Inline Skating: ✓Activity, ☐ Data & ☐ Badges

TL;DR

Create a workout under 'Other' and open it using the Workouts app and choosing Inline Skating as your activity.

It has its way, though a longer process than before. The fact of the matter is that Inline Skating belongs to the 'Other sports' category/group. When you create a custom workout choosing Other you will see it available when you start the Inline Skating app.

Normally you'd do this through the 'Training' menu after opening the activity. It was missing before, but after being added to the app, developers forgot to include the Workout library and Training calendar. That means now your only alternative is to start the custom workout from the Workouts App in watch and then select Inline Skating as your activity of choice. Doing this you'll encounter another issue with this process besides waiting a few seconds for the long list of sports to appear, and then you can do your workout.

After its done you'll see it saved as Inline Skating, and something that has been added on a new update is the ability to add a Self Evaluation (RPE and Feeling) to the workout from your watch. But still, since its a sport under the 'Other' category you won't be able to see self evaluation through your mobile app; only in Connect web. 

Great thank you!. Do you know when inline skating will be available for 6s models ?. Because my brother is also an inline speed skater and has that model but still doesnt have the inline speed sakting activity.

There's no way to know, unless it's added in a beta update for the model. Best option would be to request it through the Ideas form. Are you familiar with the world champion Nolan Beddiaf? He used to have a Fenix 6 and then changed to the 7. You can notice the upgrade on his Strava by how his skating sessions started to appear consistently as Inline Skating instead of just 'Workout'. A feature KrapfenKringel stressed how important it was and now many can see why and enjoy.

I'm sure Garmin knows there's an interest for the activity on that and other models that keep being mentioned in the forums, but it's their call to add it or not and they don't announce if they will. Naturally the inclusion of this app in older models would increase its number of users which would then make visible how large the market is for Garmin to keep improving the Inline Skating activity.

Requests for inline skating in the forums:

• Instinct 2s/2/2X/Crossover

• Forerunner 945

• Vivoactive 5 & Vivoactive 4

• Venu 3 & Venu 2

I have had a Venu 2 for two years and have been using the fbbrown app, but would prefer a native inline app and willing to buy another model that has it. My main question is about VO2 max, which is not available through fbbrown. To my knowledge it seems the only app that updates VO2 max is Run, however I have slight knee issues with running and skating is more conducive. Will this new Inline Skating app report and update my VO2 max? Thanks.

Hi Scott!

Scott C. said:

To my knowledge it seems the only app that updates VO2 max is Run

Cycling also provides a VO2 Max score when you use HR data coupled with Power metrics. 

Scott C. said:

Will this new Inline Skating app report and update my VO2 max?

It will not. I don't know how complicated would be to add this functionality to Inline Skating, but I guess it's more complicated than the suggestions shared in this thread. I can refer you to this comment and the ones beneath it in which @philipshambrook and Etupes25 answer a question similar to yours.

In my own training I bike in low to medium intensity and rely on inline skating for VO2 max workouts—mainly accelerations in flat roads or an uphill. I seldom do sprints on the bike, but when I ride in tempo/threshold I reckon the Cycling VO2 max improvement it registers I get is higher than it would've been without those inline HIIT sessions, as you'll read in that thread.

In spite of the lack of this feature, I like to pay attention to the RPE, Training focus, intervals' avg and max HR, avg. speed, expecting to see a lower bpm while keeping or increasing the speed.

Great that inline skating is added a a built in activitiy. Please make it alo available to the Garmin 6x pro software 

A typo has been pointed out by 3892823 using Inline Skating in the FR965.

1. "HEQRT RATE" typo for Inline Skating

Another idea would be to have skating stats while using the Garmin HRM-Pro Plus like "skating dynamics" and performance stats like running, for example: Skating pace, power, stamina, performance condition, cadence, stride length,  respitory rate, hr zones and power zones.

All great ideas! Some of them also previously mentioned by other skaters here in the forums. It'd be wonderful if in the future Garmin would have the interest in developing Inline Skating further with these advanced metrics and other features already added to the main sports.

4978967 said:

Skating pace

In Connect Web you can go to an activity and scroll down to stats you can switch from Speed (default) to Pace. It'll automatically change the Speed chart into a Pace one. Not available in Mobile I believe, but you still get avg. and max pace. in summary there.

4978967 said:

respitory rate, hr zones

Respiratory rate is available both with the HRM Pro-Plus and even HRM Dual. HR zones are the ones set for general use, not the Sport HR zones you can add to running or cycling.

4978967 said:

cadence, stride length

This would be useful to calculate the number of pushes. Maybe ground contact time coupled with distance could be used for calculating stride length. But it's tricky since on skates one could also have both on the floor at the same time. Maybe less during starts.

Double contact tutorial: https://youtu.be/QF23FHXemHQ?si=Yige8CBK_MF4U0MV

Start example: https://youtu.be/vCweg2rIQ-Q?feature=shared

4978967 said:

power

If taking Running power as example, we'd only need to figure out how to get Vertical and Horizontal Oscillation. From its description it "reflects the amount of “bounce” in each step while you run. Measured at the torso, it tells you, in centimeters, how much distance you are traveling up and down with each step." I think there's less bounce in skating than in running and the variation of this distance from the torso could also be due to the skater's position as well.

4978967 said:

stamina

"Real-time stamina tracking works by combining your physiological metrics with a multi-layered analysis of your recent and longer-term activity history. This includes examining training durations, distances covered, training load accumulations and load distributions for meaningful patterns that reflect fatigue resistance and personal tolerances for aerobic and anaerobic exercise." Inline Skating seems to have what's required to have Stamina data.

4978967 said:

performance condition

About PC: "During the first 6 to 20 minutes of your run, this metric analyzes pace, heart rate and HRV. The resulting number is a real-time assessment of the deviation from your baseline VO2 max, with each point on the scale representing about 1% of your VO2 max." An Inline Skating VO2 Max calculation would be the only thing missing in order to get a Performance Condition, I think.

Still no inline skating activity for Solar 2X :-(