Big Garmin update targets coaching and social features

By James StablesSeptember 20, 20242 Mins Read

Garmin has released a big new update for a slew of its watches and bike computers, with a focus on coaching and social features.

The big change is an expansion of the amount of coaching for runners, as part of its Garmin Coach program.

After rolling Garmin Coach into the Connect app beta back in August, it’s now added more advanced features.

Garmin Coach programs are now adaptive, so if you miss or change a session, the program will adjust to get you towards your end goal. While Garmin offered that functionality previously through Suggested Workouts, Garmin Coach ones didn’t work in the same way.

However, it hasn’t added to the amount of Garmin Coach plans for running – and it still only features 5K, 10K and half marathon plans. We;’re not sure why there aren’t more, including marathon or other distances – but there we go.

However, users should notice an improvement in race prediction times because Garmin has tweaked the algorithm. Personally, I’ve found most estimates to be reasonably accurate – bar the marathon time.

But it has added plans for other kinds of sports.

The amount of Coaching as also improved. Cyclists now have coaching plans, as well as runners. Cyclists also get new Group Ride features, with live locations and incident reports – as well as in-app messaging.

And swimmers also get some love, and pool sessions can now be designed to have certain pace or intensity targets.

To finish up the update is the new Garmin Share feature. That enables users to share saved locations, courses and workouts with other nearby, compatible Garmin smartwatches (and Edge cycling computers.)

The update is rolling out now to Garmin Coach, and compatible smartwatches and Edge computers. That includes the below, but NOT Venu 3, which doesn’t receive any of the additions: