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Skipping anyone? or other common physical activities?

Former Member over 5 years ago

Why are so many common physical activities not on the list? Gardening, hard labor work (building, raking, grass cutting, snow shovelling, etc.), hard physical cleaning, or even known exercises such as skipping? There are several forms of diving, golf etc., but no skipping? They have extreme sports that the average person does not do, but lacks many common ones.

0 trux over 5 years ago

Why are so many common physical activities not on the list?

Because there are too many of them, and the list would never be complete anyway. There are over 8000 diverse sports alone. Only a handfull of them is listed, though. If you wanted to add all such activities as gardening, cleaning, or sex, the number would be probably at least two orders of magnitude higher.

And that's exactly why you have (on most Garmin devices) the possibility to add a custom activity, and name it as you like. So what exactly prevents you from creating and using a "house cleaning" or "skipping" activity yourself?

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to trux

OUCH! Thank-you for your input. I realize there are thousands of activities that could be included, however I feel that it would be far more common to include a short list of general living physical activities that the majority of the population participate in as opposed to the more extreme sports for the rich and famous. I mean really, what is the percentage of population that Auto racing, Driving(?), Floor Climbing(??), Flying, Hang Gliding, Sky Diving, RC Device or Drone (Is that really a physical activity moving your thumbs?), Wingsuit Flying,... Among a few others that require equipment costing thousands of dollars?? Have you purchased a horse lately and fed it and cleaned up after it and built a barn? At least that one does cover a certain percentage of the population that are employed in the field. But do we need six types of diving and 10 types of cycling (wouldn't 5 be enough)? Yes, I know people do the different kinds, but I feel the choices could be geared to the more likely to do activities than so many of the rare ones. Maybe those should be the ones that are left to the "entering your own" selection. I play basketball, soccer, hockey and football. I feel Garmin should rethink their population that they are catering to with respect to sales.

0 trux over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

The choice of listed activies is based primarily on the type of monitoring it requires, and then also to support all the diverse devices Garmin sells. And since Garmin sells also cycling computers (i.e. Edge), the GC interface must support all the modes the devices offer. Other activities may be easily added as custom activites. That's exactly the purpose of the custom activity.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to trux

Thanks. Just a suggestion to the Garmin team who is hopefully monitoring this feedback.... Maybe a download of activities for a "My Activities" specialty group would be very worthwhile! I wouldn't know the average energy output, vo2, calories etc. that many activities require to enter in a custom activity, but I am sure your experts do or could calculate it. Oh, and by the way.... Piano playing scores big time in the steps catagory! My feet don't even move!!

0 trux over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

I wouldn't know the average energy output, vo2, calories etc. that many activities require to enter in a custom activity, but I am sure your experts do

You do not need to know, and neither the "experts" do. It is not being calculated according to some charts, but measured. Using some fixed values for each discipline would not make any sense anyway - the energy you burn during an activity does not not depend on the name of the activity you do, but only on the effort. The device uses the heart rate monitor to find your average resting heart rate (RHR, during the sleep or during other resting periods), and then during the activity. The higher the ratio HR/RHR, the more Calories are burned.

0 trux over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Piano playing scores big time in the steps catagory! My feet don't even move!!

The watch is usually not attached to the feet, but to the wrist, and since it moves, the motion is being detected by the acelerometer. If you want to continue monitoring the HR while playing a piano and do not wish to have the hand motion counted as steps, attach the watch to the ankle of the non-moving foot. Or use a HRM chest belt, and let the watch laying on the desk