4 Minutes: No-Workout Fitness

Exercise snacks, no workout: take the stairs, rush for the bus, walk uphill. 4 Minutes spots these bursts by itself and counts them toward 4 minutes a day.

Exercise snacks without the workout. 4 Minutes finds the short, brisk moments you already have – taking the stairs, hurrying for the bus, walking fast uphill – and counts them toward one simple daily goal: 4 minutes.

No workouts. No training plans. Nothing to start or log. Just one number.

— HOW IT WORKS — • Keep your iPhone in your pocket or wear your Apple Watch – that's it. • The app looks at steps, floors climbed and, with Apple Watch, your effort level and heart rate, and finds the stretches where you really got moving. • Bursts from 30 seconds count. A few flights of stairs and a quick dash to the bus often cover the whole day.

— TODAY — One ring, one number: "2:40 of 4 minutes". Below it, an encouraging line and a list of today's moments with time and duration – for example "Stairs up, 0:50".

— BURST DETECTED — When the app finds a new moment, you get a small celebration: "+1:10". You see right away that the stairs were worth it.

— FITNESS AGE & VO2 MAX — • Your fitness age: an estimate based on the VO2 max your Apple Watch records, your age and sex – compared with average values from a large fitness registry. • Your VO2 max trend from Apple Health over the last months. • Days with 4 minutes per week, 12 weeks at a glance, your streak and your daily average.

— A GENTLE NUDGE — After about 90 minutes of sitting, the app gives you a friendly reminder: next set of stairs – full speed. At most three times a day, daytime only, and you can switch it off.

— APPLE WATCH — Ring and list right on your wrist. Detection runs on the watch, too.

— WHY SHORT AND VIGOROUS? — Researchers call it VILPA: vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity. A large observational study of about 25,000 adults who don't exercise (Stamatakis et al., Nature Medicine, 2022) analyzed wrist-worn movement sensors. People who had a few minutes of short, vigorous everyday movement per day had, on average, a lower risk of dying during the follow-up of almost seven years than people without such moments. This is a statistical association, not proof of cause and effect – but a good reason to take the next flight of stairs.

— YOUR DATA STAYS WITH YOU — • No subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads. • No account, no sign-in. • No tracking, no analytics. • Motion and Health data is processed only on your device and never leaves it.

— IMPORTANT — 4 Minutes is a lifestyle app that motivates you to move more in everyday life. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose anything. Fitness age and detected minutes are estimates and may be inaccurate. The app does not replace medical advice. If you have a medical condition, especially a heart condition, or are unsure how much exertion is right for you, talk to your doctor before pushing harder.

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