Apple Watch Effort Score vs METs: What's the Difference and Which Should You Track?
Keywords: apple watch effort score, apple watch METs, physical effort apple health, training load, workout intensity
Since watchOS 11, every workout ends with an Effort score from 1 to 10. Open the Health app and you may also find a metric called Physical Effort. Meanwhile, your doctor and the WHO talk about METs. All three describe "intensity", so which one matters?
Short answer: they answer three different questions.
| Number | Question it answers | Time scale |
|---|---|---|
| Effort (1–10) | How hard did this workout feel? | One workout |
| Physical Effort | How hard is my body working right now? | Minute by minute |
| MET-hours | Did I move enough this week to be healthy? | Weekly |
1. Effort score: "how hard was that?"
Effort arrived in watchOS 11 as a per-workout rating, grouped as Easy, Moderate, Hard and All Out. For common cardio such as running, walking and cycling, the watch estimates it from heart rate, pace, age and weight. For other workouts, you rate it yourself.
Multiply Effort by duration and you get Training Load, which compares your last 7 days with the previous 28. It is a great tool if you follow a training plan and want to avoid overdoing it.
The limit: Effort is relative. The same easy 5K might be a 7 for a beginner and a 3 for a seasoned runner. It cannot tell you whether your weekly activity meets health guidelines.
2. Physical Effort: "intensity right now"
On newer Apple Watch models, the Health app records Physical Effort in kcal/hr·kg, the calories burned per kilogram of body weight per hour. That unit is exactly how a MET is defined: sitting quietly is about 1.
It is a minute-level reading. It is useful for spotting the hardest part of a session, but it does not add up over a week and has no target.
3. MET-hours: "did I do enough this week?"
METs are the common language of exercise science: walking is about 3 METs, jogging about 7, fast running 10 or more. Multiply METs by hours and you get MET-hours.
The WHO recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate activity per week. At the 3-MET floor of "moderate", that is 7.5 MET-hours per week. That figure is backed by large studies linking it to lower all-cause mortality and cardiovascular risk.
| A week of… | About |
|---|---|
| 5 × 30 min brisk walking (~3.5 METs) | 8.75 MET-h |
| 3 × 25 min jogging (~7 METs) | 8.75 MET-h |
| 2 × 60 min yoga (~2.5 METs) | 5.0 MET-h |
This is the number that answers "am I active enough?", and Apple Watch does not show it as a weekly total.
4. How to see weekly MET-hours from your Apple Watch
MET Goals is built for exactly this. It reads the workouts in Apple Health, assigns each one a MET value by activity type (using speed for running, walking and cycling), converts it into MET-hours and tracks your progress toward 7.5 per week.
- It counts real workouts only, not background steps, which matches how the WHO guideline is defined.
- It is weekly, so a missed Monday can be made up on Wednesday. No daily streak pressure.
- A home-screen widget shows your week at a glance.
In one line: use Effort and Training Load to avoid overtraining, and weekly MET-hours to know whether you are doing enough for your health. For more conversions, see our MET values cheat sheet.
