Gardening activities

I start a Cardio workout if there is hard work to be done in the garden. The watch seems to miss high heart rates if I don't do this.

Thank you all!

I am wondering why Gardening is not part of Garmin. Fishing is, and everything else under the sun except Gardening? You burn just as many calories as any other activity, and not to mention picking up heavy bags of fertilizer, placing and moving medium to large size rocks and planting pots from one point to the next. I just did some gardening today and I am beat! I started my Garmin watch (Solar Instinct) when I started gardening, and the only place I could place my activity after the fact was either in Cardio, Yoga or other. Can we please fix this? Thanks you. 

Terri Charm

”Savage 7”

I agree. I've been chainsawing, cutting up brush and limbs, hand thatching and raking a large lawn, I even packed 100 lbs of thatch and grass into 2 contractor sized bags and dragged them into the car to take to the dump. 5 hours at a time each day for a week. Today it only counted my 1.5mile mountain trail walk with the dogs. I'm beat, so it does tell me my body battery is very low. But 9 hours of sleep doesn't improve that at all, so clearly it notices something strenuous. I have a Garmin vivoactive 4s. 

Gardening doens't count as a gym session for example. It's pretty funny how people think that gardening is something easy and not demanding. I've met countless people who're trying to convince me that everyone can do this and I've actually invited some of them to test it out. I've even bought some weed puller from https://www.growgardener.com/best-weed-puller/  and I've taught them how to use it. After one hour, they've told me that this is too much and they can't keep up with all of this. Now, they've understood that this is something serious. Fortunately, hard work pays off because my garden is looking amazing

The CDC recommends physical activity as essential to healthy aging. For older adults they recommend the standards: aerobic, muscle-strengthening activities and balance training. They also recommend Multi-component Physical Activity as an essential part of weekly physical activity. This included many things such as Dancing, Gardening and Sports.

I don't think that Garmin is targeting selling gear just to young people? All age groups use these activity monitors. I've used Garmins for years and I have taught fitness classes to seniors for decades.They are just as interested in their heart rate, the amount of physical activity they have accomplished and the calories they used.They want to have goals and meet them, just like younger adults. I've done master swimming and that always measures achievements in age "groups" and by gender. I know that my Garmin definitely evaluates by age and gender also. If I walk 90 miles a month they show me how I rate to others in my age and gender group, not against a 20 year old male. 

With all the other outdoor activities that a user can monitor it seems wise to include at least a few that involve the CDC recommendations. The details in the monitoring activities like dancing and gardening are that the body moves a bit differently than what you see monitoring a treadmill workout or running a mile. They tend to remain in a smaller location but the heart rate, breathing and stress are all activated for increased physical activity. The CDC already includes a chart of different activities and their levels of intensity. This includes gardening among many other activities as Moderate activity:3.0 to 6.0 METs (3.5 to 7 kcal/min) Give us a single general "moderate activity" and that would work just fine.

You can add any activity as a custom activity. Just add one named Gardening. 

Maybe Garmin could launch the Handy Manny watch that tracks handyman activities such as cleaning the gutters, pressure washing, painting, carpentry etc. a home maker watch that tracks domestic activities such as laundry, vacuuming and dish washing, a homeowner watch that tracks yard work or a GUY watch that counts how many 12 ounce curls you did while watching a ball game.

If you don't need distance information, just copy the Cardio activity and call it whatever you want. If you want distance information for outdoor activities, just copy the walking activity and rename it. 

Adding an activity for every type of movement will complicate the software and make the user interface cumbersome.