Apple watch heart rate alert during workout

Did you know that your Apple Watch has the ability to set heart rate alerts during a workout? This has been such a great tool for me, especially in my running journey. If you’re like me and want to stay in a certain heart rate zone range but don’t know how to set an Apple Watch heart rate alert during a workout then this is for you!

Figuring out a new technology can be difficult and an Apple Watch is no exception. The benefits of harnessing its feature of setting heart rate alerts during workouts can significantly elevate your fitness level.

As someone deeply immersed in my running journey, I’ve found this tool to be a game-changer, providing real-time insights into the intensity of my runs and ensuring I stay within my targeted heart rate zone.

Apple watch heart rate alert during A workout

Today, I’m going to be showing you how to set your Apple Watch heart rate alert for when you’re working out. I use this all the time when training for races from 50k to 100 miler!

The first thing you’re going to do is open up the Apple Watch and go to the Workout App.

Then scroll to whatever workout you’re going to do. Mine is “Outdoor Run”. Click on the three little dots in the right-hand corner of the activity you want to do.

Then you will scroll down to the bottom of this “Suggested” area.

Scroll down until you see the “Preferences” button at the very bottom of the screen and click on that.

Once you’ve clicked the “Preferences” button scroll down until you see the “Heart Rate” button and click on that.

Then you can choose which heart rate zone you’re going to want to do during your workout. I chose zone 2 which is aerobic pace. You can choose from any of the 5 zones.

If you’re doing a tempo run, you can set it to Zone 4, or if you want to do Zone 5 for anaerobic training, you can do that. I just always set it to Zone 2.

After this, you can go back to the workout section and start the workout that you just set the heart rate zone for.

Here’s How the Apple Watch Heart Rate Alarm Works

Now that we know how to set the Apple Watch heart rate alarm let’s see how it’s going to work during a workout.

Click the workout you just created with the set heart rate zone to start the workout. Once the workout has begun, start exercising.

You will get this notification once you are “In Zone” and you have reached the heart rate zone you set. Also, the alarm will go off again if you go “Below Zone” or “Above Zone”. So that is how to set your heart rate alerts on your Apple Watch.

How to Change Heart Rate Zones on an Apple Watch

Now that we understand how it works, let’s get into how to set the heart rate ranges in those zones.

To do this, you’ll just want to go to the “Watch App”, on your iPhone and tap into it.

Once the app is open you will see this screen and scroll down.

You’ll scroll down until you see “Workout”, and click on it.

Once you are on the “Workout” page scroll down.

Continue to scroll down until you get to “Heart Rate Zones” and click on it.

Once you are in this “Heart Rate” section you can see that there are two options, “Automatic” and “Manual”. For the “Automatic” option, Apple will just take your highest heart rate for that month and use that to calculate the heart rate zones. I did mine manually based on my heart rate on data on Strava.

If you want to know how to calculate your heart rate zones here’s how to do it:

1. Zone 1 (50-60% MHR): This is the very light activity zone, typically used for warm-up and cool-down exercises. So you take your max heart rate and multiply it by .5 and .6 to get your heart rate zone range. (Example: 190 x .5 = 95, 190 x .6 = 114, my zone one heart rate range for zone one would be 95-114 beats per minute).
2. Zone 2 (60-70% MHR): The aerobic zone, where you’re burning fat and building endurance. This is often a good zone for long, steady-state workouts.
3. Zone 3 (70-80% MHR): The tempo or threshold zone, where you start to push your cardiovascular fitness. This is often used for interval training.
4. Zone 4 (80-90% MHR): The anaerobic or redline zone. This is a high-intensity zone often used for shorter bursts of activity.
5. Zone 5 (90-100% MHR): The maximum effort or sprint zone. This is where you push yourself to the absolute limit.

I went in and manually entered all of these heart rate zones here based on my max heart rate, which is 190. These will go onto your Apple Watch, and you’ll be able to set your heart rate alert based on these heart rates.

Alright, guys, I hope that this helped you out on how to set alerts during your workouts on your Apple Watch. If you have any questions, make sure to leave those below, and I will answer your questions there.