Apple Fitness+ Is Getting Stronger

Now, Apple wants in. To start the New Year, Fitness+ is introducing a suite of new features aimed at helping you reach your muscle-building goals—and the headliner is right up my alley, the brand’s first progressive strength training program. I visited Fitness+ HQ to learn more about the announcements from Apple vice president of Fitness Technologies Jay Blahnik. I got a behind the scenes look at the process of filming a workout and talked to the team behind the platform about its mission to bring more muscle to the Apple ecosystem.

Fitness+ Adds Progression

TOURING THROUGH THE Fitness+ studio makes it clear just how committed Apple is to its workout service. The shoot was remarkably efficient, from all those cameras on the floor (and suspended from the ceiling) to the control room of producers editing on the fly so that the production could be as close to live as possible. The whole space radiated competence and focus—and sure, I know there was a bit of a performance put on for me as the outsider looking in. But you can’t fake it once the cameras are actually rolling. That efficiency is the only way the studio could pump out up to 40 video productions per week from a single stage as it does.

The trainers bring that same level of focus behind the scenes when they’re designing the workouts that will eventually make it onto the production floor. After watching the shoot, I headed backstage with Blahnik to hear from the rest of the Fitness+ trainers about that process. They usually have four weeks to design their individual workouts, and they collaborate so sessions fit within the platform’s larger ecosystem. The workouts are constructed so they won’t clash with other content—from the music selections on the playlist to the movements in the routines—but they’re not explicitly made to be taken in sequence, and there’s not a direct tie from one to the next.

Lots of exercisers want to make strength and muscle gains, but up until now, Fitness+ has focused its content on everything but structured strength programs. Users could build custom plans focused on music, activity type, and session duration. But they don’t focus on a personal training goal—and they don’t focus on a path to progress their lifts, which you need for growth in the gym.

This training principle is called progressive overload. In practice this requires you to expose your muscles to increased stimulus over time via frequency, volume, and/or intensity. For example, you may lift 20 pounds for eight reps of biceps curls one week. If you do 10 reps at the same weight the next week, you’ve “progressed”. This consistent progression over the life of your training pushes your body to adapt, building muscle and strength (and helping you reach other goals, too).

That’s where Fitness+’s new “3 Perfect Weeks of Strength” program comes into play. The series (which launches January 6) is the first time the team has offered a plan like this. Given the shift in structure, the new strength program is meant to be a step up from the platform’s standard fare.

I wasn’t able to try any of the workouts ahead of time, but I was able to talk with the program’s architects. Shortly after Sanchez stepped off camera, she joined me with Blahnik and her Fitness+ trainer colleagues Darryl Whiting (Pilates), Greg Cook (Strength), and Dice Iida-Klein (Yoga) in a meeting space outfitted similarly to Apple’s showrooms, with a modern aesthetic that reminded me of times I’ve waited on a Genius Bar appointment. More than anything else, the group emphasized the deep collaboration behind the scenes as the key (or “secret sauce” or “super power”) to the new programs.

“As we progress, what we’re learning is that we need to do more for those users that have been with us for the four years—and we also need to do more for those users who are looking for their supplement to push them a little further,” Blahnik said. “We heard ‘we’re loving the weeklies, but we’d like something to know that if we only had three weeks or a certain period of time, that we could do it and get everything in.”

While the platform doesn’t allow for the same type of trainer-client interaction you’ll get in-person or even on live streamed platforms, the Fitness+ team said the idea for these new progressive programs came from user feedback. The trainers don’t interact with users through the platform directly, but they receive reams of DMs and Blahnik noted that a “great part of their week is spent communicating with our users.” Sometimes that comes in the form of a funny story, like when a strength devotee shared with Whiting that they celebrated his birthday over 100 times because it was mentioned in a class they repeated regularly, or as inspiration for new features, like the user who told Sanchez they had leveled up their weight when they repeated a workout and were proud of the progression.

As the name implies, the new strength program is split into three weeks, each with a distinct theme and four workouts using a pair of dumbbells. The first week focuses on progressive overload, the second focuses on time-under-tension (which helps build mind-muscle connection so you get more from your exercises), and the third focuses on an underrated training idea called dynamic power (the idea that your muscles can not only produce force, but produce force quickly, a key trait for longevity). Three-week programs might not seem like a lot since most training cycles last anywhere from four to 12 weeks (I personally like nine weeks as the sweet spot to get in the groove of a plan). But if you’ve never done a structured program before, the three-week timeline is a nice entry point that doesn’t require too much commitment, either. “It came from us wanting to give our users a goal,” Sanchez said. “What are these aspects of strength training that we can put into a digestible amount of time for you to start a goal and finish it?”

Users are also encouraged to repeat the cycle as soon as the three weeks are complete—which is the whole point of that first principle of progressive overload: besting what you did before in order to make your body adapt and grow. Blahnik and Sanchez insisted that these three-week cycles are made for “someone who’s already strength training” and is “ready to take it up a notch.” But it’s also likely that these workouts will mostly appeal to beginners, because more experienced trainees will want to ramp up to aim for loftier goals with more involved plans.

The Fitness+ take on progression may have some room to grow for strength, but it has broader applications as well. Another new feature debuting in 2025 is Yoga Peak Poses, which provides progressive sequencing and focused instruction on a single difficult maneuver (these will include Dancer, Twisted Hand to Big Toe, and Crow). “We really dial into the specifics and the alignment of the poses,” Iida-Klein said, and compared the program to a private session or the extra attention you’d get when you ask an instructor for help after a tough yoga class IRL.

Where Fitness+ Goes Next

THESE ANNOUNCEMENTS ARE another step in the evolution of Fitness+. A redesign last September introduced new personalization and curation features; if you only used Fitness+ for yoga and rowing, for example, you’d be served suggestions for those types of workouts. You can also use all of the workouts and meditations you upload into the Health app from other services, too, so those who use the service as a supplement to other workouts can have the whole scope of their wellness routine considered (I’ve enabled this function, and I appreciate how the sporadic solo kickboxing sessions I tackle in my backyard will be included). This personalization is meant to make the platform more useful for “advanced” users, Blahnik said.

Personalization is great for individuals, but as plenty of stats on the fitness world post-Covid have borne out, lots of people prefer exercise as a social endeavor. Activity tracking platform Strava’s annual Year in Sport trend report saw a major uptick in social and group exercise last year (more on that in just a moment). Even though Fitness+ wasn’t conceived with isolation in mind, it is strictly a digital-first platform designed so that most users will engage with its content solo (there are features that allow users to train together via FaceTime, “SharePlay,” but these connections are still largely via technology). “We see the service as a digital service first, not an in-person service,” Blahnik said. “But we’ve tried really hard from the beginning to make sure that we’re meeting people where they’re at, with the communities that they love.”

That’s what the Fitness+ team hopes another of the new announcements will address: Fitness+ will allow for Strava integration (current and new Strava subscribers will receive up to three free months of Fitness+ membership as part of the partnership, too). Once users have completed a Fitness+ workout, they’ll be able to share a stylized recap of their session on their Strava feed. Later in the year, Fitness+ will feature workouts with Strava athletes.

Blahnik sees this integration as an opportunity for Fitness+ to branch out beyond users’ devices, since the network offers “lots more people that are connected to their community.” Strava already has a similar functionality with Peloton, and I’ve seen my friends on the platform posting those workouts in the same way they share their running or cycling routes out on the road. Notably, those posts are typically solo training, unlike the group runs I often see friends post with photos from along the route. Time will tell how putting Fitness+ workouts on the same feed as your buddy’s latest 5K route will foster more engagement, but for a certain type of endurance junkie, the Strava co-sign does bring provide some legitimacy.

Still, the new Fitness+ features will give users more options; along with Peak Yoga Poses and strength, there are also pickleball and breath meditation programs launching on January 6. More celebrity-driven Time to Walk spots (Adam Scott, Steve Aoki, Tiffany Haddish) and Artist Spotlight series (Janet Jackson, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Kendrick Lamar) are on the way, too, which give the service a degree of cultural cachet.

For most guys with ambitious gym goals (something like, say, body recomposition), Fitness+ will be best used as a supplement to a more comprehensive training plan. You can make solid gains with just dumbbells, but if you’re pushing to layer on serious muscle, you’ll need more equipment. (You’ll also want to pair your workouts with nutrition, which is something MH is doing in our new Body Recomp package).

Blahnik is just fine with that. Apple Fitness+ was always designed to be used as a supplement to more involved training programs—if that’s what serves the user best. There are a dozen workout types on the service, after all, so it has always been about far more than simply strength. And since Fitness+ is built right into Apple’s devices and millions of people got new iPads, Apple Watches, and iPhones during the holiday season (complete with free Fitness+ trials), it’s likely that users will find their way to some part of the service. That’s all part of Blahnik and the Fitness+ team’s mission.

“What we’ve been trying to do since the beginning,” Blahnik said, “is make sure that everything we do is in service of making ourselves more available to more people doing what they love to do, how they love to do it, where they love to do it.”