Fitness+ offers a huge variety of workouts on the app itself, with new workouts being added constantly. — Picture courtesy of Apple
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 5 — Apple’s subscription fitness service Fitness+ is now available in Malaysia and for once, we get to lord it over Singapore as the country is not getting the service (yet).
What do you need to start?
To sign up, you need an Apple Watch. It’s not optional – you need at least an Apple Watch Series 3 or later running watchOS 7.2 minimum to register for the service.
Then, to get started with the actual workouts, you will need a device running either iOS/iPadOS 14.3 or an Apple TV with tvOS 14.3 or later.
Is it couch potato-friendly?
The good news is that Fitness+ isn’t just made for those people who will Instagram their daily run/weight snatch/disgustingly healthy smoothie.
According to Jay Blahnik, Apple’s vice president of Fitness Technologies, Fitness+ is made for people who are regular exercisers but also those who have decided to spend less time being one with the couch.
Blahnik said,”We were really trying to do a number of things to make sure that seasoned exercisers felt welcome, but also in particular people who were just starting out in this routine or had been gone from fitness for a long time.”
Apple has given thought to absolute beginners, for whom a special set of workouts exist in Fitness+ to get them started.
There are 10 to choose from with some around 10 minutes in length and a few 20 minutes long. Ideally new users would start with the 10-minute sessions to learn the basics before graduating to the 20-minute versions to help them prepare for regular Fitness+ weekly studio workouts.
Strength, core, HIIT and yoga are offered in these beginner sessions which are low impact, easy to follow and also include optional use of two light dumbbells, a chair or a mat.
Fitness+ also has a custom video that walks users through how to use workout equipment featured in the service’s workouts, such as exercise bikes and rowing machines.
The service also offers five-minute beginner meditation sessions to help you ease into meditation if it’s new to you.
You can still select a standard studio workout as there will be trainers who will demonstrate more beginner-friendly modifications to help you follow along.
Apple prides itself on the diversity of its Fitness+ trainer team that encompasses various ages, backgrounds and body types. — Picture courtesy of Apple
Schedule-friendly
The good news is you won’t have to feel “stuck” doing long routines or think you don’t have time for workouts – there are plenty of shorter workouts to choose from.
“We put as much love and attention into the 10-minute workouts as we do the 45-minute workouts,” said Blahnik.
Shorter workouts, for instance, are not just convenient for everyone but are a great starting point for beginners.
“They don’t have to commit to too much time and they can still get all the great attention that’s been put into those workouts,” he said.
Need a break to answer a call or get the mail? You can pause your workout from your Watch and just pick up from where you left off when you’re ready.
Making it accessible
Apple worked with its accessibility teams for Fitness+ to figure out the best approach where accessibility was concerned.
“What we learned was that trying to teach entire workouts or meditations with sign language would probably not be the right thing to do,” Blahnik said.
Instead Fitness+ incorporates welcomes and motivational phrases that would be easier to follow, even for those hard of hearing.
Sign language is also incorporated in ways to help users feel welcome and trainers would learn new phrases or words to sign each month.
“The trainers put the workouts together as a team, they get feedback from our programming team who are experts in program design, and they actually learned special skills on how to cue the workouts,” said Blahnik.
Trainers would go so far as to double check to make sure that cueing is clear and easy to follow, even for those with low vision.
“We continue to push to make it as friendly and as easy as possible for everyone to participate,” Blahnik said.
In that vein, trainers would also take effort in the phrases they used, with Blahnik giving an example of trainers saying “Take your legs” instead of “take the legs” as it sounds disembodied.
Apple’s trainers are fairly diverse – with trainers who aren’t just in their twenties or thirties but even in their forties, fifties, and sixties.
“We believe it’s the first time a service has ever put together such a diverse group of people,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that everyone knows that we see you, we hear you and everyone is welcome to participate.”
Why Fitness+?
With so many on-demand apps and fitness services, why would Fitness+ appeal? Blahnik said, “I think that from the very beginning, we’ve designed Apple Fitness+ to be a service that’s built entirely around Apple Watch.
“And so we wanted this to be a place where anyone who loves their Apple Watch would find everything they love about the watch, and the service and connect to everything they do with the ecosystem.”
With Fitness+, Watch users can see their biometrics right up on the screen, with their rings progressing and see celebrations right in the workout, just as they would see in Watch when they complete workouts or their fitness rings.
“We think that what people will notice is how easily the Apple Watch is integrated into the experience, even for things like Time to Walk – it just is fully integrated into the watch.”
Blahnik also said that Fitness+ showcased the care put into the service via its production values – all the content has been shot in 4K Ultra High Definition.
“We believe that this is the first-ever for a fitness service,” he said. “It’s almost cinematic. It actually is like you’re watching a movie. It’s beautiful. It’s easy to see.”
As many as seven cameras are used for every single workout, making it easy to help users get the right angle or correct body position at the exact right time.
“This makes it easier to follow, making it feel really immersive as if you’re almost there,” he said.
User feedback has been good, with them saying that they love all that attention to detail, and it’s a seamless connection to their watch.
Staying fresh
It’s not a static experience on Fitness+ as new workouts are constantly being added to the mix with Blahnik saying that anywhere from 25 to 35 workouts and meditations are added weekly.
With all that content, would that mean some workouts would be phased out in time?
Blahnik said, “We don’t have any plans to phase out any of the content that we shoot.”
The current plan, he said, was to keep everything in the service available while routinely making adjustments as needed, for instance, replacing music with more suitable tracks.
He also said that the trainers worked closely with each other to keep content varied, and ensure that in any given week, yoga workouts for instance, are slightly different from each other.
“The team is constantly talking to make sure that the moves, music that they use, that it’s constantly creating a really fresh experience every single week,” he said.
Over 500 workouts will be available to the new countries Fitness+ will be launching in, including Malaysia.
Besides beginner workouts, there will also be workouts for older adults, pregnant women, as well as for snow season – the latter less likely to be exciting for Malaysians but at least you won’t need actual snow gear to do them.
Time to Walk should also be appealing to users who just want to… walk. It’s basically a recorded session where you can listen to say, the likes of Dolly Parton, Randall Park and quite a few others, as they share stories or their favourite tunes.
The service even accommodates wheelchair mode – just connect your Watch to headphones, and select who you’d like to listen to as you take in the sights.
Mindful about mindfulness
Apple recently added Pilates as well as Tai Chi Workouts and a revamped Mindfulness app to the Apple Watch. Thus it wasn’t surprising that Mindfulness has also seen more prominent placing in Fitness+.
“We’ve known since the very beginning that people who want to exercise are often excited about bringing mindfulness into their lives as well,” Blahnik said.
Since the service’s launch, the Mindful Cooldown in Fitness+ has proven to be “incredibly popular.” In fact they wanted to access it whenever they could, from their desks during breaks or whenever they wanted to do a little stretch.
“They want to reset their mind. Reduce their stress. And when we saw how popular that was, we thought we could push it even further and provide dedicated content.” he said.
What the research also showed is that there isn’t just one way to meditate – thus Fitness+ incorporates nine different themes, giving users choice and flexibility.
What’s next for Fitness+? Blahnik said, “We have a lot on our radar. We’re just excited about our future and what we’ve already launched, and we think it’s going to be a really great couple of years ahead of us.”
Apple Fitness+ is available now at either RM19.90 per month or RM119.90 annually, and shareable with up to six family members. You can also get it as part of the Apple One Premier Plan for RM69.90 per month, which includes TV+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade and iCloud+ with 2TB of storage.