After huge success with smartphones, Android and Apple entered the world of the smartwatch and have since been producing world-class wearable fitness trackers. As such, there are loads of apps dedicated to help you monitoring your fitness.
Other than delivering notifications for your calls, texts and social media, smartwatches have the ability to inform you of your health and fitness levels. Most manufacturers have a native fitness app, but there are plenty of third-party app developers who want to compete.
Let’s check out five top apps for keeping your fitness up with help from your smartwatch.
Endomundo
Endomundo was a very popular social fitness network long before the birth of the smartwatch. It now supports WearOS and users can enjoy rich features on their wrist.
Endomundo has matured over time and offers an awful lot. Its health and fitness data tracking offers insights into both indoor and outdoor workouts. It pairs brilliantly with a heart rate monitor and produces accurate heart rate numbers. It analyses your information, which it presents in a daily diary with split times per workout, as well as other data.
Furthermore,it has some awesome social features, so you can interact with pals and share your fitness plans and goals. Your WearOS smartwatch will deliver voice commands through which you’re able to tailor what information you want to pop up first on your smartwatch.
There’s a free and a premium subscription for this app, which is $5.99 per month ($29.99 per year).
Google Fit
Google’s Google Fit for WearOS (originally launched for Android Wear) can be used with a paired smartwatch and Android device, or solely on a smartwatch.
The app will tell you how many steps you’ve done on your smartwatch display. There are dedicated cards for your heart rate. You can set yourself goals for activities like running and cycling, for instance, and access maps and graphs – but you’ll need to sync your smartwatch with your smartphone for this.
The coolest thing is that it plays well with other fitness apps too, so you can really maximise your fitness information and see all your data easily, on screen.
Strava Running and Cycling
Strava is one of the best-known and trusted apps and comes very highly-rated. You can download it from the Android Store and use it with pretty much any WearOS-equipped smartwatch. The app will work with the GPS function on your smartwatch to deliver your health and fitness information whilst you’re out and about.
Strava will deliver important data – calories burned, distance covered, speed and elevation – and you can monitor your heart rate, too. You can share what you get up to on social media and compete with friends on the leaderboard.
The app is free but there are various in-app purchases for the premium features. These allow you to set goals, see instant post-work out performance data, training video content and other cool things.
Runtastic
Runtastic is another name known to active smartwatch wearers. It lets you listen to audiobooks and podcasts whilst working out, which is a great feature that you don’t see often. This comes from a feature named ‘story running’ where you can purchase stories for a dollar. The tracks last about 40 minutes each – perfectly timed for a decent run or workout.
If you’re an Apple Watch wearer, this app will sync nicely with your rings so you can complete your exercise goals for the day. You can begin any Runtastic activity on your Apple Watch.
It’s free to download, but you can get the premium features for $10 a month (or $50 a year). This gives you access to more advanced statistics and nutritional information, all advert-free.
Gymaholic
Gymaholic is an Apple Watch-compatible app that has a focus on complex strength training. It uses 3D modelling and augmented reality, and is pretty cool. Images on the Apple Watch display are tiny, but it works well enough. You’re told about what reps and sets you have left, using the modelling feature which is valuable regardless of the actual workout you’re doing.
You can edit your set and monitor your heart rate and add or delete exercises right there on your watch. The only drawback is that you need to be pretty clued up on the names of the moves and lifts as well as the correct form and how to improve. So, this app is wonderful for a seasoned weightlifter or bodybuilder chasing some serious gains.
Summary
It’s tricky finding a smartwatch that offers everything you need, and once you’ve got that, then you’ll need to find a fitness app to suit your needs. If you’re new to the fitness scene, there are apps that will make workout suggestions to get you started, and coaching assistance as you go.
Any sport you’re into will have an app that will increase your efficiency and offer tips on how to train. Waterproof smartwear has opened up the possibilities not only to include activities like swimming and outdoor pursuits, but it also means you never need to take your watch off and so data can be collected around the clock.
Thanks to the wonderful world of tech, we’re able to learn more things about ourselves so we can make the right choices for our health.
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Last Updated on October 7, 2021
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