Tips and Tricks - Multisport activities
Garmin has added a number of badges for recording up to 200 activities of the same type, for example walking, yoga, breathwork, treadmill and strength training. For someone like me that usually don't do so much walking since I'm a runner it is hard to log all those walking activities. I would also like to avoid logging silly two minute walks just to get those badges and don't want to flood the news feed in Garmin Connect with all those activities.
The trick I'm using to log many walking activities without really doing so much walking is to use the multisport function in the watch. Not all watches support that function. I think that all Forerunners and Fenix watches got it. Check the specifications for your watch. The function is basically that you can switch activity type during an activity and Garmin Connect will hold all those activities together as a single activity. Note that Strava doesn't support multisport activities so if you sync your data to Strava it will be displayed as separate activites and flood the news feed there.
Caution! If you are going for a badge with a specific distance like 10 km you cannot switch to walking in the middle of the run. The 10 km must be completed without any other activities in between so don't switch activity until you completed the full distance. So a Swimrun with a total running distance of a marathon will not get you the marathon badge since the running isn't continuous.
I usually always start every run with a few minutes of walking and end every run with a few minutes of walking which means I get two walking activities logged for each run I do and if you don't look at the details in my activity you won't even see it. For those serious walkers my walking will probably look silly but I see it as warmup, cooldown and active rest between intervals.
In the image above I used the multisport function to log 4 walking activites, 2 running and 1 floor climb. The walking is very short but I'm walking and I needed those extra walks before and after the floor climbing.
If you are a beginner runner the tip is usually to walk and run. Run until you feel tired and then walk until you can run again. By switching activity type to what you actually are doing you will get many many walking activites logged.
If you use this trick in your interval training and switch to walking between each interval you will also get many walking activites logged.
Note! You can't switch to Breathwork this way, but it works for yoga.
Interesting tip! Worth mentioning that, after configuring a custom multisport activity, one should enter the multisport activity settings, turn off "transition" and turn on "repeat".
ReplyDeleteI won't be using this approach for Run/Walk because Stryd footpod data don't automatically automatically sync to Stryd Powercenter if part of a multisport activity. Maybe Stryd will fix that someday.
Am now curious to try for Yoga/Strength.
Great work. Thanks again for the tip!
Good point. If you are using the Multisport activity type with predefined activities you should look into the different settings for that activity type.
DeleteThe watches support ad-hoc multisport activities where you just start with any normal activity and switch to another one. The watch will then create a multisport activity and that is what I usually use.