I was an Apple Watch guy before I really got obsessed with running. It quickly became clear to me that “real” runners don’t use an Apple Watch 🤪. Most runners I know use Garmin or Suunto and because of this, there is very little written about how to truly get the most out of your Apple Watch, short of not using one. Frankly, I was not about to blow $300-400 dollars on switching. Therefore, this article is to help you–a loyal Apple Watch user–to get the most out of your Apple Watch and have it syncing correctly to the many services out there. There are really only two things you need to get right. Tracking and syncing:

1. Tracking

To get the most out of your Apple Watch, you need to use the most feature rich app there is and this data needs to be completely accessible and useable for the various apps out there. At one point I was using Nike Run Club for my running app, but it turns out that the Nike Run Club app doesn’t save the GPS data to the phone and you can’t create splits. This makes it extremely difficult to sync to an app like Final Surge. Other third-party apps are similar, or don’t have the necessary features, like creating splits (Apple calls them Segments). If you were using a Garmin, you always track with the Garmin’s built-in app, not third-party apps, and then you sync to other services. This makes a ton of sense, because the watch’s natural ability should be tied to the maker and not someone else.

Because of these oddities with using third-party apps to track your data, you should only use the default Apple Watch Workouts app. This will give you the most accurate data on your phone, which you can then use as the datasource for syncing to every other service you want. For detailed information on using the Workouts app, visit their support docs.

2. Syncing

Now that all your data is tracking directly through the Workouts app, you will need to have a unified syncing method. Many apps, like Strava, will handle importing your workouts. It may be very tempting to use Strava’s syncing capabilities to sync to other third-party apps like Final Surge. Don’t use third-party apps like Strava to sync your data to other third-party apps. It appears that certain data, like splits (and who knows what other valuable data) gets lost in the shuffle. Instead, you want to use an app that handles syncing the raw data from your iPhone to the other services. This is where HealthFit fits in.

HealthFit - One app to sync them all

A few months ago when I was trying to sync my entire workout history to Strava, my friend and co-worker, Matt Rubin, recommended a great app called HealthFit. While HealthFit has other features besides syncing, syncing is what it excels at and syncing is the only reason I use it. HealthFit syncs all my data to my various apps and for a cheap $3.99, my coach gets all the proper information he needs in Final Surge. I now have no reason to shell out a few hundred dollars on a Garmin.

Once you have HealthFit syncing to your favorite apps, that’s all there is to it. You should be ready to roll and your coaches will thank you for getting them the proper data. Here’s a list of the currently available places you can sync your data to:

If you have any questions, need help or have found other tricks for making your Apple Watch an awesome resource for runners, slap them in the comments below ⌚️💬👇