If you’re fastidious about tracking your workouts, be it running, cycling or hitting the weights, you might have been irritated before by the apparent lack of options to divide your active session into multiple splits. Granted the swimming workout automatically breaks the distance down into laps and running stats are dealt with in a similar fashion, but what about the freedom of choosing those markers by yourself? Say you fancy a treadmill warm-up followed by some beefy strength training, ultimately to be capped off by a session on the yoga mat.
While the successor to watchOS 3 is going to pack the ability to add workouts to already ongoing sessions, what options do we have at present to document distinct activities which yet all count towards one comprehensive, long workout? There is a (reprehensibly underexposed) solution on Apple Watch called Segments. Segments can be prompted at the hands of one simple gesture and quickly split your workout as you go, which allows for more insightful post-workout information including calories burnt for each individual split.
Here’s how you can take advantage of Segments on your Apple Watch.
How to complete a segment, start next one on Apple Watch
1) Open the Workout app on your Apple Watch.
2) Select any workout you are about to embark on and commence the training!
3) Once the time has come for a shift in intensity, pace or you simply want to drop a marker in order to be able to review calories burnt up to this point later, just double tap anywhere on the workout screen. As a result Segment 1 will be concluded, as confirmed on the training screen.
4) Meanwhile, the workout keeps recording and it’ll be business as usual after the brief Segment information screen. Continue your toils and whenever needed, double tap the screen again to define the perimeters for Segment 2, 3, 4 and so on. You can effectively split your workout into as many segments as you like.
5) After completion, return to your iPhone‘s Activity app, find your Workouts tab and pop open your latest session. The record now comprises a unique addition (Elapsed time/Active cal) under Segments.
There you go, fitness gurus might appreciate the additional information relating to which part of the workout took the most out of your body, something the overall summary does not provide. It should also be underscored one more time that the double tap feature applies to literally all workouts available on Apple Watch, making this feature an absolute doozie for runners.