Saintel Daily’s List of the Best Apple Watch Apps: Health (Part 1)

There are so many Apple Watch apps available these days.  You can play games, like an Instagram post, and track your sleep habits through your Apple Watch.  Making it a truly smart watch.  I am always getting asked why I have the Watch and what kinds of benefits it gives me.  It’s honestly hard to explain to people sometimes.  It’s convenient, it’s a tool that makes my life easier, and it can be fun.  Which is why we are bringing you this four-part series on the best Apple Watch apps available.  Tell us which is your favorite app.  Is it health related, because you like to know how your fitness is doing?  Is it about productivity, because you’re a nerd like me?  Or is it just that you like to sit back, relax and play a game?

Streaks Workout

Streaks is great because you get to choose the workout that you want.  To start, all you have to do is choose the length of the workout that you want.  If you choose 30 minutes, you should know that it’s referred to as “pain”.  Based on this information, the app will put together a string of exercises for you to do.  When you’re done with a set of reps, you simply tap the screen to log it and move onto the next one.  This is the kind of app that I truly appreciate – simple and straightforward.

WorkOutDoors

The beauty of this app is that it allows you to get outside for your workout.  The app puts a map right on your wrist.  You will get a vector based map that can be zoomed, panned or even rotated.  There are a ton of features offered by this app.  It has bread crumb trails, multi-colored speed trails, elevation trails, heart-rate trails, and POI’s to help you navigate your way to the nearest emergency room when you’ve pushed yourself too far.

Strava

Strava is a lot like WorkOutDoors, but much simpler.  It comes with a giant “start” button, as well as a bunch of other stats – like time, distance, heart rate etc).  The app itself isn’t specific to one type of workout.  You can run, walk, hike or even bike.  Whatever you choose.  The only real downside to this app is that it is very hard on your battery.

Runkeeper

Runkeeper, as the name suggests, is a running app.  If you have an older Apple Watch, you can still use this app.  Just make sure that your iPhone and Apple Watch are still up to date.  But if you’ve got an Apple Watch Series 2 or 3, you can turn off “Run with Phone” and be able to use the GPS that is built into your device.  It’s great for check out routes from your more successful runs.

Sleep++

Ahhh… sleep.  It’s glorious, isn’t it?  Most of us don’t get enough of it, which is why you should have some kind of sleep tracker on your Apple Watch.  Mine tells me that I didn’t sleep enough last night.  Which is why I might head back to bed after writing this post.  Broadly speaking, Sleep++ is designed to track motion.  Which then tells you how restless you are.  In my case, very.  I move a lot during the night.  Which, I know, drives my boyfriend crazy.  As of watchOS 3, Background Refresh enables Sleep++ to be more responsive when you wake, enabling you to immediately analyze last night’s sleep.

Standland

I know you’re probably thinking – there’s a stand feature on the Apple Watch.  Yes, there is, but that version doesn’t really give you the ability to get rewarded for your progress.  Standland will give you a cute collectible creature if you do any activity that lasts at least one minute within an hour.  You can max out to 24 collectibles per day.

Gymatic

A personal favorite of mine, Gymatic is ideal for anyone who is addicted to the gym.  It automatically logs weight machine reps.  If you’re not sure how many bicep curls you’ve done today, this app will keep track for sure.  The $4.99 cost/month is a bit steep, but this does unlock unlimited exercise detection (you’re otherwise restricted to eight different exercises) and you can teach it new ones by repeating a movement a few times.  For me, having 8 isn’t enough because I tend to do full body workouts.