If you own a running or multi-sport watch, it should have a lap button for splitting your workouts into segments. It could do this in form of laps of a track, rounds of a bodyweight circuit, or as 20-minute intervals on a bike. In this guide, we will show you how to use this feature on your Apple Watch.
Page Contents:
How to Mark a Lap on Your Apple Watch When You Run or Cycle
First off, go on to track your workouts as usual via the Workout app on your Apple Watch. Next, double-tap on the screen to mark a segment. Now, you should see a segment appear on the screen. Now, you can keep getting your sweat on and your watch will mark off segments and laps as you need.
You should take note that if you would like to do this on a swimming workout, things are a little different. This is because the screen is automatically locked when you swim. If you are tracking your pool swim workout, your Apple Watch will use the pool length you enter at the start to track the number of lengths you do. Your watch will also automatically split your workouts into sets by tracking every time you remain at the edge of the pool for more than ten seconds. There is no option for you to add segments if you are tracking an Open Water Swim workout.
How to Check Your Laps and Other Segments on Your Apple Watch
If you want to check your segment splits when you are done with the workout, simply go to the “Fitness” app on your iOS device.
Next up, tap on the workout and then tap on “Segments.”
A numbered list along with he stats of the workout will be displayed on the screen.
Why You Should Track Segments
The normal stats that are recorded when you workout such as running pace and cycling speed don’t really tell you much unless you are simply doing a slow steady-state workout. An example is if you do a mile warm-up, follow it by running hard for a mile and a half and then use another half a mile to cool down, then the part you are recording is between the second mile and mile 3.5. However, you cannot know how fast you did it by looking at just the average run speed or the mile splits.
On the other hand, if you make use of the lap feature on your Apple Watch, you can warm up for the first mile, double tap the screen to mark a lap, run hard for another mile and a half, double tap the screen to mark another lap, then you can cool down. When you are done and you check your stats via the Fitness app on your iOS device, you will see the stats displayed in three segments. One for your warm up, one for your workout and one for you cooling down.
Apart from running and cycling, there are couple other workouts you can track such as some High-Intensity Interval Training or CrossFit style circuits. In such cases, you can use the lap feature to mark off each round.
