Finally, training is possible in the Apple ecosystem.
But it’s not because Apple improved their fitness software
Let me start with some background (but you can skip if you want)
Three years ago I went from pasty, overweight dude to lean. I’m not super keen on posting my images, so let me take a wife-approved picture from the internet to describe the change as accurately as I can.
From 210 lbs to about 175 lbs was my change over about 3–4 months. I am not that guy in the image, I am WAY older (55 now), I have no hair on my head (weightloss certainly didn’t give me better hair like this guy). But that’s about what the change looked like. How I did it is a post for another time (if I get enough comments about how, I will make a post on that, but it’s not contraversial: diet and exercise, no pills, no magic oil, no grounding, no speaking to the universe).
When I hit my target weight, something odd happened. My thought was “How the hell am I going to keep this off?”. I admit some panic set in because I know myself.
Losing weight has a built in goal. You hit the weight and the phase of ‘losing weight’ is over. There is no goal for ‘keeping weight off’. For me, I know I need one, or my ADHD will take over and I will get bored and stop. For me, I need a goal in front of me. So I created one…
Goal: Compete in an Ironman competition.
This is how I keep in shape and eat whatever I want, however much I want. I spend zero minutes thinking about food control because I spent hours training. This is what works for me, I can’t make any claims about what will work for you to keep weight off. There are side benefits to this goal, but that’s another post also, if people want to know about it.
Training vs. Fitness
I want to describe a subtle difference between these two words. “Fitness”, with regard to health, is a word that describes your current state of health with regard to muscles, energy usage, endurance, etc. You can measure your fitness and fitness improvement by measuring weight, or BMI, or VO2, or a myriad of other metrics. You can also measure it by watching your improvement in your ability to do more steps in a day, or your heart rate dropping for the same exercise. To sum up, fitness is a measure of your current state.
I would say that there are many excellent fitness watches, and the Apple watch, and it’s Health app are excellent contenders in this arena. Others I would recommend are Garmin (but there are WAY too many choices that do virtually the same thing) and Coros (the Apex 2, and the new Apex 3 are great, budget friendly, fitness watches). With encouragement, I could dive into those, in other articles, but frankly comparisons are all over the internet. I would avoid any watch under $150, I have tried them all, and if they arent virtually unusable, they are innacurate, or spyware (hello Huawei, seriously, there is no reason it should take 45 minutes to ‘sync’, especially after having to grant access to things it doesn’t need).
“Training” is something you do, not a measure of something you are. You can train to acheive or maintain good fitness. You can also train to have an ability to didn’t have before. Training is more forward looking. You can train, and examine the change in your fitness to assure yourself that the training is working.
There are fewer good training watches, than there are fitness watches. Here the minimum price point changes a little, I would say it is around $200 minimum and includes Garmin watches, Coros watches and specifically does NOT include Apple watches on price nor featureset…
…Until now
Structured workouts are the key to training
There are many sites that help you follow training plans. I recommend Training Peaks, but I can’t say I have tried anything else. There you can pick a sport, or multisport, and make or buy a training plan. In the trianing plans you will find great advice, links to instructions videos, recipes, and whatnot. But the most important part are the structured workouts. You follow structured workouts to get yourself through some high interval training, some endurance training, and form improvement. The software does a great job of helping you see improvement. Training plans provide structured workouts in a fashion that leads you to improvement and the ability to acheive your goals, such as doing an ironman. This is what a structured workout might look like.
The hole in the Apple ecosystem
Up until recently, there were few apps for the Apple Watch that would allow the import of structured workouts (SW). And none for Triathlon training. I literally wear two watches for this reason. This site is dedicated to apple watch triathlon training, and you will see lots of articles about how the Apple Watch is a great fitness device and not a training device. In this article, you can see that SWs have come to the Apple Watch but you have to make them on the watch face! (WTF?) So to get SWs for swimming you had to download the swimming app (like iSwimPro, or SwimSmooth) and pay them. Same for running, same for biking. And few or none of them made themselves compatible with Training Peaks. Disaster.
These failings, specifically the lack of structured workouts and no across-the-board connection to Training Peaks, have been the entire reason why I have never recomended Apple Watch for training, despite trying really hard to make it work for me (with ridicule from my Garmin friends, included)
The Apple Ecosystem is vastly improved now
We are still not at the “One app to rule them all” but I am not convinced this is what you actually want. For example, a Garmin watch can read ANT+ and BLE devices like power pedals, heart rate monitors, and Stryde foot pods. But using a watch to train on a bike is vastly worse than having a bike computer in front of your face. Using Form goggles is vastly superior to having structured workouts on your watch while swimming. So, here is my “Tech Stack” for Apple based triathlon training.
Swimming
Form goggles. Unless these are out of budget, don’t bother with anything else. With these, you can monitor your heart rate (need apple watch to be on), distance, time elapsed, pace, and also follow along your structured workout. If you are swimming-only you can just use the Form app to do SWs, but it is also compatible with Training Peaks.
It will give you information for open water swimming (OWS). However this is GPS based, with your hand in the water 1/2 of the time, so I have had many issues with distance and pace accuracy. I suspect this is the reason they do not offer SWs with OWS. But really, this is better than nothing, and still better than watch only. There is an authentic review here, but I loved these immediately.
However, for race day, I do NOT recommend these. Get a pair of goggles with a large field of view, which Form goggles are definitely not. I ran into a Manatee because I didn’t see it from the side. I use TYR goggles for race day.
Biking
Cadence: Until VERY recently I have been using a Garmin 530 edge. It’s great, it reads ANT+ and BLE devices like power pedals, and even bike trainers. It also automatically downloads Structured workouts that you can follow either on a trainer or outside (much harder). However, the screen is small, and the device is expensive. It always seemed crazy that I can’t use my phone as a bike computer. Bigger screen, and since I already had it, it was essentially free. I tried many bike apps and they were all terrible in one way or another. Right now the best Bike Computer app out there is Cadence. I pair it with Garmin Rally power pedals (for power and cadence), and the watch app conveys heart rate to the bike computer.
The Cadence app has everything you need. Compatible with BLE devices, metrics about your route, mapping, recorded performance…. but it does NOT have Training Peaks integration nor structured workouts. Since I am training, this is the sole reason why I kept not using it.
There are usually difficulties using a phone on race day. Sometimes they are simply not allowed, but the other issue is that you don’t want to leave your phone with your bike, while it sits in transistion waiting for you. On race day I still use my Edge 530, or just a watch.
Since Cadence is NOT a training app, what do I do? Here is where the best entry into the Apple Ecosystem comes in.
Running and Multisport
Watchletic: I want to personally thank whoever made Watchletic. This is the app that the entire Apple ecosystem was missing for training. It’s also super reasonably priced. If this article gets every triathlete in the world to pay their miniscsule fees, I would be pleased to be part of that effort.
The most important aspect of this app, is that you do not need ANY other device to do training with (unless you need to connection to BLE peripherals). You can do SWs for swimming, biking and running, but just with less convenience than the Form goggles or a bike computer would give you. It’s also compatible with many platforms, way beyond Training peaks.
It’s a great backup to have if your bike computer is dead, or you don’t want to use your Form Goggles.
But it also has much more, I use an Apple Watch Ultra. I bought it because the sensor package is far improved over a normal Apple watch only to find out Apple has done nothing at all to capitalize on that. The “Action” button is not customizable beyond their own choices. Apps don’t use it for anything. The improved GPS does nothing for improving swim measurements. SpO2 is not relevant for when you are on the move.
But now, Watchletic actually puts the action button to good use. It makes it relevant for the app instead of mostly useless general actions.
It has many, many settings around prompting for “too slow” or “too fast”, which work quite well, and helped me perform in a recent 5K race.
Best of all, it fills in any holes other apps have. For example, I can run the SW on Watchletic while using Cadence, which is missing that feature. And the two workouts will be uploaded to Training peaks, and I just delete the one without the power measurements (the Watchletic data) (you use the Cadence Watch app to get heart rate data to the phone app), and it pairs the Cadence measured workout file to the structured workout.
I did the same thing for running. I would run the structured workouts for running on my Garmin watch, but I would upload the data from my Apple watch (and rem ove the Garmin one), because the heart rate measurements are far superior to Garmin’s. Apple watch is very accurate in most of its training related aspects. Now, while I have not made this jump yet, looks like I can ditch the Garminn watch. But frankly, having the redundancy makes me more comfortable.
Watchletic is good for a myriad of activities including swimming, biking, and running. If I didnt have Form Goggles, I would use this app. If I didn’t have a bike computer, I would use this app. It’s what I will be using on race day from now on.
Conclusion
I am serious when I say this, I have thought long and hard about what a training app for the Apple watch would look like and this is basically it. There are some UI/UX things I would not have done or implemented differently, but other than that, this is pretty damn inclusive.
If you are going to be a watch-only Apple watch triathlete, then Watchletic is for you. Otherwise, I hope you find my “Apple Watch Tech Stack” above helpful.