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Workout questions!

T

Trhodezy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 29, 2010
311
142
For the lucky few that got their little paws on an Apple Watch, I have a couple of Q's, anyone who can answer them will forever go down as the king or queen of awesomeness in my books.

1. How accurate is the app(activity), heart rate monitor and general information gleaned from iPhone GPS, steps etc?

2. As I understand it, there's an indoor cardio bike workout option on the watch/app (correct me if I'm wrong) how accurate is this? As I train for charity bike rides around the UK/Italy and I find strapping on heart rate monitors etc are an unneeded hassle; does it count calories burned fairly accurately?

Many thanks for anyone that answers, enjoy your watches!
 
So far, I can only comment on the HR monitor. I find it extremely accurate. Its almost exactly what the readout on the treadmill shows.

However, I did have to make the watch tighter than I would normally to get the accurate reading. It took a few hours to get use to it, but now Im fine.
 
PhoneI said:
So far, I can only comment on the HR monitor. I find it extremely accurate. Its almost exactly what the readout on the treadmill shows.

However, I did have to make the watch tighter than I would normally to get the accurate reading. It took a few hours to get use to it, but now Im fine.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for the info, really appreciate it! I like to wear my bands, watches and bracelets fairly tight anyway, I guess the tighter and closer the monitor is to the skin (less light being let-in) the more accurate it would be.
 
Ive only tried it once but it works perfect and accurate, however the watch shows that i burned slightly more calories then the running machine did. Not sure if its a problem tho :D
 

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as said, HR monitor is great.

my only concern is that the watch cannot account for fluctuations in stationary cardio dynamics (e.g., incline, speed) and therefore may not be a great indicator for caloric consumption.

as a weight lifter, I'm dealing with the same types of limitations in resistance training. not sure the watch will ever be able to do better than iPhone apps, which generally estimate calories burned during weight training.
 
w00tini said:
as said, HR monitor is great.

my only concern is that the watch cannot account for fluctuations in stationary cardio dynamics (e.g., incline, speed) and therefore may not be a great indicator for caloric consumption.

as a weight lifter, I'm dealing with the same types of limitations in resistance training. not sure the watch will ever be able to do better than iPhone apps, which generally estimate calories burned during weight training.
Click to expand...

Yeah I would at least like to see a input for treadmill incline. It's wildy inaccurate right now. That of course would only help if you picked a incline and kept it and didn't run a program
 
I've really enjoyed using the activity app so far. It's fun watching your progress throughout the day and the encouraging notifications aren't annoying.

According to the latest Consumer Reports video the HR monitor is just as good as their top chest strap monitor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Prazcy00A
 
Steps are off for me, the phone was more accurate, I checked it to the data the phone gets from motion to the watch data.
One small walk
Watch 2,438
iPhone 2162
Not too bad, but the phone was better, actualy amazingly accurate.

Heart rate will occasionally show some way off numbers, you have to go into the health app and check vitals, show all data. Sometimes see 45, 75, 73, 73, all with the same time stamp. I would hope so n the future apple can just dump the clearly off ones, I actually delete them myself.
 
Did my first treadmill run today. The distance on the treadmill and watch were very close. Treadmill showed 3.5 miles and and the watch showed 3.52. Pretty good!
 
TheTom9 said:
Ive only tried it once but it works perfect and accurate, however the watch shows that i burned slightly more calories then the running machine did. Not sure if its a problem tho :D
Click to expand...

The machine, did you enter your height and weight?

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iVegas said:
Did my first treadmill run today. The distance on the treadmill and watch were very close. Treadmill showed 3.5 miles and and the watch showed 3.52. Pretty good!
Click to expand...

That's impressive. Had you trained the watch with data beforehand?
 
The HRM hasn't worked well for me when doing a workout. Both yesterday and today I went for a walk and used the Workout app. Both days the Apple Watch was giving me readings in the 60's and 70's. That's 1/2 of what my chest strap was showing! Weird thing is after my workout I spent some time comparing the watch to what my chest strap was showing and they were about the same, within a couple bpm. So I'm not sure if it's only when using the workout app that it's off? I'll have to keep messing with it, but so far it's a big disappointment for me.
 
LiemTa said:
The machine, did you enter your height and weight?

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That's impressive. Had you trained the watch with data beforehand?
Click to expand...

Just the usual age, weight, height etc. I've also logged a few dog walks so I'm not sure if that's helped watch learn how to judge the distance I can cover.
 
Other than just choosing "other", does anyone have suggestions on how best to track pushups? Do you think I should pause it in between reps?
 
Phisherman81 said:
Other than just choosing "other", does anyone have suggestions on how best to track pushups? Do you think I should pause it in between reps?
Click to expand...

"Other" is pretty much your only option. I've been using the same to track similar activity after running.
 
Heart rate and distance seem quite accurate but caloric burn is another thing. My friend and I went for a walk and she burned five hundred calories more than I did -- same height and weight etc.
 
random person said:
Heart rate and distance seem quite accurate but caloric burn is another thing. My friend and I went for a walk and she burned five hundred calories more than I did -- same height and weight etc.
Click to expand...

Did you compare heart rates? Maybe you are fitter than your friend, so your heart rate wasn't elevated during the walk, but hers was?
 
HR rate is ok but a chest strap is still better no matter what Consumer Reports says. I've done two weight workouts, rode a spin bike, road my street bike & went to the track.
 
rhyme said:
Did you compare heart rates? Maybe you are fitter than your friend, so your heart rate wasn't elevated during the walk, but hers was?
Click to expand...

This makes sense to me! My resting pulse is MUCH lower so I am sure my heart rate was lower during the walk. Thank you!
 
w00tini said:
as said, HR monitor is great.

my only concern is that the watch cannot account for fluctuations in stationary cardio dynamics (e.g., incline, speed) and therefore may not be a great indicator for caloric consumption.

as a weight lifter, I'm dealing with the same types of limitations in resistance training. not sure the watch will ever be able to do better than iPhone apps, which generally estimate calories burned during weight training.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't your HR increase because of the incline? Therefore you Calorie burn would increase too.
 
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