How to Sync Stronglifts Workouts with Apple Health

Stronglifts sends your workouts, workout duration, estimated calories burned, and body weight to Apple Health when you use an iOS device (iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad).

You can enable Apple Health like this:

1. Open Stronglifts on your iOS device
2. Go to Settings > Apple Health
3. Enable Apple Health
4. Grant Stronglifts permission to send your workouts to Apple Health

Stronglifts will send the following information to Apple Health

• Body weight - this saves you from entering it manually for every workout.
• Workouts - new workouts will be sent to Apple Health.
• Heart rate - only when logging workouts with your Apple Watch.
• Estimated calories burned
• Total workout time

Your Stronglifts workouts will also count towards your activity goals and badges.

Other apps that sync with Apple Health can pull all the data we send. For example: if you enable Apple Health in Stronglifts and MyfitnessPal, the calories burned during your Stronglifts workouts will be sent to MyfitnessPal. This saves you from having to enter it manually

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Stronglifts estimate calories burned?

Our formula for estimating calories burned is based on this study.

In short, lifting weights burns about 5-6kcal/min or ~300kcal/hour (the equivalent of brisk walking).

Doesn't lifting weights burn more than 300kcal/hour?

Lifting weights doesn't burn as many calories per minute as activities like running or cycling. This is because you spend most of your time resting between sets. If you want to burn a lot of calories quickly, doing cardio exercises like running or swimming is more effective.

However, the primary goal of lifting weights is not to burn calories but to get stronger and build muscle. Having more muscle increases how many calories you burn when not exercising. This extra muscle mass requires more energy to maintain. Repairing them post-workout burns calories. Studies found that regular resistance training can increase your daily energy expenditure by 100 calories or more (source). So, even though you might not burn that many calories while lifting weights, it helps you burn more calories overall.

Lifting weights also strengthens your muscles, bones, and joints in ways that cardio doesn't. Just looking at how many calories you burn during a workout doesn't show all the benefits of lifting weights. The main metrics we recommend looking at are 1) consistency (getting 2-3 workouts done each week) 2) increasing your strength (which you can track in the progress graphs inside Stronglifts). Consistently doing your workouts and trying to add weight over time will increase your strength, muscle mass, and bone density. This will improve your overall health.

Also if your goal is to lose a lot of weight, lifting weights and/or cardio alone isn't effective unless you can do hours of it. See: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24438736/

This study found that if you want to lose a lot of weight, you need a calorie restriction - eating less using some type of restraint. Lifting and cardio is great. But unless you can do hours of it to burn a ton of calories, it won't be enough. Most of us can't do hours of exercise because we're busy with work, family, etc. And so we need to improve our diet if we want to lose a lot of weight.

Why does the Apple Watch report higher calories than Stronglifts?

The Apple Watch uses a different method to estimate the calories burned during your workout. Currently, Apple doesn't let us control how the watch estimates calories for Stronglifts workouts. If you alternate between logging workouts with your watch and phone, you'll get different calorie estimations for similar workouts.

Please note that the Apple Watch tends to overestimate how many calories your workout burns. Here's a quote from a study by Hajj-Boutros et al...

"The Apple Watch 6, Polar Vantage V and Fitbit Sense showed poor accuracy for energy expenditure during 5 different physical activities.... proceed with caution on the clinical utility of energy expenditure of these devices during the implementation of an exercise training or nutritional programme."

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34957939/

When you log your Stronglifts workouts using just your iPhone, without an Apple Watch connected, the estimated calories burned are calculated using our algorithm. These estimates will be slightly lower than those provided by the Apple Watch.

Why are my total calories higher than active calories?

Stronglifts sends two types of calorie estimations to Apple Health:

• Active Calories
• Total Calories

Your active calories are the estimated calories you burn during your workout.

Your total calories are the sum of your active and resting calories. Your resting calories are the calories you burn at rest. This is your basal metabolic rate or BMR - the calories burned for bodily functions like breathing, digestion, heart function, etc. Your total calories include both the calories you burn during your workout and at rest. This value is thus higher than for active calories alone.

Troubleshooting common issues

My Stronglifts workouts don't show in Apple Health

If you logged a workout and it doesn't show in Apple Health, please try this:

1. Open Stronglifts
2. Go to Settings > Apple Health
3. Enable "Sync with Apple Health"
4. Restart your device.
5. Try logging a new workout.

If the new workout still doesn't show try this:

1. Open the Apple Health app
2. Tap "Sources" and choose Stronglifts
3. Allow Stronglifts to write data for Active Energy, Weight, and Workouts.
4. Log a new workout. Enter all sets then tap done.

How to sync a completed workout with Apple Health again?

Try this:

1. Open Stronglifts
2. Go to History > Open the workout
3. Tap "Notes" and add a quick note
4. Tap "Done", then save the workout

The workout will be synced to Apple Health again.

Apple Health shows 0 calories for Stronglifts workouts

Your estimated calories burned are mostly determined by your body weight and workout duration. That means:

• If you didn't enter your body weight, then your estimated calories burned can't be calculated.
• If the workout duration is low, because you entered a workout quickly to test how it works, then the estimated calories burned will be low too.

First, check that you have entered your body weight:

1. Open the Apple Health app
2. Tap on your profile picture in the top right corner.
3. Scroll down and select "Body Measurements."
4. Tap "Weight."
5. Tap "Add Data Point" at the bottom.
6. Enter your weight and the date you want to track.
7. Tap "Add" in the top right corner.

After this log your workout with Stronglifts, and the calories will be correctly estimated.

If this still doesn't work, make sure you're wearing your Apple Watch correctly. The back of your Apple Watch needs skin contact for the optical heart sensors to work. You should wear the Apple Watch above your wrist bone (towards your elbow). See Apple's recommendations here.

Stronglifts is not counting towards my activity goals and badges

Some users have reported that Stronglifts needs to be set as the highest priority app inside Apple Health for this to work.

• Open Apple Health, tap "Workouts"
• Scroll down to "Data Sources & Access"
• Scroll down to "Data Sources", tap Edit
• Move StrongLifts up, so it has higher priority (you may need to put it higher than Apple Watch)
• Follow the same steps for Apple Health - Active Energy.

Note: workouts logged with Stronglifts on Apple Watch will automatically count towards your activity goals. There is no need to log your workout separately with Apple's workout app. Stronglifts will send all workout data to Apple Health (estimated calories, workout duration, heart rate, etc)

My heart rate doesn't show in Apple Health for Stronglifts workouts

First, verify that the feature is enabled in Apple Health:

1. Open the Apple Health app
2. Tap your profile in the top right corner
3. Scroll down to "Apps"
4. Select Stronglifts
5. Enable "Heart Rate"

If this doesn't work, it's most likely a permission issue. The easiest fix is to reinstall the app on your phone and watch. You will get the permission prompts again. Grant them so heart rate tracking works. Here are the steps to reinstall the app:

1. Stronglifts > Settings > Export Data. Keep this file, it's a backup of your workouts.
2. Stronglifts > Settings > Profile > Login to backup your workouts on our servers. This is needed so you don't lose your workouts when reinstalling the app.
3. Tap/hold the Stronglifts icon on your phone's home screen, then select delete.
4. Tap the digital crown on your watch to see all apps, then tap/hold on Stronglifts and tap delete.
5. Reinstall Stronglifts on your phone first: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stronglifts-weight-lifting-log/id488580022
6. Log back in so all your workouts are back.
7. Start a workout on the phone. Log a set. Enable every permission prompt.
8. Now open the watch app, and enable every permission here too.

After this, your heart rate will show in Apple Health.