Fitness
Heart rate zones on Apple Watch and iPhone – 9to5Mac
A handy health and fitness feature with watchOS and iOS is the ability to see your heart rate zones on Apple Watch and iPhone. Read on for what they mean, how to see your max heart rate, manually edit your zones, and more.
Apple Watch and iPhone – with watchOS 9/iOS 16 and later – automatically create your five heart rate zones based on the Heart Rate Reserve method. Max and resting values are updated automatically on the first day of each month.
Here’s how Apple describes the feature:
“Heart Rate Zones are a percentage of your maximum heart rate and are automatically calculated and personalized using your health data. On Apple Watch, Heart Rate Zones are presented in five segments—effort levels from light to increasingly harder. By monitoring your Heart Rate Zone, you can make your workout more efficient and challenge yourself to improve your fitness.”
How to see heart rate zones on Apple Watch and iPhone
See heart rate zones during a workout
- Make sure you’re running watchOS 9 or later on Apple Watch and also have your birthdate entered in the Health app on iPhone
- Start a cardio-focused workout like a walk, run, or cycling (Apple hasn’t shared exactly which workout types include heart rate zones except for “cardio-focused” ones)
- Swipe down on the first Workout screen to see your heart rate and which zone it’s in
See heart rate zones after a workout
- After a workout, head to the Fitness app on iPhone to see heart rate zone data
- Choose a workout from the main Summary screen or tap the rings or Show More to pick a different date/workout
- Once you’ve picked a workout, swipe down until you see Heart Rate, tap Show More
Now you’ll see the breakdown of how much time you spent in each heart rate zone:
How to manually edit your heart rate zones
While the heart rate zones are automatically added based on your age, height, and weight, you can manually change them (usually for advanced athletes).
- Head to Settings > Workout > Heart Rate Zones on your Apple Watch and choose Manual at the top
- Or on iPhone go to the Apple Watch app > Workout > Heart Rate Zones then choose Manual at the top
How to see your max heart rate?
Going beyond your max heart rate is considered unsafe by medical professionals. To see your recommended maximum:
- Head to Settings > Workout > Heart Rate Zones on your Apple Watch, swipe down to find your max heart rate
- Or on iPhone go to the Apple Watch app > Workout > Heart Rate Zones, swipe down to find your max heart rate
What do heart rate zones mean?
Understanding your heart rate zones can be useful in a variety of ways. But some of the most practical applications are using heart rate training (properly rest or push yourself), targeting fat-burning or carb-burning heart rate zones, and awareness for those who have health conditions.
The Cleveland Clinic has a helpful article on understanding what kind of calories you’re burning in different zones. This won’t map directly to the five heart rate zones with Apple Watch, but is a good starting point.
Use your max heart rate (details on finding above) to figure out the numbers from the below calculations:
- Lower-intensity zone: You’re exercising at 50% to 60% of your max heart rate. At this point, 85% of the calories you burn are fat. The downside? You’re burning fewer calories overall than you would if you were exercising at a higher intensity. You’re generally able to sustain this zone the longest amount of time.
- Temperate zone: You’re exercising at 60% to 70% of your max heart rate. Roughly 65% of the calories you burn are fat.
- Aerobic zone: Working at 70% to 80% of your max heart rate puts you in the aerobic zone. About 45% of the calories you burn are fat. But you’re burning a higher number of overall calories compared to the other heart rate zones. You generally sustain this zone the shortest amount of time.
For heart rate training, the big idea is to “train your aerobic system without overstressing your skeletal and muscular systems, explains personal trainer Erin Carr.” Check out this article from Runner’s World for all the fine details:
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It’s important to have goals in mind as you set out on your fitness journey, whether you’re trying to lose weight, gain muscle or train for a race.skynesher/Supplied
January is notoriously the busiest time of year at the gym. A survey from Ipsos reported that a third of Canadians made exercise-based resolutions for the new year, with many folks working out for the first time or returning to fitness after some time away. If you’re new to exercise, the gym can feel like an intimidating place. But it doesn’t need to be. Below we’ve put together a few suggestions to help you get started.
Have a plan going in
For success at the gym, it’s crucial to have a plan. Before you start, it’s important to identify your goals. Are you looking to get stronger? Training for a race or competition? Do you want to improve body composition? While almost any consistent exercise is going to improve your overall health, specific results require specific training.
Following a workout program can help you stay committed – here’s how to write your own
Those completely new to working out may want to invest in a few sessions with a personal trainer. A reputable trainer will be able to put together a plan based on your preferences and skill level, while walking you through the proper form for each exercise. If cost is an issue, many gyms offer a free intro training session as a sign-up perk. There are also hundreds of different workout programs you can find online and video tutorials outlining proper form.
If you’re intimidated to exercise on your own, a fitness class allows you to follow along with an instructor while getting some quick pointers on how to properly perform the workout. Many gyms offer discounted or free classes to first-time visitors.
Trying to do too much, too fast will burn you out, leave you injured or both
When you’re motivated by a new year’s resolution, it’s tempting to pencil in long gym sessions multiple times a week. But that kind of regime is rarely sustainable. If you’d like to make exercising a habit beyond January – and you’ll need to for any kind of lasting results – it’s best to think about what you can do in the long term.
“You can either do an hour of weightlifting a few days a week, and actually do it, or you have these imaginary 10-hour training sessions you’ll never actually have time for,” said Dan John, strength coach and author. “I try to focus on [programs that are] doable, repeatable and reasonable.”
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Similarly, trying to immediately push beyond your physical limitations is a great way to get injured. For weightlifting, it’s important to consider proper warm-ups, active mobility exercises and learning the right techniques before trying to lift anything too heavy. For cardio, Canada Running Series offers a Couch to 5K plan that eases newcomers into jogging by starting small and gradually increasing the length/difficulty of each run.
Follow basic gym etiquette
The gym is a shared public space. Everyone there is trying to get in a good workout. That’s harder to do when people are having phone conversations, listening to videos without using headphones and refusing to wipe down their equipment after use.
In March, fitness trainer Paul Landini wrote an article explaining some unofficial rules to follow when going to the gym, including being mindful of other people’s space and making sure you’re not monopolizing equipment during busy hours.
Try to find what you like about the gym
Changes in body composition, strength and overall health take time. They also need upkeep over the long term. Building a consistent fitness habit is something that will help with all those goals. One of the best ways to do that is finding something at the gym you genuinely enjoy doing. That can be working out with a friend to add a social aspect to exercise and accountability to show up. It can entail learning a new fitness-adjacent skill such as boxing or training for a competition like Hyrox. It can be rooted in the sense of accomplishment that comes with getting stronger. Whatever the reason, finding the joy in exercise is going to be key if you want to move beyond short-term motivation.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Finding time to work out as a mom with young kids can be a challenge in itself, especially when you’re new to an area and don’t know where to start. However, a new fitness option strolled into Sioux Falls today. iStroll offers moms the chance to work out and meet other moms all while their kids can play or even join alongside them.
iStroll is a national organization that has more than 35 locations in the country but this is the first time one opened in South Dakota. It’s a full body workout that incorporates dumbbells, body weight, and jogging strollers when the weather’s nice.
“I found iStroll in Oklahoma and fell in love,” said Kelsi Supek who started the affiliate in Sioux Falls. “We made friends. It became our entire social network. The kids loved it and then we moved to Arizona during COVID. And all the moms were stuck at home. They were inside with our kids and lonely, honestly. And we were like, why can’t we start an iStroll and be out at the parks with the kids every day? And it took off.”
When Supek moved to Sioux Falls, she was encouraged by her family to start an affiliate and own it herself.
“Gym daycares did not work out for my children,” said Supek. “I would get 10 minutes into a class and then I’d have that person trying to knock outside the yoga studio going, Can I have Kelsey and her kids screaming in daycare? And it just didn’t work for us. So at iStroll they could be with me or I could be breastfeeding the baby as I was teaching in class.”
Classes are planned to continue each Wednesday and Friday at We Rock the Spectrum and First Presbyterian Church. For a full schedule for January and February, you can look at their Facebook. The first class is also free and memberships are for the whole family.
“Letting the kids see you work out is, it’s similar to homeschooling where like, you know, how are they going to love working out if they don’t see you working out,” said Kelly Jardeleza, a stay-at-home mom of three kids. “Whereas at other gyms they put them in a room and they don’t get to watch you. And how are you going to inspire them if they’re not watching you do it?”
Copyright 2026 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.
There’s no bad time to take a more active interest in your health, but the new year, for lots of us, feels like a fresh start. Maybe you’re planning to sign up for a 10k or finally have a go at bouldering, eat a bit better or learn to swing a kettlebell. Maybe you want to keep up with your grandkids — or just be a little bit more physically prepared for whatever life throws at you.
To help things along, Guardian Live invites you to a special event with public health expert Devi Sridhar, journalist and author Mariella Frostrup, and health and fitness columnist Joel Snape. They’ll be joining the Guardian’s Today in Focus presenter Annie Kelly to discuss simple, actionable ways to stay fit and healthy as you move through the second half of life: whether that means staying strong and mobile or stressing less and sleeping better.
To make the whole event as helpful as possible, we’d love to hear from you about what you find most challenging — or confusing — when it comes to health and exercise. What should you actually be eating, and how are you going to find the time to make it? What sort of exercise is best, and how often should you be doing it? Is Pilates worth the effort — and should we really all be drinking mugfuls of piping hot creatine?
Whether your question is about exercise, eating, or general wellness, post it below and we’ll put a selection to our panel on the night.
Share your experience
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