If you’re more motivated to stick to a fitness plan when friends or family support you, Apple’s Fitness app has a great solution. You can share your activity with others using your iPhone and Apple Watch. That way, you can cheer each other on and keep each other accountable. Here’s how to share your fitness activity.
Set Your Apple Watch Activity Rings
One great feature of Apple’s iconic activity rings is that they are completely customizable. You can set up realistic targets for yourself, and so can each member of your family or friendship group. Then the aim is for you and your friends to do enough movement to close your Apple Watch activity rings each day.
Once you’ve set your activity goals, you’re ready to add some friends and start challenging each other.
How to Add Friends and Accept Invitations
From the Fitness app on your iPhone:
- Tap the Sharing tab (if asked, tap Get Started).
- Tap the Account icon in the top right corner and choose a friend from the list of contacts that appears. Alternatively, tap the plus (+) sign and add your friend’s contact information.
- Tap Send, and your friend will get an invitation to accept.
From the Activity app on your Apple Watch (the three colored rings), just swipe once to the Sharing screen, scroll to the Invite a Friend option, and tap the name of the person you want to add.
If you receive an invitation, you’ll get a notification on your Apple Watch or iPhone, which you can choose to accept or ignore. If you’ve silenced your notifications, you can find any outstanding invitations in the Sharing tab of the Fitness app on your iPhone.
How to Check Your Friends’ Progress
As long as you and your friends have connected your devices to the internet and you’re signed into iCloud, you can get regular updates about how well your friends are progressing towards their goals.
- On your iPhone, open the Fitness app and tap the Sharing tab. Your friends are listed, and you can tap each person to see their progress.
- On your Apple Watch, go to the Activity app and swipe left. Scroll down your list of friends by turning the Digital Crown, and tap on each friend to check their details.
How to Motivate Your Friends
You’ll receive notifications about your friends’ progress if you have an Apple Watch. Help motivate them to meet their goals by sending them positive messages.
If you and your friends both have Apple Fitness+, competing with each other is a great way to make the most of your Apple Fitness+ subscription. However, even if you don’t, you can still challenge each other to an activity competition. Each of you can earn points based on the percentage of your Activity Rings you close each day. The person with the most points at the end of the competition wins.
To keep it honest, learn how to manually add workouts to Apple Fitness and also how to remove unwanted exercise minutes from your iPhone and Apple Watch.
It’s easy to set up competitions from your Apple Watch:
- Open the Activity app.
- Swipe left, tap a friend’s name, and tap Compete.
- Tap Invite and wait for them to accept.
To set up competitions on your iPhone:
- Open the Fitness app.
- Tap Sharing and choose your friend’s name.
- Tap Compete with [friend’s name].
How to Stop Sharing Activity
If you want to stop sharing, there are several options you can choose.
Mute Fitness Notifications
To simply mute notifications from your iPhone, follow these steps:
- Open the Fitness app.
- Tap Sharing and choose your friend’s name.
- Tap Mute notifications.
To resume, tap Unmute Notifications.
Hide Your Fitness Progress
To hide your progress from friends using your iPhone, follow these steps:
- Open the Fitness app.
- Tap Sharing and choose the friend you want to hide your progress from.
- Tap Hide My Activity.
To start sharing again, tap Show my Activity. This function won’t work if you’re in a competition with that friend.
Remove a Friend
Here’s how to remove a friend from fitness sharing:
- Open the Fitness app.
- Tap Sharing and tap your friend.
- Tap Remove Friend.
If you do this, you won’t be able to share your activity again until you send a new invitation. You can access these settings on your Apple Watch Activity app once you’ve tapped a friend’s name. You’ll get the same options: Mute, Hide my Activity, and Remove Friend.
Share Your Activity With Your Friends and Family for Extra Fitness Motivation
Sharing your activity each day or participating in a challenge with your friends and family can motivate all of you to push a little bit harder towards your fitness goals. The element of encouragement or competition Apple Fitness provides might just be the spark you need to kickstart your fitness routine.
