How to Unlock the Live Heart Rate Zone View on Your Apple Watch
After sailing along the same path good enough I’ve been working on my fitness routine for too long, but now I finally feel motivated to step it up a notch and get back into my pre-baby shape.
For the past six years, I’ve relied on the Apple Watch to keep me honest about how much (or how little) I exercise, to nudge me to take a late-night walk so I can close my Move rings, or to send me notifications when my “fitness levels” are trending downward. (I just gave birth to a human, Apple Watch—relax!) On the surface, it might seem like I’m doing everything right. But the truth is, I’m just going through the motions to hit a quota, and my body knows it. I can feel the difference in my body (and mental state) from when I was in peak physical shape and working toward a fitness goal.
These are Mine Goals: I want to get stronger so I can carry my baby without hurting my back. I want to build up my endurance so I can run longer distances again and sign up for a 10K or half marathon in 2025. And finally, I want to tone and increase my muscle mass so I can shed that last bit of stubborn post-baby fat that’s still there. I realize that “peak shape” is going to look a little different now that I’m in my 30s and have three kids competing with my workout schedule, but I also know there’s room for improvement—and thanks to the Apple Watch, I have some tools to help me get there.
Apple continues to prioritize health and fitness on the Apple Watch, adding new tools and features with each new Apple Watch model and watchOS update. The most recent feature addition, sleep apnea notifications, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last week and will be available on the Apple Watch Series 9, 10, and Ultra 2. But the biggest hurdle for many users (besides willpower) will be knowing the features even exist—and how to enable them on your device.
It took me a little digging on both my iPhone and my Apple Watch to find the two features that have been huge game-changers for my fitness routine so far: heart rate zone views and cardio fitness.
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Why is it important to have heart rate zones?
Rather than overhauling my current routine, which I can barely maintain, I build on what I already do by increasing the duration and intensity of each exercise. My routine consists of two Pilates sessions (strength training) and three brisk walks per week (cardio). Cardio is more efficient at burning calories and building endurance, while strength training burns fat and builds muscle.
One way to gauge how hard you’re working during exercise is to look at your heart rate (in beats per minute). A popular way to get the most out of this data is to determine your target heart rate for any activity based on your maximum heart rate (calculated as 220 minus your current age). This formula is known as the heart rate reserve method.
Luckily, your Apple Watch does this math for you. It can then categorize your heart rate data into five zones and display it live on your wrist so you can be proactive about your exertion level, in addition to summarizing it on your phone once your workout is over. This feature is already enabled for you in some workout types, but not others; thankfully, you can manually enable it and reorder the views so it shows first in the workout categories you want.
How to Enable Heart Rate Zone Displays on Your Apple Watch
- Go to the Workout app on your watch.
- Tap the “…” option in the top right corner of a particular workout type.
- Scroll to the bottom of the menu and tap Preferences.
- Tap the Training Views box at the top.
- You will see several display options that you can add and arrange. Scroll down to Heart Rate Zones and turn on Include.
You can enable the heart rate zone view for a specific training type in the settings.
Now, when you’re in the middle of a workout, you can turn the crown on your Apple Watch and see what heart rate zone you’re in during your workout. In zones 1-3, your body primarily burns fat, while in zones 4 and 5, it burns carbs and protein, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Note: This manual update only enables the heart rate zones display for that specific workout category, so if you do a different type of workout at another time during the week, you’ll want to enable that display as well. You can also set your heart rate zones manually in your watch settings, but by default, the Apple Watch automatically calculates them based on existing watch data and recalibrates your zones for you on the first of every month.
If you want to manually adjust your heart rate zones, you can do so in Settings. By default, however, your Apple Watch creates them automatically based on your past heart rate data.
After analyzing my last 10 workouts in the Fitness app on my iPhone, I realized that I was stuck in zone 1 during my entire Pilates session and that I was barely reaching zone 3 during my cardio workout (brisk walking).
To get to the next level, I need to train in a higher zone than I’m used to for both types of exercise. My walks become jogs with a few sprints or hills to reach zones 4 and 5, and I need to add another 10 minutes and extra resistance to my usual 30-minute Pilates session to reach zone 2.
Two other features you should know
The next step was to figure out how I wanted to measure my progress. I needed something tangible that I could use to gauge my fitness levels, in addition to any subtle physical changes I was noticing on the outside. Since muscle is denser than fat, the scale just wouldn’t cut it. That’s where the Cardio Fitness Score comes in.
You can track your cardio fitness score in the Fitness app on your iPhone.
In addition to heart rate zones, the Apple Watch uses your heart rate data, along with your movement data over time, to calculate your VO2 max, which is calculated by the American Heart Association is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise. Apple calls this your cardio fitness score, and you can find it in the Health app on your iPhone.
Your score is then categorized into one of our categories: high, above average, below average, and low. My current score is 41, just enough to put me in the “high” category, but not by much. My goal is to get closer to 50, where I was before my third pregnancy. Since the Apple Watch is not a hospital device, I only use these numbers to track progress and not for medical purposes.
With the release of watchOS 11, the Apple Watch also got a new feature called Training Load, which lets you see how your workout ranks in intensity compared to the last 28 days and plot it on a graph so you can visualize it. It doesn’t do this automatically for strength training exercises like Pilates, but you can enter it manually and still see the results on the graph. It also can’t be viewed live during a workout like the heart rate zone information above, but it would serve as a great complement to the cardio fitness score and as a way to track progress over time.
Armed with the right tools and metrics, I feel confident that I can move the needle and achieve my goals. Because I’m not looking for a quick fix, I don’t feel the need to set a specific time frame to achieve success, but rather plan to celebrate wins as they come and check in after a few months.
No matter where you are in your fitness journey, it’s important to consult your doctor before making any major changes to your routine.
