5 things I learned in my first Apple Fitness Plus workout

Gareth Beavis puts Apple’s workout subscription service to the test.

Apple Fitness Plus has launched, and it’s something I’ve been itching to try. Since we first heard about it back on September 15, the idea of expanding the workouts from your Apple Watch into a more interactive and vibrant experience is pretty good.

When you take your pick from a number of classes – such as yoga, core, strength or a cycling workout – you’ll start the session and see your live heart rate on the screen, along with the calorie burn and your ‘rings’, Apple’s metric to chart how often you’re moving, exercising and standing each day, filling up in the corner.

While I need to test the service more fully, I fired up a 20 minute high intensity interval training (HIIT) workout, chose ‘Upbeat hits’ and got cracking to see what it was all about.

1 You don’t need an Apple Watch

Here’s a peek behind the curtain folks: I was supposed to be on holiday when Fitness Plus launched, and already had a super full day planned. However, I knew I needed to experience the service right away, so I decided I would just watch a workout while making dinner.

I thought that I’d have to go and get my Watch and I’d ruin my daily workout averages by doing it this way – but I fired it up and was presented with the option to ‘Work out without Watch’.

2 My heart rate worries were unfounded

I’ve struggled to get consistent heart rate readings from watches or things that plug into your ears for years – they’ll work sometimes but they often drop out, and given heart rate was a key part of Fitness Plus, I was worried.

But it performed beautifully through the session, rising and falling at the times I’d expect it to and giving me good encouragement through my calorie burn. Which leads me to…

3 I love the burn bar

Ah, the burn bar. This is a pink line that has an image of a little person working out, and the harder you work compared to the average for this session, the further towards the front of the line you’ll be.

I’ll come alive when there’s something competitive to focus on, like a group spin class or normal running race – and I found that as soon as I was told that I was middle of the pack, my intensity grew that little bit more.

4 Some sessions need more structure

But what about the sessions themselves? Well, the workouts are fine – the HIIT workout with Kim that I did wasn’t as hard as I was expecting. While it did push me and make me sweat, it wasn’t as hardcore as some of the workout classes I followed during the lockdown (if you’ve done anything from Joe Wicks, the Body Coach, you’ll understand my comparison level).

5 I’m worried I’ll give up

Fitness Plus is just like a gym, where you’ll sign up for these fancy spinning classes, HIIT workouts or interval treadmill sessions. There’s no focus on how you’re improving necessarily, but just giving you a multitude of options to choose from each time you want to work out.

That’s the thing – I’m not someone that wants to workout, but I know I should and I find it easy when I’m on a program to just do what I’m told.

Here, I’m going to have to schedule in some time each week to be disciplined and fire up the app – and I’m worried that I won’t.

It would be great if you could even just ‘sign yourself up’ for classes on the app when the motivation is there, and they’ll land in your calendar and remind you that you wanted to do this.