Pool swim with Garmin Vivoactive 4

So I have been playing around with the various sports that my new Garmin Vivoactive 4 can record and have been really impressed so far. The only thing that irritates me thus far is that the GPS can sometimes be fussy and not want to connect because I live in an urban area where you don't have direct access to the sky regularly because of tall buildings.

Fortunately, once it gets the satellite GPS linkup or whatever it is called, it seems to hang on to it even if you go back under tall buildings or even bridges. If that wasn't the case and you needed to be in direct view of the sky at all times this watch would be unusable in the city. Fortunately it is just the initial contact that seems to need to have an unobstructed view of the sky.

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Something I don't do very often but in the middle of summer will do if I cant' must up the gumption to challenge the summer heat by any other means is I will go swimming and I had my doubts that this watch would be able to measure this properly but they must have done their magic again but I'll de damned if it didn't get it basically exactly right.

I wasn't really trying to beat any speed records here because I just wanted to see how and IF it would work. To me it seems like this would be extremely hard to get done accurately because not only am I moving back and forth in a relatively small area as this pool was only a 15 meter pool, but my arm that the Garmin is attached to is moving back and forth constantly as well.

So while I don't have any idea how or why it works, I do find it particularly amazing that apparently, it DOES work. I was counting the laps in my head as I was doing them as well just to keep the watch honest only to discover at the various times I stopped for a breather, that the watch knew exactly how many laps I had done.

The stats that it provides are pretty fantastic because swimming is one of those activities that I can never really tell if I am working very hard or not since the water keeps me cool and I can't hear or really feel my heart rate until I stop moving. Thank you Garmin!

The only thing I would say that disappointed me about the whole thing is to find out that out of all the physical activities that I do, swimming seems to burn the least amount of calories. This could also be the result of me only doing half an hour worth of actual work but for me, I find lifting weights to be far more rewarding and enjoyable so if I have a spare hour or half hour I will just go do that instead. I think I also get out of the pool a lot faster than I actually need to out of fear of sunburn as well as my eyes and skin starting to hurt from all the chemicals that they have to put in there.

I went in the dead of afternoon when all the kids are at school so I would have the place to myself. If I had turned up and there was a bunch of people in there mucking about I would have just left without doing any laps at all because this was a general pool, not a designated lap-swimming school.

So this pointed out two things to me: One, I am extremely impressed that the watch is able to get a real figure on how far you have swam despite the fact that your arms and legs are flailing about when you are doing the exercise and two, I am kind of disappointed about how few calories swimming actually burns. I think I would rather do any of the other exercises that I do such as just go walking, rather than get all covered in chlorine just to burn a single beer's worth of calories.

In the end, I am still very happy with the watch and am very happy I purchased it. I still highly recommend it because it has been a motivating factor in my fitness life.