What is Apple Fitness+?

Apple Fitness+ is like a gym in your pocket. You have to pay for it, but it offers over 3,000 ad-free video workouts that you can access on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV. They are led by professional fitness instructors and new routines are added every week.

Thinking of enrolling? Here’s everything you need to know about Apple’s Fitness+ service.

How much does Apple Fitness+ cost?

Apple offers new subscribers three months of free access to Fitness+ when they buy an iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad or Apple TV. Once that trial period is over, the service costs £9.99/month or £79.99/year.

It’s also included in the Apple One bundle, which costs £32.95 a month, along with Apple Music, TV+, Arcade, iCloud and News+. You only need one account for an entire family, as you can share Apple Fitness+ with up to five family members.

What do I need to use Fitness+?

The most barebones Fitness+ setup is an iPad or iPhone. You just need a screen on which you can watch the workouts.

Add an Apple Watch and you’ll see key stats, like your heart rate, on the screen. The ideal Fitness+ outfit, in our opinion, uses an Apple TV box to show sessions on a big screen. You can also use a MacBook’s screen, although you still need an iPhone or iPad to start a session.

How Apple Fitness+ works

When you exercise, statistics collected by your Apple Watch are displayed on the screen so you can track your progress in real time. Even if you can access Fitness+ with just an iPhone, you need an Apple Watch for the best results.

Each workout also has its own playlist of music selections from Apple Music. You don’t have to subscribe to the company’s music streaming service to listen to those playlists, just to download them for later use.

What kind of workouts does Apple Fitness+ offer?

Apple regularly adds new workout types to the service. At the time of writing, there are thirteen workout types: core fitness, cycling, dance, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), rowing, strength training, treadmill (walking and running), Pilates, yoga, and meditation and cool-down.

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The catalog of available workouts currently stands at over 3,000 and more are added every Monday.

How to start a Fitness+ workout

Once you tap the Let’s Go button to start your selected workout on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV, a second start button will appear on your Apple Watch.

Tap this to start the session. If you’re not wearing your watch, just tap the Work Out Without Watch button. The session will start. After each workout is completed, you can see a summary of statistics, including calories burned, in the Fitness app on your iPhone.

I saw Time to Walk on my Apple Watch, what is it?

Apple offers ‘Time to Walk’ and ‘Time to Run’ workouts. The walking podcasts are hosted by celebrities, from a variety of disciplines, who will play some music and talk to you during a walk. The Stephen Fry session is particularly good. Time to Run workouts feature running coaches sharing tips and trying to coach you through a run.