We also prioritized effectiveness, favoring thoughtfully programmed workouts and motivating instructors who provide clear guidance and encourage users to stick with their routines. A seamless, intuitive interface was another key factor, making it easy to navigate classes, track progress, and stay engaged. Of course, scrolling the app store can feel overwhelming, and not every fitness app delivers high-quality programming. That’s why our exercise professionals in the Good Housekeeping Institute Nutrition & Fitness Lab tested more than 40 workout apps to find the ones that truly stand out. We evaluated everything from the quality of the workouts and variety of classes to how intuitive the apps felt to use. We also brought in real-life testers to share their experiences, including how challenging the workouts were, how engaging the classes felt, and whether the apps helped them stay motivated.
Gym-goers will also appreciate the self-guided option, which lets you move through exercises at your own pace. Smartgym’s free version only allows you to exercise for 10 sessions before you have to pay for mad muscles app review a premium membership. This means you’ll have plenty of opportunity to try the app out to see if it’s for you.
Training Gear
You can do a vast array of calculations right on your wrist, inputting data, using functions, and even doing trigonometry. On your Apple Watch, see a quick glance countdowns to your ovulations and enter your mood with just one touch. The app also features a 24/7 virtual health assistant as well as articles, videos, and courses. Noted is an AI recording app that can transcribe conversations using AI. It’s perfect for recording quick voice notes directly to your wrist, and you can even add time-stamped notes to your recordings.
- If you wear your Apple Watch to bed, Athlytic will track sleep, recovery, readiness, training load, health trends, HRV, and allow you to keep a journal of your health habits all in one place.
- It’s important to wear the test ring for a day or two to ensure it fits well and doesn’t slip off while washing your hands (we’re speaking from experience!).
- When used properly, the app provides accurate stats, personalized training insights, and even coaching-style feedback powered by AI.
- There are bodyweight and stretching exercises, but we’d hazard this isn’t playing to Fitbod’s strengths.
- Each of these apps brings something distinct to the table, and choosing one could be the most rigorous part of your fitness routine.
- The mobile app has options for strength, cardio, yoga, running, and, yes, cycling classes, all of which you can take live, though the bulk of the live classes are on a stationary bike or treadmill.
Subscription 🤮🤮
Yet, the one that stands out for the Apple Watch is ‘Watch To 5K, which works independently from your phone. You can go full screen with those maps and use real-time breadcrumb trail navigation, letting you use the Watch crown to zoom into areas. The color coding to help you point out hilly and flat parts of your location is also handy, too. However, if you’re pumping in serious mileage and want a holistic overview of how well you’re recovering, this is probably the best option for Apple Watch. Now that Apple enables you to sync runs from the Apple Workout app straight to Strava, we’d recommend using that instead.
Nike Run Club: Running Coach
The app is free, but you can pay for the Abel Runner’s Club version to access all eight seasons and features. In addition to heart-pounding https://www.fingerlakes1.com/2025/02/24/madmuscles-review-real-results-without-hidden-fees/ audio storylines and narrated adventures, there are also virtual races, stat tracking, GPS-enabled maps, and the ability to connect with your Apple Watch or Google Pixel Watch. I have no doubt it’s effective—I burned at least 5 to 10 calories just listening in fear to the YouTube trailer. The app also logs all the exercises you’ve performed, as well as syncs with other apps and devices, so it’s a good way of creating a well-rounded fitness and workout routine for your body and lifestyle. Simply enter all your workout details in the app, and Gymaholic reports back on the amount of weights you’ve lifted, calories you’ve burned, and average heart rate throughout. If you’ve never run before, this app offers the ideal way to start out before moving onto more independent running apps.
Product information
Uptime is a free app designed to help you get smarter in five-minute bursts. It lets you listen, read, or watch bite-sized chunks of books, podcasts, documentaries and courses, from New York Times bestsellers to Netflix documentaries, as well as podcasts from Apple and Spotify. On Apple Watch, control audio and browse the latest ‘hacks’ right from your wrist. Fantastical is perhaps the best-known and most prolific calendar app in the Apple ecosystem.
A comprehensive guide to the top smart rings—and how to pick the right one for your needs
This effectively mimics the native widgets from Apple, providing you with real-time updates on your Apple devices right from the wrist. It’s more geared to individual coaching than Nike Run Coach (above) and aimed at those with previous training experience. It will throw in a variety of runs and interval sessions, and Runna will guide you on pace during those runs via the Apple Watch app. If another wearable – like Whoop – starts getting attention, you can bet there’s an app that will replicate the features (or you can turn your Apple Watch into a Whoop tracker with our guide). If the Health app detects that your previous cardio fitness estimates could be more accurate, you’ll have the option to update your data.
A follow-up has thus far failed to materialize, but we’re likely to get a 2026 announcement for the brand’s next smart ring. You don’t get as many insights as Oura and Ultrahuman, even if Samsung covers the core experience just as well. The ring is Android-only, features a handy charging case, and comes at a pretty lofty price of $399.