Apple Watch study reveals which states exercise the most (and the least)

Laura Rosenberg | Mar 12 2024 - 7:34 am PT

In celebration of Heart Month, the Apple Heart & Movement Study released updated trends in activity and cardio fitness, including which states are – and are not – meeting the recommended 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise per week threshold. Head below the jump to learn more.

The Apple Heart & Movement Study is a collaboration between the American Heart Association and Harvard Medical School affiliate, Brigham and Women’s Hospital – the study explores connections between physical activity and heart health using Apple products:

It will help drive insight into what factors can affect heart health and impact your movement over time. Using Apple Watch and iPhone, researchers can gain a better understanding of potential early warning signs to create interventions and products that will help us all lead longer, healthier, and more active lives.

According to the American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines, people should be getting 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise per week, 75 minutes of rigorous aerobic exercise, or a combination of both, in addition to two days of muscle-strengthening activities.

For both researchers and individuals, defining what “moderate” and “rigorous” mean can present a challenge, but they came up with the following when deciding what constitutes “moderate” exercise:

Causes a small increase in breathing or heart rate
Allows you to talk but not sing while active
Is associated with a heart rate between 64 – 76% of maximal heart rate
Results in a perceived exertion rating of 12 to 14 on a scale of 6 to 20^{5 (Borg Scale)}

To figure out the average activity duration in study participants, researchers used:

…the Apple Watch Activity app metric Exercise Minutes, represented as the green ring. Exercise minutes accumulate throughout the day when Apple Watch is worn and include both passively captured brisk activity minutes detected by watch and participant-logged activity data collected using Workout app or third-party apps.

All study participants who had at least six weeks of activity days over a 12-month period were analyzed, providing a total of 92,793 individuals from all over the country.

Based on the study, the top three states of people who averaged 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise per week are Massachusetts (67.2%), New York (66%), and Connecticut (64.1%); the bottom three states are Oklahoma (41.4%), Lousiana (41.3%), and Mississippi (38.5%).

There are a lot of reasons for these discrepancies, including living in a walkable city versus a rural area, having access to the outdoors, varying income levels, and more.

If you have an Apple Watch and iPhone, you can sign up to be a part of future research studies – download the Research App to learn more.