fitness

Manually Add Missed Workouts on iPhone

1st February 2026

1:54

iPhone | QuickTips

| Fitness
iphone-dynamic-island
iPhone 17 Pro Max
iOS26 Icon
iOS 26.2
jacob-profile-picture

Jacob Woolcock

1st February 2026

Jacob Woolcock

976 views

1:54

| Fitness
iphone-dynamic-island
iPhone 17 Pro Max
iOS26 Icon
iOS 26.2

nothing to see here!

Description

You can now add workouts directly in the Fitness app, even if you didn’t use your Apple Watch at the time. Learn how to log swims, runs and more, set durations and effort and make sure your activity rings still count.

Transcript

There’s a nice new feature in the Fitness app on iPhone that lets you add workouts that you’ve completed but haven’t logged using the Apple Watch. This means if you’ve been for a swim or you went out for a jog and your watch battery had died, you can manually add that workout afterwards to still fill up your rings and earn credit for that workout.

I’ll tap on the Workouts tab at the bottom, and then I’m going to press the new icon in the top corner – the one with a pen on a piece of paper. This brings up the new Add Workout screen, and from here we can choose what workout we’re adding.

I’m going to add a swim. So I’ll scroll through this list, and as you can see, there are dozens and dozens of different workout types we can add – all the ones available on the Apple Watch.

I’ll find Swimming and select that workout type. Next up, we can set the details of the workout – the duration, the number of lengths, and all those things specific to the workout you’ve chosen. I’m going to fine-tune the distance I swam and the time I was in the pool for – 25 minutes. That’s perfect.

We can also go back and change the date of the workout, so you can add things you did last week or earlier today whenever you need to. You can adjust the time as well.

Finally, we can add the effort. On the Apple Watch, this is worked out automatically if it’s being worn. Obviously, it wasn’t worn for this workout, but I can manually add it here if I want to.

When I press the tick in the corner, the workout is added to the Fitness app just like any other workout. I can tap on it to see all the details I’ve just logged.

What’s quite interesting here is that although I wasn’t wearing my watch during the swim, I was wearing it during that time period, so it’s still found heart rate data that matches. Obviously, that means the results aren’t perfectly accurate in this case, but it’s still a really useful feature if you forgot to start a workout or your battery died.

There are loads of things your iPhone can do that you might never find unless you know where to look. So do check out my channel down below, and I’ll see you next time.

fitness
About Fitness
The Fitness app by Apple is a health and activity tracking tool that integrates with the Apple Watch to monitor workouts, daily activity, and health metrics. It provides personalised fitness goals, detailed workout summaries, and motivational features, helping users stay active and track their progress over time.
iOS26 Icon

Video Details

This QuickTip video was recorded on an iPhone 17 Pro Max
running iOS 26.2.

Thank You

All of my content is completely free to watch. However, to create these videos I require a steady stream of caffeine!  If you’ve found this QuickTip helpful then please do consider buying me a coffee. Thank you.

Reviews & Comments

Additional Information

The content used in this video is intended for educational and informational purposes only. All rights to the images, music, clips, and other media used belong to their respective owners. I do not claim ownership over any third-party content used. This video has not been authorised, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc.

iPhone, iPad and iPadOS are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries and regions. iOS is a registered trademark of Cisco Systems Inc. Whilst I have done my best to list all applicable trademarks for this video, in the (hopefully unlikely) event that I have missed any you can find a full list of trademarks registered to Apple Inc. here.

Finally, please note that whilst every effort has been made to ensure the information contained within this video was correct at time of publication, please be aware that as future updates and software changes occur some or all elements of this video may become outdated. I will endeavour to remove videos which are completely obsolete so as not to cause confusion!

Check out my new iOS 26 Book!

fitness
more Fitness

QuickTips

Enjoyed this video? Say thanks by buying me a coffee!

Share