There’s one thing about the Apple Watch that’s always been annoying me: Rain or shine, in sickness or in health, it’s reminded me to lace up my rings. Even when I had COVID-19, a sore shin, or was in a dark place mentally, it reminded me to be my “better” self. And I don’t have to take a day off to be my better self. But with watchOS 11, released in public beta today, it feels like my Apple Watch is finally giving me some breathing room.
This is mainly thanks to three new features: the new Vitals app, the Training Load feature, and the ability to pause your Activity rings. The latter was right after WWDC.But after spending some time with the developer beta, I’m convinced this is the smartest fitness update Apple has released in years.
While the Vitals app and Training Load feature are technically two separate things, they actually work very closely together. The Vitals app contextualizes a set of metrics, including heart rate, respiration rate, wrist temperature, blood oxygen, and sleep time. These are all recovery metrics that are often packaged together as a readiness score in other apps, but Apple’s version doesn’t show you a single score. Instead, it tells you whether a metric is “normal” or an “outlier.” If two or more metrics are out of range, it notifies you and gives you some suggestions. why Certain metrics are out of whack.
The Training Load feature is also straightforward. It visualizes your 7-day and 28-day exercise load compared to each other. Based on that, you can see if you are significantly below, below, constant, above or significantly above your usual activity level. This is broken down by overall activity as well as by individual activity type (running, pilates, cycling, etc.). After a workout, you can also rate your perceived effort level. For common workouts like running, the effort level is set automatically. (You can manually edit it if you don’t agree; I did that sometimes and it’s mostly accurate.)
It’s been nice to have both of these features available over the past month, but like most watchOS 11 updates, they’re a bit passive. For example, I didn’t get a single vitals notification because all of my vitals metrics remain within normal ranges. I’m glad I was consistent! This isn’t a bad thing. want To get frequent notifications, but more importantly, to have a visual of how fast you are and say “Is everything OK?” helps when you’re wondering if you should push yourself or take a rest day.
This is also an advantage of training load, especially for those who are just starting to exercise and train. I am experienced and I know that my current training load is a bit lopsided because I took a week off training while on vacation (just around the same time I downloaded the beta). But, teeth A handy visual reminder to take a rest day when you’re well above your 28-day threshold. A rest day won’t set you back.
What Apple’s doing here isn’t something we haven’t seen in Garmin, Polar, Oura, Fitbit, Whoop, and other health and fitness trackers over the last five years. Rather, Apple’s version makes these concepts easier for novices to understand. It also reduces data overload for exhausted athletes. Combine that with the ability to pause rings and customize goals based on days of the week, and you get a much more flexible fitness tracking experience on the world’s most popular smartwatch. That’s a big deal.
Ultimately, these features make the Apple Watch’s fitness tracking platform more personalized, which seems to be the overall theme of watchOS 11: instead of a blanket approach of always doing more, you can make different choices based on your actual day-to-day circumstances. I’m still testing many other watchOS 11 features, but when it comes to the flagship fitness tracking update, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how it has encouraged me to be kinder to myself.
My biggest complaint is that Apple still doesn’t explicitly tell me to take rest days, leaving me to guess with phrases like “If you start to feel fatigued, recharge as needed” and “You were above or significantly above the threshold for 14 days.” I also lost a few nights’ worth of Vitals data because I had to charge the watch overnight, a reminder that battery life and charging schedules are still a weak spot for smartwatches. But overall, for most people, this is a much more sustainable approach in the long run than the blanket “always do more” approach we’ve taken in the past. Perhaps in watchOS 12, the Apple Watch will finally get me to put my feet up on the couch. But for now, every small step is still a step in the right direction.
