Apple Watch study: How workouts affect cardio fitness


Anyone who wears an Apple Watch uses it to record their heart rate. If desired, the watch can also draw conclusions about endurance from this. When running or walking outdoors, the watch calculates the so-called cardio fitness level. This value helps to assess the fitness of your own cardiovascular system, the health app assigns it to four categories low, below average, over the average and high one. In the USA, data from the Apple Watch is included in the Apple Heart and Movement Study if Apple Watch users install the necessary research app. Among other things, Apple uses the study to develop new functions, such as fall detection during sports under watchOS 8.1 or the analysis of the risk of falling (stability when walking) under iOS 15. The manufacturer is now sharing new findings from the study that provide more information about the connection betrayed by cardio fitness and training.

Findings from the Apple study

Apple evaluated the data from 18 million workouts and found:

  • Walking, running and cycling are the most popular types of training, because the study participants achieved the most active minutes with these types of workouts.
  • They kept their goal of doing at least 150 minutes of sport per week older people aged 65 and over from the study more often than the younger people.
  • The study found one Relationship between regular training and high cardio fitness: Those participants who a above average cardio fitness level, do more than 200 minutes of sport per week on average. Those who a high achieve a cardio fitness level, do more than 300 minutes of sport on average.

Apple is conducting the study in collaboration with the American Heart Association and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, USA). More than 100,000 people of different ages take part. Only those who live in the USA can take part.

The Health app on iPhone provides interesting insights, such as health trends and cardio fitness levels.

Cardiofitness level: how to activate it

If you want your own Apple Watch to display the fitness value VO2max is calculated, sets up the function via the Health app on the iPhone. There are found in the tab Discover the menu items heart, cardio fitness.

Health trends in the Health app

Within the health app, users have the option of viewing trends. To do this, scroll in the tab overview down to the heading trends. There you tap view health trends. The app then shows long-term trends of many values, including movement and heart data. There you can also find out how often you train on average per day. Activate if you like trend notifications, so iPhone lets you know when the data shows a change.



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