One of the most common reasons people buy and wear an Apple Watch is to improve their health and fitness levels. The watch has some great built-in fitness features that are tracking your steps and the number of calories you burn every day, but if you really want to get the most from your Apple Watch, you should definitely look into the best health and fitness apps available in the app store.
These apps can help you in your day-to-day life by keeping your feet and making it easier to track your exercise and by providing you with nutrition information and resources for mental health in the form of meditation, yoga, or mindfulness.
We’ve put together the best health and fitness apps for the Apple Watch to get you started.
Table of Contents
1. Apple Fitness +
Type: Health & Fitness
Price: $9.99/month
The recently launched Apple Fitness + takes the faff out of fitness by providing you with nine different types of workouts, including cycling, rowing, treadmill, HIIT, yoga, and mindful cooldown. Apple Fitness + is one of the most complete health and fitness apps available for smart watches and, since it was built around the functionality of the Apple Watch, the integration is flawless.
Best App: Apple Fitness+ is on our best Apple Watch Apps List.
The app features hundreds of guided workouts for every level, being suitable for anyone, whether you are just getting started on your fitness journey or you have been hitting the gym for a while. All the stats from your Apple Watch, including calories burned, heart rate, and elapsed time, show up on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV screen, so you don’t have to keep looking at your wrist while you exercise.
Pros
- Excellent selection of workouts
- Perfect integration with the Apple watch
- Immersive experience thanks to the dozens of instructors
Cons
• No free version available
Review Summary
Score: 9.9/10
The reviews for Apple Fitness + are overwhelmingly positive, with users loving the wide range of workouts and instructors available. The only downside is that there is no free version of the app. However, all users get one free month to test the application.
Download Apple Fitness +
2. Calm
Type: Meditation/Mindfulness
Price: Free, in-app purchases available
Calm is a meditation app at its core, but it goes above that by offering an incredible selection of mind exercises, sleep stories, and daily calm sessions. Some of the reasons you may want to try this meditation app include reducing stress or anxiety, improving focus, improving sleep quality, and self-improvement.
Calm has over 100 exclusive sleep stories for adults and children that are guaranteed to send you into a deep sleep. This is a perfect app for those who are only started with guided meditation, and it offers 7 and 21 days mindfulness programs to keep you on track and help you progress.
Pros
- New content is added constantly
- The voices of the narrators are truly coming
- You can easily customize and adjust your experience
Cons
• The meditations could be more varied
Review Summary
Score: 9.7/10
Reviews for Calm are mostly positive, with users loving the way the app helps them improve their meditation techniques and sleep. There are not many downsides mentioned, but some users find these stories too long, especially those for children.
Download Calm
3. Lifesum
Type: Health/Nutrition
Price: Free, in-app purchases available
If you are looking for a mobile app that can help you reshape your diet and lose weight, Lifesum is one of the best choices out there. This app can help you create personalized nutrition plans, whether you want to go keto or are interested in a high protein diet.
Unlike many other weight loss apps, Lifesum offers a high degree of flexibility to suit everyone’s dietary requirements and nutritional goals. The app is available for free with some limitations, but you can also pay for a subscription and get a premium membership to access all features.
Pros
- New content is added constantly
- The voices of the narrators are truly coming
- You can easily customize and adjust your experience
Cons
• No community features
Review Summary
Score: 9.5/10
Lifesum gets mostly positive reviews from users who like how easy it is to customize your nutrition plans and log your daily calories. However, some of them mentioned that the app would be better if it had some community features like MyFitnessPal has.
Download Lifesum
See also: Best Apple Watch Apps
4. Strava
Type: Fitness
Price: Free, in-app purchases available
One of the most popular fitness applications in the App Store, Strava is perfect for tracking your running, cycling, or swimming activities. The app has a very rich set of features and also has a strong emphasis on community. Strava is free to download and use, but some of its most useful features are only available in the premium version.
Some of the features that make Strava an excellent fitness app include the ability to share your location with other people while you’re doing an activity, creating and tracking fitness goals, local and worldwide leader boards, and more.
Pros
- Impressive social aspect
- Comprehensive range of features
- Location tracking for extra safety
Cons
• Privacy concerns related to the live tracking of running or cycling
Review Summary
Score: 9.3/10
Strava receives mostly positive reviews from cyclists and runners who use it to track and share their fitness activity with other people. However, the app has gone into trouble for privacy concerns, and some reviews mentioned that the app shouldn’t set the privacy controls to public by default.
Download Strava
5. Headspace
Type: Mindfulness/meditation
Price: Free, in-app purchases available
Headspace is a mindfulness app that makes it super easy to get started with meditation. It is one of the most downloaded mindfulness apps in the App Store and was co-founded by a former Buddhist monk, Andy Puddicombe, who narrates most of their guided meditations.
The app makes it easy to customize most of the meditations, and you can choose from sessions that last between three and 20 minutes. Besides being a meditation app, Headspace also offers content that can help you get a good night’s sleep, as well as hundreds of low to medium-impact workouts that focus on the mind-body connection.
Pros
- Great choice for those who are looking to try meditation for the first time
- Multiple meditation techniques derived from Buddhist traditions
- Makes it easy to track your mindfulness journey
Cons
• The premium version is quite expensive
Review Summary
Score: 9.2/10
The majority of users who reviewed Headspace noted that the web is a game-changer that helped them overcome anxiety and other mental health issues. However, most of the negative reviews are related to the high cost of the premium version.
Download Headspace
6. Pocket Yoga
Type: Fitness
Price: $4.99
There are lots of yoga apps for the Apple Watch available out there, but Pocket Yoga stands out from the crowd as a flexible and customizable option for those who need lots of instructions for each pose. This app can easily replace a yoga instructor as you get voice and visual instructions for more than 350 poses. With Pocket Yoga, you can be sure that you have the correct posture and alignment, and you can play music from Spotify or your music library. Pocket yoga integrates with the health app, and you can use it with Siri as well.
Pros
- You can quickly preview a practice to see if it’s the right one for you before starting
- Practices are designed by experienced yoga instructors
- Pose of the Day feature allows you to learn a different pose every day
Cons
• Not great for those who have a lot of experience with yoga
Review Summary
Score: 9/10
Users who tested and reviewed Pocket Yoga are typically content with the app and its intuitive interface that makes it very easy to try at home workouts even if you’re a beginner. The downside is that the practices can get a bit repetitive, and they might not be a great choice if you already have experience with yoga.
Download Pocket Yoga