You are waaaaaaaaaaay over-thinking this.
It’s just a tool for getting sedentary people to be a bit less sedentary, and at population-scale, this will yield benefits in health trends.
That’s it.
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The Apple Watch Activity Rings are pointless
- Thread starter Iwavvns
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It’s just a tool for getting sedentary people to be a bit less sedentary, and at population-scale, this will yield benefits in health trends.
That’s it.
Totally agree. When I walk on my own, I do so at a brisk pace as a form of exercise - usually between 14.5 and 16 minutes per mile, depending on the terrain. I also start a workout so that heart rate is monitored more frequently than just going for a walk without starting a workout. I am then credited with the full time I've been walking. BUT ... if I go for a walk with my wife - which is very leisurely - we can be walking for 90 minutes and I only get credit for maybe 15 minutes. In my mind that's correct and I think the Apple Watch does a decent job in interpreting the level of activity being undertaken.
"The Apple Watch determines exercise based on sustained periods of increased heart rate, typically at or above a brisk walk's intensity, which translates to roughly 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. It uses this data, alongside movement, to calculate your "Exercise" minutes."
When I'm walking at a brisk pace, my heart rate usually starts off between 102 and 105. This can increase if doing a very long walk - particularly a hilly walk. But I get minutes credit even if my HR is in the 102/105 range - which is when I walk at around 15 / 16 minute pace.
I might disagree slightly, the information in iphone Fitness app from even an SE is every bit as good as Garmin and much better than my old Polar. I don’t think an Ultra gives any better information (apart from bigger muscles in that arm carrying it 😂)
'Stand' is just the word they use - it's a bit snappier than 'stand and move around for a minute every hour to stop you from sitting on your backside for hours on end'.
It does have a health benefit for those that might just sit in front of the TV most of the day after maybe doing a 30 minute walk in the morning.
You are getting too hung up on the word 'stand'.
Will Apple Watches really make us healthier if we stand up every hour?
As part of the advance publicity for the forthcoming Apple Watch, Apple chief executive Tim Cook has disclosed that it has a feature that prompts people to stand up every hour. “Sitting is the new cancer…
theconversation.com
From the above article ...
"What has become clear over the past decade is that it matters what we do in the other 23 and a half hours of the day. We have realised that sitting is an independent risk factor for poor health. The word “independent” is key here: sitting for a long time is bad for your health, even if you are an active individual.
Prolonged sitting has been linked with a 112% increase in the risk of diabetes, a 147% increase in the risk of heart disease, and a 49% increase in the risk of death. The list goes on … it’s even a risk factor for some forms of cancer".
There is probably an arguement that the entire Apple Watch is a pointless bit of fun. A $30 Casio tells the time and lasts for years. Roger Bannister and Linford Christie never needed to track their running stats. Your body has spent 3 million years evolving ways to ensure you know you've not slept and it takes 2 extra seconds to pay for something with your phone.
It is a neat product though nonetheless.
It is a neat product though nonetheless.
Precisely! A 12-stand goal cannot posdibly be completed in under 12 hours.
And if a move calorie goal is met in 2 hours, increase the goal!
Maybe the ability to change goals is the information the OP missed.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/watch/apd29b30023c/watchos
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You don't think professional athletes track their running stats? I think they probably track a lot more than that.
It's not just for the purely sedentary. An office-worker who does a vigorous 90-minute workout in the morning, then sits at his computer for 5+ hours before his lunch break, is squandering a small-but-significant part of the gain from his workout. The "Stand" ring reminds desk-jockeys of all fitness levels not to be glued to their desks for unhealthily long stretches of time.
Yes, for the very most sedentary, simply standing up to go to the refrigerator for the next diet soda is a trivial-but-real step up from hours of sitting in front of the TV or computer. But even for the most active, the Stand ring has value, especially if you set it for more than the default number of hours.
I know many who got motivated by Rings, and lost weight with constant motivation. I don’t care about the rings but if it is helping some, it’s not pointless. Jane may have many fitness problems, Apple rings/standing alert isn’t one of them.
I'm saying they got by perfectly well without doing so via a digital device 40 years ago. A stopwatch was all l they needed and your $30 casio still has that!
But your comparison is way off. Professional athletes - even 40 years ago - will have followed training programmes including heart rate data, intervals, recovery etc with a coach. So I would argue that the Apple Watch - if used correctly - can act as a user's coach ... helping to monitor progress. Not just looking at one day and if the rings have been closed but by looking at the consistency of closing rings and improvements over a period of time. I look at the trends for Move, Distance, Walking Pace and Exercise to see how my average for the last 3 months compares to the 12 month average. Also any change in my Cardio Fitness. And of course Training Load is now tracked. Whilst I'm sure that some of these stats aren't necessarily 100% accurate, they are a very good indicator of progress. I can see how long I'm spending in different HR zones for any given workout that I record.
So for me, I don't see my Apple Watch as a 'pointless bit of fun'.
The exercise tracking often does not work - depends on your kind of movement. If you want to track your walk more or less accurately, just activate a walking exercise manually or via siri.
The rings have worked well for me, motivating me to close them. But I agree, they can also be a crutch for lying to oneself. Your friend "Jane" obviously has to know that she's extremely unhealthy, if she can't even get around the block without getting sweaty or having one (or several) breaks. She just doesn't want to do anything against it. Which I can kind of understand: I got quite overweight once (93kg at 181cm) - every pound makes movement and exercise harder (and sweatier). But, oh the joy if you then lose 15kg.
P.s: I guess the stand ring was created so they had three rings. Two seems a little meagre. It often doesn't track me standing more than a minute and I sometimes cheat it by shaking my wrist for a minute (e.g., when I'm at the movies. I hope other moviegoers don't mistake that shaking for something else
)P.p.s: I know quite a few overweight (e.g. BMI>25) people between 75 and 85). But they are not obese. a BMI > 30 won't get you to that age. Sadly, who thinks about that at age 22? )
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Why do you insist on talking about what used to be on a post saying nothing about that?
This.
Stand isn't for "exercise", it's so I don't get to work, sit in a chair all morning for 4 hours without getting up, then sit in it all afternoon again without moving. Regardless of if I then go for a run or cycle ("actual exercise"), that doesn't mean it wasn't a bad thing sitting in a chair without moving for 8 hours of the day. So stand goals work as a reminder to just move about a bit, not exercise.
When it comes to actual exercise goals, they're personal. My girlfriend has hers set lower than mine and almost always completes them. I have mine set higher and tend to either massively exceed them (when I do a proper good exercise session), or fail badly (no exercise at all). So in my case maybe I should actually lower mine as it might make me more likely to try complete the ring every day, by setting a minimum bar, rather than think completing them is unrealistic due to time constraints so totally ignore all the days when I don't.
But you have to have some sense and use them as an incentive to activity. If "Jane" thinks that just completing rings with very low goals is good enough to make her healthy, I think she may be more mentally challenged than physically challenged.
Good point. Here it is:
You're bigoted to fat people. I only hope Jane is imaginary so she doesn't have such a condescending and destructive person in her life.
You aren't "helping" her, your "truth" is just a shield that makes you feel bigger, and it's people exactly like you that perpetuate hatred—and THAT, more than the weight, is what increases social stigma and ****s up their lives.
You clearly don't understand how metabolisms work and haven't considered that other people aren't you. I'm not expecting you to change, but really—this is who you are.
If she's real, you are a bad friend to Jane.
Did the OP mention that he typically walks 10 to 15 miles per day with a 20 mile hike once per week? That he's ex-military, 145 lbs. and can lift 150 lbs. with moderate effort? That he went to medical school?
And did he mention that his friend brags?
And did he mention that his friend brags?
And the beauty of it is that the activity rings are scalable, so it's not a one size fits all proposition.
You're a highly active person who hits the gym for an hour and runs 10K every day? Cool, good for you - set your rings to reflect that, but don't assume that you are the standard for everybody else in the world. Not everybody has the time, ability or inclination to be as super great awesome as you.
You're a highly sedentary person who has never seen the inside of a gym or laced up a pair of running shoes, but want to make an effort to improve yourself? Cool, good for you - set your rings to an achievable level for you so you get the added motivation of feeling the accomplishment. Doing anything is better than doing nothing.
How much benefit the rings are depends on how goal-oriented and/or competitive a person is. My wife is one of the most non-athletic people I've ever met, and is a couch potato. She thinks closing rings on a watch is stupid, so it offers no motivation whatsoever to her. The only thing that motivates her to move is to do something she enjoys, and she couldn't care less how long it takes, what her heart rate is, how many exercise minutes she got for it, or what impact it had on her VO2max. Rings aren't her problem, but they're not her solution either.
I'm more of the competitive type and I love goals and statistics. I'm also inherently lazy, so having the rings there to motivate me makes me get up off my backside and do something. I make it my goal to close all 3 rings every day, and I have them set to a level that makes it possible, but requires some deliberate effort/movement.
Gamifying or setting goals for anything is a powerful motivator for me. Take me to a park and just tell me to "go for a run" with no other parameters and I'm already mentally checked out. Take me to a park and tell me to run 2.5 miles at a 10:00 pace, now I have something to shoot for and keep an eye on, and I'm engaged.
Telling me to stand up more often and move more during the day is meaningless, what does that look like and how do I know if/when I've accomplished it? Telling me to stand up for at least a minute every hour, get 30 minutes of exercise and burn 600 calories a day gives me a goal, and trying to close those rings every day and keep a streak going is like an ongoing game, that's the kind of thing that keeps me focused and engaged. I'll definitely make the effort to do more than that, but at least I have baseline goals and a feeling of accomplishment when I hit them.
I took a minute and imagined all of this, it feels so Lynchian, almost like an unfinished episode of Twin Peaks🤣
As other commenters here suggested, people unfortunately don’t understand that they are not gaming the system, they are gaming themselves.
Also it is a fact that food culture in the US is basically doing it to people. People are gaining weight not only because of lack of sports and movement but also due to products being filled with chemicals that our bodies cannot and shouldn’t metabolize. It stresses the liver, stresses the gut lining, stresses the kidneys, the blood glucose levels, and as a result it makes body unable to metabolize foods properly, body lacks proper nutrients and enters fight-or-flight mode and basically starts preserving fats.
Sugar in sodas is THE LEAST EVIL, there are thousands of useless preservatives and chemicals that are detrimental to human health, and because of accessibility and ease of consumption people get hooked on them, as well as slight caffeine that gives them “boost”.
Fun fact: beer is nowadays THE “HEALTHIEST” fizzy drink one can have. Modern science tells it is bad for kids, but is it? Comparing to coca-cola with 40 grams of sugar per liter. And coca-cola is allowed for kids, as well as dr.pepper and other trash that has no nutrients except cheap corn syrups.
Just look at Italians. These guys eat lots of dough in forms of spaghetti, lasagna, pizza. They eat tasty desserts all the time. They drink wine almost daily. Yet just look at them, they are THIN. And what is the reason? Their food! It is healthy.
I want Apple to update health app in the next iOS versions and include proper nutrition tips, food tips and maybe even recipes for healthy foods. So it would literally spam people with notifications if they choose so
Clearly you fail to get it. AW fitness tools are optional. Things like the rings tool can simply not be used by someone enduring military basic training. For many of the rest of us the [adjustable] rings can be a useful tool or entertainment. Those who find the rings useless can ignore them.
E.g. Even as a marathoner and triathlete, the Stand ring that you disdain was very useful to remind me to get up and move every so often when stuck at a desk. Today old injuries prevent me from doing hard workouts, but the [adjustable] exercise ring reminds me when I need more cardio.
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Every person is different. Comparing your “activity” and “exercise” rings to someone else isn’t fair if you’re not on level playing fields. I think “Jane” accomplishes attainable goals without hiking x amount of however many whatever. I mean, she could just sit on the couch and have someone BRING her a Dr. Pepper…So her getting up might be a moot point to you, but for her it’s at least SOMETHING. Sorry she doesn’t fit the bill of the perfect being. In other words, mind your own business. The exercise ring gets direct information based on your movement and heart rate. If you have any parts where your walk isn’t elevating/keeping your heart rate up, it doesn’t give you exercise progress.
And what a motivational guide they are. The rings helped me "gamify" my fitness journey with my wife; we have each lost >20Kg since the start of the year by working on our diets and challenging each other to "close" those rings (which we have cranked up over time). Cycling and swimming have been the main sports but we have found ways of sneaking a bit of walking, running and aerobic exercise into our days - anything to one-up each other.