Workout Heart Rate

Workout Heart Rate (WHR) is not available on Gen2 or older.

What Is WHR?
How to Use WHR
Things to Keep in Mind
More Information

What Is WHR?

The Workout Heart Rate features record heart rate readings while you exercise and — in combination with daytime heart rate measurements, Live Heart Rate, Daytime Stress, and nighttime Resting Heart Rate (RHR) — presents you with a complete, 24-hour heart rate graph.

Upon completion of your activity, the Oura App will display detailed graphs of your exercise heart rate and heart rate zones. On the daily heart rate graph, activity heart rate is displayed as an orange line.

If you take your phone with you with location services enabled, the app will display a map and route of your completed activity (see Location Services for Activities for more information).

What Are Heart Rate Zones?

Heart rate zones are a measure of activity intensity. Oura uses six heart rate zones, and the ranges assigned to each zone are calculated using an age-based estimate of your max heart rate.

Time spent in all six heart rate zones can have positive impacts on metabolic processes. Rigorous exercise is important, but even low-intensity activities and everyday movement can improve energy, weight management, and insulin sensitivity over time.

Activities in higher heart rate zones have metabolic and cardiovascular benefits. You can learn more about heart rate zones on our blog.

How to Use WHR

If you want to record route and distance details, make sure that location services are turned on before you begin your activity work out, and take your phone with you. Otherwise, you can leave your phone at home and the ring will still record your Workout Heart Rate.

Automatic Activity Detection + Heart Rate

WHR works with Oura's Automatic Activity Detection (AAD) feature to record your heart rate during many activities, without any further action required on your part. An activity must last at least 10 minutes to be automatically detected, and your ring must have at least five percent battery.

To conserve Oura Ring battery life, you can turn off heart rate tracking with AAD:

Select the menu in the upper left of the Oura App's home screen
Select Settings
Select Activity
Select the toggle next to Activity heart rate
- When the toggle is off, AAD information will still be shown in the app, but will not include heart rate information.

After you have confirmed a detected activity on the app's home screen, you can tap on the activity to view more details.

AAD captures most types of movement, but if you find that your particular activity is consistently not showing up in the Oura App, you can instead manually record your heart rate during a workout (see steps below), or you can manually add an activity after you've completed it. This will ensure that you receive credit for all of your daily movement.

Manually Record WHR

Tap the + menu in the bottom right of the Oura App's home screen
Select Record workout HR

Select activity type
Hit record to begin. You can pause and resume your workout recording at any time
When you're finished, tap "Pause" and then "End activity" to stop recording WHR
- Remember to stop your activity in the app when you’re done, otherwise the ring battery charge may be affected. You will receive a reminder notification if your activity has been running for more than three hours
View activity details, including your heart rate zones and heart rate graph
You can edit your activity the same way you would edit a manually added activity
Your WHR readings will be color-coded orange in the daytime heart rate graph. Tap on "Activity" beneath the graph for more information

Things to Keep in Mind

Workout Heart Rate (WHR) is not the same as passive daytime heart rate measurement. WHR uses a higher sampling rate to accurately record your pulse during exercise. Daytime heart rate measurement takes a reading of your pulse at lower intervals throughout the day
The calorie value associated with a WHR-recorded session is calculated from the selected activity type, duration, and intensity (same as a manually added activity). Your measured heart rate will not affect the activity's calorie count