Garmin product manager offers insider advice.
Garmin relentlessly adds new features to its stable of running watches throughout the year—the only downside is that sometimes these additions can begin to converge.
The crossover between Garmin Coach and Garmin’s Daily Suggested Workouts represents the perfect example of this issue. Both are excellent features when used correctly, but there are some key things to understand before you employ one to run your training.
That’s why we made this comparison guide.
Below, you’ll find an explanation of both features, five significant differences, and advice on which is best for your goal race distance.
- Read our full guide to Garmin Coach here
Garmin Coach vs. Daily Suggested Workouts
Before we get into some of the differences between these features, let’s first define them.
Garmin senior product manager Rich Robinson tells Wareable:
“Garmin’s Suggested Workouts will give a daily suggestion based on activity levels to create a balanced fitness profile – i.e. if you’re doing extensive zone 4 workouts, the watch may suggest some lower impact workouts to train in a lower heart zone, thereby balancing your training load.”
“Garmin Coach, on the other hand, is a personalized adaptive workout plan whereby users choose one of three coaches in the Garmin Connect app to help bring them along in their running journey.”
Now, let’s get into the main differences to be aware of.
Key differences: Suggested Workouts and Garmin Coach
Garmin Coach explained
Garmin Coach offers training plans for three running race lengths: 5K, 10K, and half marathon. So, if you’re looking for a plan to train for these events, you can head to Garmin Coach within your Garmin Connect app.
“Garmin Coach will help you achieve that goal by giving you a dynamic training plan that will shift based on your goals and performance,” said Rich Robinson.
“Garmin Coach is a personalized adaptive workout plan whereby users choose one of three coaches in the Garmin Connect app to help bring them along in their running journey,” he said.
Set up Garmin Coach in the Connect App > More > Training & Planning > Training Plans. You can choose between a running or cycling plan, set your race goals, and a virtual coach. Each coach will have different qualities, with the frequency of runs and time spent training varying.
Once these initial steps are complete, you will see a Garmin Coach tab in your Connect app, which is home to your training plan. The training plan workouts are viewable in advance and can be transferred to your Garmin watch for completion. Or, they will automatically sync over to your device if your phone is in range.
Suggested Workouts explained
Garmin’s Suggested Workouts will give a daily suggested workout based on activity levels to create a balanced fitness profile.
While it can react to your training schedule to suggest complimentary workouts, Suggested Workouts won’t align with your Garmin Coach training plan.
Rich Robinson said: “Garmin’s suggested workouts will give a daily suggested workout based on activity levels to create a balanced fitness profile – i.e if you’re doing extensive zone 4 workouts, it may suggest some lower impact workouts to train in a lower heart zone thereby balancing your training load.”
Each time you work out, Garmin will suggest a session. Some will be simple time and pace goals, but it will also throw in interval sessions.
A neat trick is that you can set Suggested Workouts to offer heart rate–guided sessions so you can complete your workout by intensity. For many people, this will be far more beneficial, as it eliminates external factors that affect pace, such as weather or fatigue.
If you use the Race widget, then Suggested Workouts will guide you to that goal.
Supported devices
These two features have rolled out to most of Garmin’s lineup, meaning you can likely access both. However, neither feature is available on every Garmin.
We won’t clog things up by listing every compatible device. A list of watches that support Garmin Coach and Garmin devices that provide Daily Suggested Workouts are available on the company’s support pages, which we’ve linked to.
Which race differences can you choose?
We’ll explore this more in the section below, but Garmin Coach does not cover every running race distance.
While there are plans for 5K, 10K, and half marathon distances, the marathon isn’t an option.
That forces you down the suggested workout path, where you can receive insights no matter your goal.
In our experience using suggestions, setting up the Race Widget feature is essential for ensuring workouts align with your overarching goal and feel truly personalized.
As a standalone feature, you’re unlikely to see the same progress you would from a targeted Garmin Coach plan—especially if you’re focused on an endurance event like the half marathon.
Rescheduling and adapting
With Garmin Coach, you know what you’re signing up to from the start. The plan will ask you for your event date and then adapt based on the coach, experience, and the workouts you complete.
Once you begin, orange indicators automatically populate the Garmin Connect Calendar tab. The Coach feature takes the thinking out of planning workout days and works to space them evenly.
In our time with Coach plans, we’ve found them generally good at not loading you up on back-to-back days or providing too much rest time. Allowing you to pick which days you can perform longer workouts is also a neat touch. Yet, it’s also not perfect.
You can’t reschedule a Coach workout on the day it’s supposed to take place, which is a nuisance if something pops up at the last minute and prevents you from completing it. Others may prefer to strike only when their readiness score is high.
Daily Suggested Workouts are less rigid.
You’ll always receive one regardless of your time commitments or readiness (though you may be advised to rest), which may be helpful for some users. The significant downside is that you can only look at suggestions for the next seven days.
Plus, with these suggestions based on myriad factors – your Training Status, Training Load & Focus, sleep data, recovery hours, VO2 Max, and recent workouts – they are constantly changing.
As a result, more negotiation is required as you balance your body’s daily feel with what Garmin has interpreted this as.
Which offers better feedback?
Daily Suggestions won’t provide any feedback on your long-term progress, which means we’ve often relied heavily on the Race Predictor feature when following them to ensure we’re trending in the right direction.
It’s doable—and we’ve used this method to train accurately for a marathon—but we do know that some Garmin users find the Race Predictor to be very optimistic about their ability. Our only suggestion is to keep running; our predictions are now much more accurate than when we first began using the feature.
Ultimately, this means Garmin Coach is a better pick for those who want proper feedback.
You’re not getting proper, personalized coaching suggestions, though the confidence score (available if you select a goal pace) ensures you can always check how you’re faring on the plan and whether you’re likely to hit your target on race day.
Which is best for your training?
Suggested Workouts is good for experienced users looking to maintain fitness or mix up their sessions. It feels aimed at athletes used to undertaking structured sessions, as there’s little guidance provided around how to complete interval or structured sessions.
But because Suggested Workouts is only generated a week in advance, and there’s minimal incentives or coaching, it doesn’t feel well geared to training for specific races. And it’s likely you’ll be following a full plan somewhere else.
Garmin Coach is a much more complete training system that offers clarity over your future workouts and a more traditional training program—but it feels aimed at beginner runners looking for some handholding. Not to mention that the half marathon is the longest distance.
However, it offers less adaptability regarding missed or changed sessions.
The funny thing about our initial example of training for a marathon is that neither Garmin Coach or Suggested Workouts are brilliant systems. In this instance, Suggested Workouts is best, as you can set your Race Day, and be guided to your target goal – and Garmin Coach doesn’t have a full marathon program, which feels bizarre.
There seems so much room for improvement in both these systems – and the simple answer for users might be following a different plan elsewhere.
