Tracking your workouts alongside your progress is an excellent way to stay on top of your fitness goals. That’s what makes the activity and fitness features on the Apple Watch so convenient. With the tap of a few buttons, it logs your workouts for you. All you need to focus on is reaching your goals.

But if you miss logging a sweat sesh with your Apple Watch and don't know where to look, it may be unclear what to do if. To learn how to log your workout data manually, keep reading.

Add Workouts Using Apple Health

If you didn’t have your watch or forgot to tap start at the beginning of your workout, no sweat! To add data manually:

1. Open the Apple Health app on your iPhone.
2. Select Activity.
3. Scroll down to tap Workouts.
4. Select Add Data in the top-right corner of your screen.
5. Choose your Activity Type.
6. Enter your workout data in the fields below—Calories, Starts, Ends, and Distance, if relevant.
7. Tap Add.

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Keep in mind, you don’t need to be super accurate with start and end times. Ideally, you’d be able to enter the length of your workout in minutes. But since the app asks that you log times, you could start on the hour for a speedier data entry experience. While it’s quick math, it can be a chore if you’re adding multiple sessions and being exact about it. Doing this could deter you from wanting to do it.

Finding Workout Data in Apple Fitness

Not sure how many calories you burned during your session? Take a look at your previous workout data to find your answer so that you have a better idea of what to log. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Open the Fitness app on your iPhone.
2. Beside the Workouts heading, tap Show More.
3. Select All Workouts in the top-right corner to view a list of exercise types and filter your data.
4. Choose a session that closely matches your workout in length and intensity.
5. Use the calorie information for your new entry.

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Since it’s your own workout history, it’s one of the best places to grab this information. However, if there are no matching workouts, you can Google it or use one of your favorite fitness apps like MyFitnessPal or Lose It! to get an estimate.

What to Do if You Break Your Activity Ring Streak

When you manually enter data using Apple Health, your red calorie ring and green exercise ring will adjust. However, your stand ring won’t unless you log exercise for at least one minute every hour of your goal. Worth it? Probably not. The process would be rather time-consuming, so it’s likely better to let it go and keep moving.

While these rings gamify your progress, they’re only motivators. Great visuals for tracking, yes, but breaking your streak doesn’t mean you lost anything, especially if you’re still active and forgot your watch or even needed a break.

If you’re wondering what to do about your Apple Watch activity rings on vacation or when you need some less active days, you can also lower your goals to avoid breaking your streak by following these steps:

1. Open the Activity app on your watch.
2. In the first tab that shows your three rings at the top, scroll to the bottom and tap Change Goals.
3. Adjust your Move Goal using the plus and minus symbols on either side of the number shown on-screen.
4. Hit Next to do the same to your Exercise Goal and Stand Goal.
5. Tap Done, and you’re ready to go.

Other Ways to Track Your Fitness Goals

If you find the Apple Fitness and Health apps too overwhelming or lacking something you need, there are plenty of other ways to track your fitness goals.

• Write them in your paper day planner.
• Add them as a note in your calendar app.
• Create a fitness tracker in Notion.
• Try another app like Lose It! or MyFitnessPal.
• Use a simple notebook or notes app.

There’s no wrong way to track your activity. Keeping notes on workout types, length, intensity, and other relevant metrics and comparing them to your results will help you learn what works and where to adjust. Things like activity rings and streaks are great motivators and add a bit of fun, but they’re not essential to meet your goals.

Stay on Top of Your Exercise Goals With Apple Fitness

Whether you forgot to charge your Apple Watch or didn’t tap the Go button, there's no need to worry about missing your workout data. You can manually add data in a matter of steps using the Apple Health app. Once you know where to look, the process is a cinch. However, if you find you often forget to use your watch to track, you may want to explore other options, such as using another app or writing them on paper.