How to sync popular fitness apps to your Apple Watch

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With about a quarter of the worldwide market, the Apple Watch is far and away the most popular fitness watch. Many of its wearers, though, want to track their activity with third-party applications. If you’re one of their number, don’t fret — happily, the Watch’s popularity means that many commonly used apps — such as MyFitnessPal, Couch to 5K, Strava, and Nike Training — have made that process pretty simple.

It’s pretty much a matter of installing the app on your phone, making sure the Watch app has been installed as well, and tweaking a couple of settings. Here’s how to sync these four apps to your Apple Watch.

Once you’ve downloaded Under Armour’s MyFitnessPal (MFP) app (available for iOS and Android) and set up your account, it’s pretty easy to connect it to the Apple Health ecosystem and your Apple Watch.

Couch to 5K (C25K) from Zen Labs (available for iOS and Android) is an extremely popular app for beginning and wannabe runners. The free version doesn’t include an Apple Watch app, or calorie and distance tracking, but you can splurge and pay the $5 for the Pro version.

Strava is as close to a lingua franca as you’ll find in fitness apps. Odds are excellent that if you share your fitness progress with other devices and other people, most of them either use Strava as a tracker or flow their data through Strava.

Apple and Nike have a long relationship, so it’s not at all surprising that Nike’s interaction with the Apple Watch is smooth. Download the Nike Training Club app (available for iOS and Android), create an account, accept or decline the upsell and get going. Before you do, though, you’ll be offered the opportunity to set up your Apple Watch.

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The Verge Guide to the Apple Watch

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