Coaching from your wrist: popular smartwatch fitness coaches

Wearable technology and the future of health is on our wrists. We can track our steps, heartbeat, activity, and sleep over the course of days, weeks, and months. What many people may not realize is that their wearable device can also offer personal coaching. 

Smartwatch brands like Samsung, Fitbit, and Garmin offer fitness coaching features. They work on your wrist, and through their respective smartphone apps.  We’ll take a look at how these fitness coaches work, what they offer, and how they can help you reach your health and wellness goals. 

Finally, we’ll explore additional features like meditation and guided breathing exercises to improve your mental health well-being. 

Samsung Health app and fitness coaching

In real life, a good personal trainer tracks your workouts and pushes you to reach your goals. The Samsung Health app is your personal record keeper in your pocket. It works with new devices like Galaxy Watch4 to track workouts, heartbeat, and other metrics.  

Samsung Health has a variety of personalized fitness programs to follow. These include stretching, weight loss, running, endurance training, and more. Unlike traditional exercise trackers, these workout programs provide you with a set schedule to follow. Metrics from each workout are captured and visually analyzed in graphical form. 

To ensure proper technique, each program has workout videos inside the app. There are also audio guides and the ability to mirror your phone’s screen to a compatible smart TV. This is a great feature for people who exercise at home and are looking for set programs to follow.  

The Samsung Health app is your running coach

Imagine having a personal running coach on your wrist. From warm-up routines to real-time encouragements, the running coach feature is designed to help you reach personal distance and time goals. 

During runs, the coach provides real-time feedback such as “slow down” or “take longer strides.” You can pre-set duration, distance, and number of sets. From there, go through a custom “intensity training session” that alternates between high and low-intensity workouts. 

This data is then sent to the Samsung Health app to give you a breakdown of pace, cadence, heart rate, and other stats. Whether you work out at home or run in the trails, Samsung Health can provide personal coaching in real-time.

Fitbit Premium and personal coaching

The Fitbit app has free and premium versions available that work alongside various Fitbit devices. Both versions offer basic insights on activity, weight, sleep, and nutrition. For personal coaching, you have access to a variety of introductory programs, workouts, and mindfulness sessions. 

Premium members get access to over 200 workouts inside the Fitbit app. These include video workouts from Fitbit and hundreds of videos from partners. Stream video and audio sessions from the Fitbit app or on smart TVs or speakers.  

In addition to more workouts, the Premium version provides a Daily Readiness Score. This score is based on previous activity and workouts. 

Each morning, the in-app coach provides you with a score. This number determines if you should prepare for the next workout, or if you need to prioritize recovery. This helps you prevent injuries due to overtraining. It ensures adequate recovery time based on age, fitness level, and activity schedule. 

In addition, Premium users receive a monthly Wellness Report. This is a downloadable PDF summary of monthly activity, sleep, heart rate, and weight. It includes annual trends to help you visually see progress over time. The combination of instructional workouts and summary reports make it a personal coach in your pocket, 

Fitbit users can select from a variety of devices such as the Fitbit Charge 5 (which doesn’t have a large screen for on-wrist workouts) or Fitbit Sense Smartwatch.  

Garmin Connect app

Like the other health apps, the Garmin Connect app tracks, analyzes, and shares health and fitness activities from your Garmin device. It offers a variety of training plans to help you reach your fitness goals. Each plan provides a series of workouts that build upon each other. To take training to the next level, the Connect app also includes Garmin Coach.

Garmin Coach is another running coach on your wrist. It allows you to send adaptive running training plans to a compatible Garmin watch. Choose between three expert running coaches and race goals. From there, receive guidance with a free training plan that includes personalized dynamic workouts. These workouts sync to the watch and will adjust to get harder or easier based on your performance. 

The training plans support beginner to intermediate fitness levels. Garmin Connect is an excellent platform choice for runners training for a 5K, 10K, or half-marathon race. 

Coaching for meditation and mental health

With more attention focused on mental health, smartwatches have followed with additional coaching features. Instead of just exercise tracking like the Fitbit Versa 3, the Fitbit’s Sense smartwatch is focused on deeper health-tracking as well. It comes with an array of built-in sensors. For example, a feature called EDA Body Scans measures minor changes in your skin, like sweaty palms from feeling nervous. 

To check on your stress level, simply place your palm over the watch face. The sensors collect your metrics and you’ll be prompted to log your emotional state. This data can then be used in calculating your Stress Management Score. There are also mindfulness exercises in the app alongside physical activities. 

Samsung Health has partnered with meditation apps like Calm to measure stress levels during meditation sessions. Follow guided meditations and breathing exercises and collect data from your wrists. This can help people manage stress and better learn how to get into a relaxed state.  

Garmin also has mindfulness through its Garmin iQ app, including mindful breathing and meditation.

A personal life coach on your wrist

Smartwatches and activity trackers provide you with a personal coach on your wrist. These coaching tools help people design fitness programs, track workouts, and progress over time. These wearable devices can also measure our stress levels and help us reach relaxed states through meditation, guided breathing exercises, and other tools. 

If you need a little push that only a good coach can provide, maybe it’s time you start looking for a smartwatch to get coaching from your wrist. See plenty of options at Best Buy Online.