Apple Watch can help you on your fitness journey by monitoring your heart rate, speed, and calories. It can also give you an insight into your pace and activity, but unfortunately, Apple Watch lacks the sensor to determine the amount of weight you can lift.
When it comes to developing a strong fitness regime, weightlifting is equally important as walking and running. Without any form of strength training, a fitness routine is incomplete.
Although Apple Watch does not have direct support for helping with a workout with weights, there are plenty of third-party apps that can help you out in this sector. Keep reading to find out more about these weightlifting apps made for Apple Watch.
1. Why Weight Training Is Important?
Most trainers emphasize strength training more than any other form of exercise. The reason why strength training is important lies in its name itself. “Strength training” means aiming for “strength.” Who doesn’t need strength?
The sole purpose of a workout is to build maximum strength. From being able to carry heavy things and improving posture to building your core muscles – the role of strength training is immense. You can also get a toned body and more muscle mass with an active training workout with weights.
Of course, push-ups, bench press, or taking a brisk walk can help you shed some fat, but with free weights, your physique will be more well-defined and pronounced.
2. How Can Apple Watch Help Weightlifting?
Apple Watch can help out a lot when it comes to strength training workouts. There are apps that can help you decide on your exercises, show you how they’re done and keep a tab on your progress so far. Let’s have a look at what role they play in tracking strength training –
2.1 Training from Home
Most of these apps focus on planning workouts that you can easily do indoors, mainly in your own home. Not everyone can afford to try strength training exercises in a gym, which is why these apps are perfect!
These apps can select a workout type depending on your body measurements and weight, so you can be ensured that it’s not taking a toll on you. Besides, you don’t need to buy tons of free weights for this training. These apps can plan your routines with simple weights that you can find easily.
2.2 Designed for All Levels
One of the ways a workout app can help with strength training is how it plans workout programs for lifters belonging to different levels. Whether you’re a beginner or a professional – there’s something in store for everyone.
You can even slowly build your way from the primary levels to more professional levels with time and effort.
2.3 Maintaining Posture
Besides, a workout app can show you how the ‘form’ is done. Weightlifting is all about maintaining the proper posture and these apps help you figure out how you can perform the lifts and still maintain a correct form.
By maintaining the correct form, you can not only build an appropriate posture but can also avoid injury. Since strength training is a pretty serious workout, it may lead to injury if not done in the right way. This is where these apps can help!
2.4 Logging Progress
Another way a workout app on Apple can help is by logging your progress. No one becomes a pro at anything in a day. Building something from scratch takes both time and effort. But it’s important to keep track of your progress to determine how much you’ve succeeded from the point you started.
A fitness and health app can help you monitor your activity, pace, and progress from day one. It keeps tabs on when you’ve performed what exercise, when you moved to the next workout, what weights you used, how many active calories you burned, your rest intervals, and so on.
These data can help you identify your weaknesses and how you can combat them to build more strength.
Besides, logging progress can also motivate you every day to keep moving forward. You can view your workout activity and make any changes necessary in your workouts. You can also try other workout patterns if you think that your current one is not working for you.
3. Best Weightlifting Apps for Apple Watch
Now that you know how necessary strength training is and how an app can help you track your training, it’s time to have a look at some of the apps supported by Apple.
Here are some Apple strength training apps that you can try –
3.1 SmartGym
SmartGym is a cool app that you can get on your Apple device for tracking your weightlifting game. With tons of pre-built workouts and exercise regimes, this app is one of the best things you can get for your Watch.
You can create your own workout plans here, which is great! Besides, you can get access to many workouts made previously by professionals. This is great for those who don’t have the time to plan their own workout routines. You can track weight training sessions and log your everyday progress.
3.2 Liftr
Another unique app that can help you track your strength training journey is Liftr. This app focuses more on tracking your pace and progress and has a wonderful database of more than 200 exercises. You can create your own goals, annotate any changes, add your custom workouts and make gorgeous templates.
It has full iCloud backup support and a rest timer to make things feel simple and easy. With features like Custom app icons and editing workout reps, you can’t choose a better tracking application for lifting weights than this one.
3.3 Nike Run Club
If you’re looking for the perfect application to track weight lifting for you, Nike Run Club is your go-to app. Apple and Nike Run Club have been companions for years.
The reason why this app is so popular among Apple users is because of its high-quality features and tools. With social features, guided challenges, GPS run tracking, and so on – this app is a killer for athletes and budding trainers. It actively monitors your heart rate and logs your progress on a daily basis.
Nike Run Club also allows you to experience custom challenges and coaching plans based on your activity, pace, and target. From monitoring your cardio exercises, reps, and so on, this app can totally make a difference in your workout regimes.
3.4 7 Minute Workout
If you’re a beginner and want to start with some quick yet effective workouts, 7 Minute Workout is the best option for you. This is perfect for those who are working professionals and have almost no time to spend on strength training.
It helps you switch between other workout sessions in no time. You can monitor your heart rate during intense workout sessions through this app.
You can, in fact, do this form of training without any equipment. This application bears info on which level would suit what kind of player. It also provides an insight into high-intensity training.
Those looking to switch between every track through an app can surely try this one. There are 12 high-intensity exercises in this type of workout, which take place within 30 seconds of each exercise.
3.5 Strava
Strava is another interesting app that can help you monitor your training progress easily. This app lets you track all forms of cardio exercises, bears a heart rate monitor, and provides you with the data on how many active calories you’ve burned.
Athletes are particularly fond of this application, as it has been designed keeping running, cycling, and swimming workouts in mind. It also helps you bring in new challenges every day and take part in competitions to assess your own progress, which is pretty amazing.
