Alexroet

Q: What counts as "exercise" for the green ring??

Does anyone know what counts as "exercise"? i.e. what does it take to advance the green ring??  All the apple watch info I've seen says "brisk walk". I went for an "outside walk" using the workout app today. I walked for 56 minutes, and did 3.18 miles, with an average heart rate of 128.  Yet it only counted as 17 minutes towards my green exercise ring!! What gives?  We can't all be Christy Turlington training for a marathon!  I'm an out-of-shape working mom with a baby!  That's about as good "exercise" as I get these days.

My resting heart rate is pretty low, usually 55-65, so 128 is a pretty decent burn!  I think that was a brisk walk! Maybe other people walk faster, but I was pushing a stroller and there were some decent hills.

 

So does anyone know what the criteria are? Does your heart rate have to be above a certain threshold?

 

One other thought I had- I was pushing the stroller so my left arm wasn't swinging at my side- could that affect how it measures my motion?

And, would it have made a difference if I had called it "outside run" instead of "outside walk"?  I know people that jog a 17" mile...

 

If the point of this app is to get people to get out and moving around more, it's discouraging for the 'goals' to be so hard to reach.  And there are lots of articles these days that say walking may be better exercise than running.  For walking to not be "good enough" is pretty deflating.

iPhone 5, iOS 8.3

Posted on Apr 27, 2015 9:42 AM

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Q: What counts as "exercise" for the green ring??

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  • by Alexroet,

    Alexroet Alexroet May 7, 2015 10:07 AM in response to nick101
    Level 2 (324 points)
    May 7, 2015 10:07 AM in response to nick101

    I agree with this, but what I don't understand is- it showed my workout stats including time, steps, distance, HR.... so it did record all those things accurately.  Even with my hand not swinging, it knew I was moving.  But it didn't give me credit. It knew I did 3miles and 50+ minutes and that my heart rate was up- so why didn't that count?

  • by Alexroet,

    Alexroet Alexroet May 7, 2015 10:08 AM in response to Charmian Gaud
    Level 2 (324 points)
    May 7, 2015 10:08 AM in response to Charmian Gaud

    Yup, "other" works well for me too.

  • by Alexroet,

    Alexroet Alexroet May 7, 2015 10:11 AM in response to john67
    Level 2 (324 points)
    May 7, 2015 10:11 AM in response to john67

    I think the difference is that when you're not doing a "workout", the watch only checks your heart rate every 10 minutes.  When you're doing a workout it checks it constantly.  When I get home from work, I usually have 4 or 5 minutes of "exercise", even though I didn't work out.  I'm guessing it happened to check my heart rate when I was in the stairs or something. 

     

    So the other day I took my usual walk as an "other" workout.  It took me 19 minutes, and I think I got 17 minutes of exercise (it doesn't actually show anywhere how many exercise minutes you get, so you have to remember how many you had before working out). Then I did the same walk without using the workout app- same time/distance/intensity, and only got about 5 min.  So... long story short, it CAN record exercise without the workout app, but it misses most of it.

  • by Charmian Gaud,

    Charmian Gaud Charmian Gaud May 7, 2015 3:35 PM in response to Alexroet
    Level 1 (38 points)
    Apple Watch
    May 7, 2015 3:35 PM in response to Alexroet

    I have the same experience.  I rushed to the doctors for a stress test.... very stressful (!!!!) and felt my heart pounding a little and the measure on the watch was 130 BPM then a couple of minutes later Exercise had increased by 2 minutes!!.  If I use OTHER in WORKOUT I get about the time of the exercise minus 1 or 2 minutes which I take to be the warm up time before my heart starts pumping enough to register with the exercise monitor.  So I feel it is solved but would like Apple to add a specific TREADMILL to WORKOUT to allow for holding onto the handles and not swinging the arms - the measures in INSIDE WALK include more monitors than OTHER. 

    I think the configuration is only suited to outdoor walking and running but will try that soon.

  • by rsandy12,

    rsandy12 rsandy12 May 8, 2015 7:39 AM in response to Charmian Gaud
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 8, 2015 7:39 AM in response to Charmian Gaud

    I am trying to make sense of the amount of exercise recorded in the workout app both in minutes and calories. I have tried the app twice with bicycling, twice with an elliptical, and once with an outdoor walk to calibrate the watch to my stride. The watch records about 55% of the calories logged in other sources, e.g. a Precor elliptical machine, the Bi.cycle app on the Iphone. Exercise machines are notorious for being generous in their calorie estimates but I have checked this Precor against my Polar heart rate monitor many times. It always came within 10 calories of the 700 or so my Polar said I burned in an hour. The Apple Watch came up with 425 calories! Another disconcerting result was being credited for 8 minutes of exercise for a 50 minute bike ride in a hilly area.

     

    I wonder if when Apple tested the watch on its employees there were none at my age (68). Maybe the threshold for heart rate is set so high that when I am doing what I feel is equivalent to a "brisk walk" (say 120 bpm) it doesn't count as exercise minutes. Apple seems to be treating the heart-rate-threshold equivalency of a brisk walk as a trade secret. Since one of the key functions of the watch is fitness Apple should be crystal clear about what is counted as the watch records exercise minutes and calories burned.

     

    I am not bothered that the watch's heart run function is less responsive than a chest strap to changes in heart speed. The person with a heart condition who wrote on this forum that he needs to know when he is reaching his safety threshold ought to buy a chest strap. If he gets a bluetooth strap the watch can record his heart rate and keep all of his data in the health app. For users without a heart problem the delay in recording the heart rate peak shouldn't affect the estimated calories or minutes of exercise.

     

    I am not even bothered by what appears to be the underestimate of the calories. For my purposes any consistent measure of calories burned will help me gauge my progress. I am, however, bothered by the obscurity of Apple's information on what gets counted.

  • by Julia Siporin,

    Julia Siporin Julia Siporin May 10, 2015 6:51 PM in response to rsandy12
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 10, 2015 6:51 PM in response to rsandy12

    My 65 year old husband has a VERY low resting heart rate which hovers around 48-53 bpm.   When we go out for a brisk walk, his heart rate gets up into the 70's or 80's which is plenty high for him, yet he gets zero minutes credited towards the green exercise ring.  I wonder if it's calibrated to a person who's resting heart rate is around 72 and is young enough to need to get above 140 bpm to be considered "brisk".   Polar has an app where it measures your resting heart rate so you get a more accurate picture of what 70% of Max HR.    Apple, tell me you don't have a "one size fits all" code in your Watch.

  • by john67,

    john67 john67 May 10, 2015 7:06 PM in response to Julia Siporin
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 10, 2015 7:06 PM in response to Julia Siporin

    Does this suggest that your husband needs to do the callibration exercise https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT204516 which will teach his watch how his heart responds to particular distance as measured by the GPS, and and it then uses this information to measure his 'exercies' fro then on?

  • by Julia Siporin,

    Julia Siporin Julia Siporin May 10, 2015 7:33 PM in response to john67
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    May 10, 2015 7:33 PM in response to john67

    Thanks, I just saw this.  He needs to try calibrating using this method.

  • by arsook,

    arsook arsook May 13, 2015 8:40 PM in response to Charmian Gaud
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 13, 2015 8:40 PM in response to Charmian Gaud

    I had the same ... used other instead of spinning and got a much better calorie count.

    Everyone should go report this to http://www.apple.com/feedback, otherwise apple won't know to work on the resting calorie rate and exercise calorie rate as well as the minutes of exercise.

  • by Lizzie.Burke,

    Lizzie.Burke Lizzie.Burke May 29, 2015 8:18 PM in response to arsook
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 29, 2015 8:18 PM in response to arsook

    Same thing here! I usually run 6-10 miles a day while pushing my twin girls in a stroller and I'll only get a few minutes for a full hours run. If I'm on the elliptical in the gym, I get full credit though and a pretty accurate distance measurement. I've noticed it's based more upon movement of the wrist you're wearing the watch on. I get credit (not using the workout app) just moving my wrist up and down while resting!

  • by PaulSDenton,

    PaulSDenton PaulSDenton May 31, 2015 10:38 AM in response to Lizzie.Burke
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 31, 2015 10:38 AM in response to Lizzie.Burke

    I had a similar experience with a Schwinn Air-Dyne.  After weeks of brisk walking and NO exercise credit for my two miles, I did 30 minutes on an Air-Dyne and got FULL credit for the 30 minutes!  The Air-Dyne is an indoor bicycle which also has arm exercisers that you push/pull in conjunction with peddling.

     

    I originally thought that heart rate determined exercise credit, but my average workout BPM on the Air-Dyne was 115, which is actually a bit less than I get walking.  So it's something else, perhaps arm movement.

     

    Of course, Apple could solve the whole problem by just telling us how exercise credit is computed, but I don't expect THAT anytime soon.

     

    Also, over a measured course, the GPS is off by 2 to 6% over two miles (200 to 600 feet) but that's not too bad.  GPS isn't exact anyway, I think.

  • by Charles Sholdt,

    Charles Sholdt Charles Sholdt Jun 1, 2015 6:52 AM in response to Alexroet
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 1, 2015 6:52 AM in response to Alexroet

    IT appears that there are issues with Move and Activity. Hopefully Apple will get them fixed before the doubters turn it to the greatest catastrophe since the Hidenberg. Here's my experiences...

     

    I routinely go to the gym three days a week, 20 minutes on an elliptical and 20 minutes on a stationary bike. My Watch has never given me credit for 40 minutes of exercise. The most I've gotten is 29 minutes total. This is using the Workout app on the phone.

     

    Yesterday I went for a four mile outdoor walk which took 80 minutes. Again, using the Workout app, I was given 29 minutes credit for the 80 minute walk on the exercise ring. However, looking at Workout in the Health app on my iPhone shows the full 80 minute walk. The Watch obviously wrote the data to the app correctly.

     

    Something clearly is off. I've been trying a variety of things to debug this but haven't come up with anything concrete yet.

  • by Charles Sholdt,

    Charles Sholdt Charles Sholdt Jun 1, 2015 3:38 PM in response to Charles Sholdt
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 1, 2015 3:38 PM in response to Charles Sholdt

    Decided to try a suggestion made by another user in this thread. I used Other in the Workout app instead of the actual exercise. 20 minutes on the elliptical and 20 minutes on a stationary bike resulted in near perfect readings. I got 43 minutes on the Exercise ring. The extra 3 minutes is due to a short indoor walk I made between equipment. Not only did my exercise readings improve but calories increased as well mirror almost exactly the machine readings.

     

    so, until Apple either fixes or explains what they are doing, I'll be using Other regardless of what type of exercise I'm actually doing. Going for a long bike ride tomorrow and plan on the same strategy. I'll let you know how it works out.

  • by pslawing,

    pslawing pslawing Jun 2, 2015 6:50 AM in response to Alexroet
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 2, 2015 6:50 AM in response to Alexroet

    Yesterday I used OTHER. 61 min average HR 131. Counted 61 min on exercise ring

    today I used outdoor walk. Walked 73 minutes average HR 132 only counted 39 min on exercise ring

    so HR the same so is it a bug?

  • by PaulSDenton,

    PaulSDenton PaulSDenton Jun 2, 2015 1:32 PM in response to pslawing
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 2, 2015 1:32 PM in response to pslawing

    I would say that it is a bug, since both the "Outdoor Walk" and "Other" workouts indicate that credit is given for exercise "at the rate of a brisk walk".  I repeated the experiment you performed; today I did my usual walk over a measured 2 mile course but used "Other" instead of "Outdoor Walk".  I got a full credit on the green ring for the whole time I was walking.  Ordinarily I get little or no credit for the same exact walk using the "Outdoor Walk" workout.  So the app is not doing what it says it will.

     

    I'm not doing the walk just to get green ring credit, so I will continue to use the "Outdoor Walk" workout because of the statistics it keeps.  But I would like the app to be consistent!

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