Is there any way to personalize workout views via iphone instead of on the watch?

It used to be that I could personalize the apple watch workout views via the iPhone. I don't know when this changed, but after reading the more recent documentation, it appears that I can only personalize workout views on the watch itself. Is that really true, or is there another way?

As shown in this MacRumors article from 2018, you used to be able to configure metrics such as Duration, Heart Rate, and Distance via the iphone interface. But now, you have to configure the metrics on the watch itself, scrolling with the digital crown. It is really hard to do this on a watch. Why would Apple designers want to make this so difficult for users, especially older adults like me who can barely read their watches in the first place?

I have to scroll through all these windows on my watch, and then it is not even clear to me whether or not this is a new default setting or only good for one workout.