Click on the Apple Fitness+ website and you’ll see some pretty bold claims. “A new fitness experience for everyone, powered by Apple Watch,” they profess. Scroll down and you’ll read another. “World-class workouts by the world’s top trainers… New workouts every week… Work out how and where you want.”
Apple certainly doesn’t do things by halves. It’s Apple, after all. They set a standard and, more often than not, they hit it. But this is a big step, even for them. Made even bigger as they are having to play catch-up in a streaming fitness video world that is already pretty crowded.
During the pandemic, fitness apps became priority number one for almost every gym and trainer. According to Apptopia, in the first half of 2020, six of the most-downloaded fitness apps featured video. On top of that, you have the connected machine options, like Mirror, Tonal, and market leader Peleton. Founded just eight years ago, it has evolved from focusing on workouts for its spin bike to today featuring a connected treadmill and streaming fitness videos. Its net worth? An estimated $30 billion. It would take a huge step to go toe-to-toe with these products.
I’ve always been a fan of Apple and the iPhone, but I’ve never really been that interested in the Watch. It’s surprising, I realise, as I’m the Digital Editor of Men’s Health. I’ve always felt the watch was a distraction that I didn’t need. I never wanted to be told how many more steps I needed to take, that I haven’t stood up enough times today or that my move goals were down 25 per cent compared to last week. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to glean from my resting heart rate other than ‘low is good,’ and as for blood oxygen levels, well, it is a nice touch but unless you studied arterial oxygen at university, it’s another stat you probably don’t really need.
But I won’t lie, when I was asked to try out the new Apple Watch Series 6 as part of a larger introduction into Apple Fitness+, I was rather excited. After all, Apple doesn’t do things by halves.
I’m not a huge fan of fitness classes. The concept of someone 10 years my junior, better built and better-looking, shouting in my ear to go faster is my personal idea of hell. I’ve done these kinds of classes in the past – in fact, I’ve probably done all of them while working at Men’s Health – and I’m yet to find one where I didn’t want to rage-quit halfway through. I much prefer putting my headphones in and doing my own thing, at my own pace.
So, when I opened up Apple TV (you can also stream workouts to your smartphone and iPad from your Apple Watch), tapped Apple Fitness+ and started to scroll through the workout genres – of which there are 10 including HIIT, core, cycling and dance – before filtering my way through the trainers – all 12 of them – then selecting the duration of the session and the type of music I wanted to listen to, I was a little sceptical. However, that wasn’t to say I wasn’t mightily impressed. The sheer volume of content they’ve created, and the quality of it, is staggering. The ease at which you can scroll through the app, finding what you want is effortless, too. As you’d expect from Apple, it’s slick, sharp and cool.
“In the first week, we’ll be close to if not over 200 workouts across all the modalities, says Jay Blahnik, Apple’s senior director of fitness for health technologies, referring to Fitness+’s ten different workout styles. “Every single week we anticipate delivering new workouts with multiple trainers and different length sessions.”
Fitness can get boring. As can the sound of a trainer’s voice. With the ability to create new workouts every week, there could be a thousand workouts to choose from by summer 2021. That’s not to say you have to do them all. Here, it’s all about the user’s choice. With the vast array of trainers, workouts, music and durations to choose from, you’re in control of what you want to do. And, as with anything, you’ll have your favourites and your not-so-favourites – flowing through a Vinyasa to Hip+Hop isn’t for me.
As you start to use the app more often, it will also start to recognise your behaviour and recommend the best workouts. This is just one of the new innovations Apple has developed in a bid to make exercising easier. “Working out is hard for a lot of people,” says Blahnik. “It’s hard for beginners. It’s hard for fit people. The spirit of what we’ve been doing from the very beginning is to try and make fitness, whether it’s your all-day activity or your actual workout, a little easier, a little more motivating, and a little simpler to measure.”
The Apple Watch has many features to motivate people – celebrating when you close your activity rings, sharing workouts, giving feedback on activity trends – but the development team examined lots of other ways to bake in different kinds of motivation to the Fitness+ experience. What they realised is that there are certain moments in workouts, like a tough interval in a HIIT session, when the timer or your heart rate matters more. Apple created software that triggers the animation of those metrics or shows them in greater detail when cued by the trainer. “When the trainer says in a HIIT workout, ‘Sprint all out for seconds,’ being able to see that time is an incredible motivator,” says Blahnik. “It makes for a better, more immersive workout. It’s a very new experience.”
He’s right, of course. Us humans are very simple beings. Halfway through my HIIT workout with Bakari Williams – who is quickly becoming my favourite trainer on the app – my exercise ring closed. It felt good, and I started to put more effort in. In fact, just being able to see the data from your watch appear on the screen in front of you enhances the experience. The workout felt dynamic and immersive. It does feel like you’re in the studio with the trainers.
The music helps, too. Who better than to provide a solid playlist than the pioneers of digital music services? Again, the development behind the workouts, the intensity during the sessions and the beats of music have all been worked for ultimate user experience. When you’re running hill repeats or rowing intervals, you really want the beat drops to happen at the right time, Blahnik explains. He’s right. There’s nothing worse than Adele popping up in your random playlist when you’re about to pop a lung in your HIIT session.
I’m five days into my experience with Fitness+ and I’ve worked out every day, on some occasions even before breakfast. A personal milestone. It’s through choice, too: I now look forward to my 30-minute session, the familiar faces of the trainers and their workouts. It’s like being part of a club, where everyone is invited. The community is another element Fitness+ has made its own.
The beginner section really makes things easy for those new in the fitness world, focusing on low impact exercise and moves that work on balance and core. What’s great is that it’s the same trainers providing the advanced workouts as those instructing the entry-level sessions. There’s no elitism when you log on, no fitness bias, no intimidation that you so often find in certain ‘trendy’ workout classes. For me, as an editor of the UK’s largest health and fitness brand, that couldn’t be more important.
These workouts aren’t going to get you up three T-shirt sizes, but they will get you moving, enjoying exercise and make you feel welcome, no matter who or where you are. It sounds so simple, but what they have achieved is harder than you think.
Apple Fitness+ is £9.99/mo or £79.99/yr – everyone can try Fitness+ free for one month. The app can be accessed on iPhone, iPad or Apple TV
How Fitness+ Works
The platform is a fairly straightforward proposition. For the above subscription, users are able to access a library of prerecorded workouts from the 10 training styles available (HIIT, strength, yoga, dance, rowing, cycling, treadmill walking, treadmill running, core, and mindful cooldown).
The only gear needed are dumbbells for some HIIT and strength routines, along with the requisite rowers, treadmills, and spin bikes for each of those modalities. None of the gear needs to connected to the app, other than the user’s Apple Watch (a Series 3 or later is required), which syncs with the iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV used to broadcast the content.
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