How to Build a Workout Timer With Music in Siri Shortcuts

In this article, we’re going to use the Shortcuts app to build a basic workout timer that plays music.

This shortcut could be helpful if you only get a limited amount of time to work out, maybe during your lunch hour or before work. With it, you can hop on the treadmill or enter the weights room and say:

Hey Siri, start a workout.

Your selected music will start to play, a timer will begin to countdown to a pre-set length of time, and Do Not Disturb is enabled, which means you won’t be bothered by messages or emails until your workout ends.

If you haven’t used Shortcuts before, take a look at our introductory article, which should help get you started. Put simply; the app allows you to group together a sequence of ‘actions’ to automate tasks on your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac. This group of actions is called a shortcut.

Once a shortcut is created, it can be triggered using a custom Siri command.

When triggered, this shortcut will:

Switch the Do Not Disturb focus to on.
Start a preselected Apple Music playlist or radio station.
Start a timer to alert you that your workout has finished after a set amount of time.
Stop music playing and turn off Do Not Disturb when the workout has finished.

This shortcut will also work on an Apple Watch independently of an iPhone. Just make sure you are wearing a pair of AirPods or Bluetooth headphones before triggering the shortcut.

Build your workout timer app

First, create the shortcut:

Open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone.
With the Shortcuts tab open, tap on the + button at the top of the screen to create a new shortcut.
Tap the text at the top of the screen that says New Shortcut, then tap Rename. In this example, name the shortcut ‘Start A Workout. The name will be your command to run the shortcut with Siri.
Tap Done.

Turn on Do Not Disturb

Now add an action to turn on the Do Not Disturb focus mode.

Tap on the blue Add Action button.
Type Focus in the search field and choose Set Focus from the list of actions that appear.
The new action should say ‘Turn Do Not Disturb Off’.

Add the 'Set Focus' action — Add the ‘Set Focus’ action

If a focus other than ‘Do Not Disturb’ is displayed, tap on its name to select Do Not Disturb from the dropdown list.
Tap the word Off and the action will change to On until Turned Off.

Choose the music you want to play while working out

Next, select one of your playlists, or choose a radio station that you know will be playing the type of music you want to work out to.

In the search field at the bottom of the screen, type Play.
Select Play Music from the results list by tapping on the blue +.
In the new action, tap on the word Music to search your Apple Music library, and pick what you want to listen to when working out.
To add a radio station, tap on it. To add a playlist, tap on the small blue + in a circle at the top of the screen. In this example, we’ve chosen our ‘Workout’ playlist.

Add the 'Play Music' action, then select a playlist or radion station — Add the ‘Play Music’ action, then select a playlist or radion station

Tap the blue arrow in a circle to display more options for the Play Music action. Make the appropriate selections if you wish to shuffle or repeat your music.

Options to shuffle and repeat your playlist

Set a timer

Now you need to set a timer that will alert you when your workout is over.

In the search field at the bottom of the screen, type Timer in the search bar and select Start Timer from the list of actions that appear.
Enter how long you want your workout to last; in our example, it’s 30 minutes.
Tap Done on the keyboard.

Tell the shortcut to wait

We need to tell the shortcut to wait until the timer has finished before continuing to the next step.

We can use the ‘Wait’ action, which tells the shortcut to wait a predefined number of seconds. However, the entry method for the action involves tapping on a little + sign repeatedly until reaching the number required. In this case, that would be 1800 (1800 seconds in 30 minutes) taps!

To get around this fiddly process, we’ll create a ‘Number’ action first and then pass that number on to the subsequent ‘Wait’ action.

In the search field at the bottom of the screen, type Number in the search bar and choose Number from the list of actions that appear.
In the action, enter the time you want the shortcut to pause in seconds. This must be equal to the length of the timer. In this case, 30 minutes is 1800 seconds.
Tap Done on the keyboard.

Add the 'Number' action and enter your workout time in seconds — Add the ‘Number’ action and enter your workout time in seconds

In the search field at the bottom of the screen, type Wait in the search bar and select Wait from the list of actions that appear.
In the action, tap and hold the ‘1 second’ text until a list pops up.
Select Number from the list. This will insert the value you entered in the previous action.

Add the 'Wait' action and insert the 'Number' variable — Add the ‘Wait’ action and insert the ‘Number’ variable

Stop the shortcut when your workout is over

When the timer has finished and the ‘Wait’ action completes – signifying the end of the workout, the next step is to turn off Do Not Disturb and stop the music playing.

Type Focus in the search field and select Set Focus from the list of actions that appear.
The new action should say Turn Do Not Disturb Off.

In the search field at the bottom of the screen, type Play.
Select Play/Pause from the list of results.
In the action, tap on Play/Pause and select Pause from the list.
Tap Done at the top of the screen.

That’s it, the shortcut is complete!

Now trigger the shortcut by saying:

Hey Siri, start a workout.

The Do Not Disturb focus will be set to on, your music will begin, and the Timer will begin to countdown.

Recent iPhones will show the music playing and the timer countdown on the lock screen or Always On display.

The iPhone lock screen when the shortcut is running

Using the shortcut on an Apple Watch

If you want to trigger the shortcut from your Apple Watch without needing your iPhone nearby, you’ll need to make sure it’s showing in the Shortcuts app on the watch.

Tap on the i information button at the bottom of the shortcut screen.
Toggle on Show on Apple Watch.

Ensure the shortcut is showing on the Apple Watch

Open the Shortcuts app on the Apple Watch, and the ‘Start a Workout’ shortcut should appear. You can trigger the shortcut by tapping it or using Siri.

Important Note: If you already have workout apps on your iPhone that may accidentally be triggered by saying ‘start a workout’, call the shortcut something different to prevent conflicts.

Would you like to know how much exercise you did that day? Find out how you can ask Siri to read your health data on your iPhone.

Want to discover more about using Siri, Apple’s popular virtual assistant? We’ve written a helpful collection of tutorials full of techniques for using apps, dictation, using Siri Shortcuts, and a comprehensive beginner’s guide to activating and using Siri.