Health sources and methodology

FitCrew is a fitness motivation app, not a medical device. It doesn’t diagnose or treat anything or give medical advice, and its goals and challenge targets aren’t prescriptions.

Check with a doctor before making medical decisions. Check first, too, before starting or stepping up activity if you have a chronic condition such as diabetes, heart disease, or osteoarthritis, if you’re pregnant, or if you notice symptoms such as chest pain or pressure, dizziness, or joint pain. If you’re new to exercise, start low and build up slowly. Challenges are for fun: rest when you need to, and never push through pain.

FitCrew doesn’t measure activity itself. The iOS app reads what your iPhone, Apple Watch, and other apps save to Apple Health, and the Android app reads Health Connect. Each number is that platform’s own record:

Steps are the steps your devices counted. Distance is walking and running distance in Apple Health, and any distance in Health Connect, so the same day can total differently on each. Active calories are the energy your device estimates you burned through activity, not counting resting (basal) energy. Activity calories are the active calories recorded during the workouts that earn activity minutes, in the share of each workout’s time that counts. Activity minutes are the length of recorded workouts at any intensity, without the pauses the workout recorded; Apple’s Exercise ring minutes outside a recorded workout aren’t included.

FitCrew adds each metric up per calendar day in your time zone. Today’s progress compares that day’s total with your daily goal.

On a day only one app or device records a metric, FitCrew counts Apple Health’s or Health Connect’s total. When two or more do, that total can count the same steps twice, for example around the record Samsung Health keeps for the whole day, so FitCrew never counts two records that overlap in time. Where two devices recorded the same walk, it counts the one that recorded more; walks recorded at different times add up. Active calories count, for each hour, the app that recorded the most in it, and Android distance follows the steps rule unless you choose a workouts source. Your total can differ a little from the Health app’s, which prefers one device and fills its gaps from another.

A workout recorded by two apps, or saved twice by one, counts once, and overlapping workouts never add up to more minutes than the time they span.

When more than one app records your steps, workouts, or active calories, FitCrew asks which to count, and asks again when another app starts. Under Sources in Health & activity, you can count each from one app or device instead of Automatic at any time. A day that source recorded no steps or calories keeps the Automatic total; workouts from other apps stop counting, and so does their distance. The change applies to today and the 30 days before it.

Signed in on more than one phone, FitCrew counts your activity from one of them, so the same day never counts twice. Another phone asks whether to count from it instead, as does Use this phone in its Health & activity settings. Switching counts the new phone’s steps and calories for that whole day, and its workouts from then on; earlier days keep what the other phone counted.

Insights averages each metric per day over the last 7 days or the last 30 days. A day with no synced activity counts as zero, so days without data lower the average, the same way for everyone it compares. Its Hat trick scores each day against your daily goals the way a Hat Trick challenge does, and scores your Crew against your goals too.

Challenge progress adds up the same records within the challenge’s dates, by the rules its creator chose.

Daily goals start at 10,000 steps, 500 active calories, and 60 activity minutes. They’re starting points you can change, not recommendations. Choose goals that suit you, with your doctor’s advice if you need it.

Steps: 10,000 steps began as a popular slogan in Japan, not a medical guideline, and the U.S. guidelines say it isn’t a guideline in itself. Large studies link more daily steps with a lower risk of death, levelling off at about 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day for adults 60 and over and 8,000 to 10,000 for younger adults. A 2025 review of 57 studies linked about 7,000 steps a day with meaningfully lower risk of several health problems than 2,000. These studies show links, not cause and effect.

Activity minutes: WHO and U.S. guidelines recommend that adults get 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity, each week, and that children and teens average 60 minutes a day. A 60-minute daily goal is above the adult range. FitCrew’s activity minutes count workouts at any intensity, so they aren’t the same as the guidelines’ moderate or vigorous minutes.

Active calories: no guideline sets a daily active-calorie target. Exercise guidelines are written in minutes, or in MET-minutes, a measure of effort. 500 active calories is a starting point to adjust.

A day keeps your daily goal streak going when it reaches 8,000 steps, 500 active calories, and 60 activity minutes, counting only the figures your health data reports. The limits are the same for everyone, so streaks compare fairly. 8,000 steps sits within the range the step studies above link with health benefits; the calorie and minute limits are game rules, not health guidance.

Every 6 days in a row that reach them bank a day, and your streak’s bank holds up to 15. When a day ends short of them, a banked day covers it: your streak carries on, though that day doesn’t add to it, and the next banked day takes another 6 days in a row. With none banked, a day that ends short ends your streak. Today never uses a banked day while it’s still under way.

A challenge’s targets are competition rules its creator picks. FitCrew suggests starting targets, such as 10,000 steps or 5 km a day, or 100,000 steps or 50 km over a challenge, and the creator can change them. They aren’t health recommendations. Take part at a level that’s safe for you, and stop if something hurts.

Steps, distance, and calories are your devices’ estimates, not measurements. Studies find that wrist-worn devices count steps fairly well, but their calorie estimates can be off by 20% or more and vary by activity. Use them to compare your own days rather than as exact figures.

If something on this page looks wrong or out of date, email support. FitCrew reviews these sources whenever its goals, limits, or calculations change.