Strength Training

depends what kind of movement i do. sometimes it is spot on, sometime not. i mainly use it for the rest timer. does not matter if the rep count is incorrect. still track my hr via my chest strap. you got to use a chest strap for strength training, wrist hr is not for that. i really do not check if the reps were recorded accurately either but i think you can overwrite that from the web.

Rep counting does'nt seem to work well.

I do a 5 minute single motion exercise standing on 1 leg continuously to strenthen my achilles with weighted backpack - I often see 10+ 'reps' counted.

This isn't unique to the F6 Pro, my Fenix 5 Plus counted phantom reps. too. I have no workaround or suggestion I'm afraid. 

Yes, I guess I just would be happy if I could turn off rep counting altogether - it seems unnecessary. Same goes for the automatic guessing of what exercises I was doing.

Strength training on this watch is not the greatest. I mostly use it for the timer and to track my heart rate. Rep counting is hit or miss for me as well depending on the movements of each exercise but I always just edit the reps after each set anyway since I also want to add the weight number.

One thing you can do to handle the exercise guessing is to program a workout in advance on Garmin Connect. You're still limited to the list they have for exercises but it will stick with whatever exercise you choose for each set. If the exact exercise you want is not on the list you can always pick something different and add a note for yourself. As long as you consistently use the same name you can compare over time. Not a great solution but it does work.

I also use my F6 for tracking my weight exercise daily. The rep count could not work in many cases (one-handed sets, legs, etc) .

Important for me is to track my rest time between sets and cardio (I use Polar optical for convenience) so I created my own custom fitness profile

People here will defend it but the Strength piece, like a lot of things with this watch is garbage.  Sure, you got your headphones to work by dancing on a rock, in your underwear, but only on Tuesdays, on a leap year, and the watch had to be on your right wrist, so everything is fine, right?

Anyways, on the strength app,

1. Miscounts everything, and counts everything you don't want, "hey, you picked up that weight, dude, that's 1 rep for you, YOU ROCK".  The thing I could never figure out is that it could do push ups right, and miscount something like curls recording 2 reps.
2. Because it miscounts everything, you need to do approximately 38 clicks to get through a single set.  Yes, I'm being sarcastic, but it will be 500 extra clicks to do a full routine (a mild exaggeration).  I guess that does burn extra calories.
3. No sync of reps, weight and sets to the watch.  So, you do 9 reps, instead of 8, in order to change the count for the next workout you either A) open the app and go blind, and use up your swear vocabulary trying to change it there, or open the website, change it there, then go back to the app to sync the updated workout.
   1. Unless you have 20 workouts, then it won't sync, and you won't know why.
4. You can't turn off rep counting, which would make this function about 8,000 percent more useful.

It's just another half-baked feature, so they can say the watch does everything, that doesn't really work.

To be fair, no watch from Garmin I've ever had was reliable enought for rep counting and for recognizing workout type. Well, things like push-ups, shoulder press, pull-ups etc. are usualy solid, but others, not so much. Still, I don't know of any watch that comes close to this. Either by function or by range. So it's easy to call garmin off on this, but who is doing it better than them? (maybe there is, so just tell me. I don't know every product out there). 

Also, the most potential I see in this is for creating custom-workouts before hand and load them on the watch. If the reps are not counted properly, I always can correct them on the watch or even in the app afterwards.Or you just use free training and don't bother at all.

I just copied the strength activity and removed the screen that counts reps.  You can go in and manually edit it afterwards or just add notes but it at least tracks time and HR stuff without the annoyance of the rep counter.  Would be a cool feature if reliable though.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say I really like the rep count...
I've recorded 50+ weight sessions in the last couple of months and it's mostly accurate depending on the type of exercise. Obviously if you are training legs, you aren't moving your arms, so you have to enter it manually.

I never enter the weight, i think that screen a tedious waste, but reps are easy and take me two seconds...  and it's two seconds in my recovery post working set.

There are definitely some limitations with the watch with regards to strength training, however I've found it to be quite useful, in the right circumstances. However, if you just need a timer to properly track rest times between sets while recording the workout, there are a number of apps in the app store that will do that. Some are free as well.

That said, I think there needs to be some realistic expectations as well. The way the watch counts reps is the same way it counts steps. It uses the accelerometer. Human movement is complex and so I think it's a bit unrealistic for the watch to accurately count reps and figure out the movement just from the accelerometer. The strength training side of the watch really doesn't come into it's own unless you are doing structured training and create a workouts to match in Garmin connect. Since doing that I have found the rep count to be pretty accurate. It still is quite inaccurate doing AMRAP stuff but that isn't surprising because I'm often moving around during brief rest periods that aren't specific to the exercise movement. It also struggles a bit with paused variations of movements, like paused squats but that's also understandable since that's not a movement that you can add in connect. Unilateral work I find usually double the amount of reps so technically in a way it's actually tracking it accurately, just not how I would record the rep count. I have planned weights so mostly I'm just confirming the weight but occasionally I edit that but as someone said, you can just do that later, if at all.

To be fair, the cardio potential of the watch isn't fully realized either if you have an unstructured approach to your training. The run setting doesn't automatically detect when you start and stop doing intervals. There's nothing wrong with a casual or a non structured approach to exercise if that's your thing. However it's a little unrealistic for a watch with just an accelerometer to figure out what you are doing in the gym. In all honesty most people who are really into strength training and have structured programs are already tracking their training either via a spreadsheet, the old school notebook or some other app.