Fenix 7 - Avoid back button stop Workout

If "Lap Key" is disabled in an activity's settings, then pressing it acts as a Back button instead of a lap button. And when you press the Back button, it "minimizes" the activity and returns to the watchface. However, that should not end the activity, it's still running in the background, and should pop back up automatically after a couple minutes, or you can manually open it back up by pressing the Start button.

The way to change that functionality is to turn on "Lap Key" for the activity, so that pressing the Back/Lap button acts as a lap marker instead of a back button.

Thank you for the answer C.sco but that is not what is happening.

Let me explain again: In a normal run activity, when I press the back button as you mentioned it minimizes the activity but is still running in tha background... thats perfect.

The issue is with the suggested training workout session inside the run activity (the one that is showed at as I enter into run activity)... when I press the back button it inmediately ends the workout session and I get the message on the screen "workout ended"

The lap function is active under the genral run activity, but I cannot see the setting for the suggested workout session inside the run activity.

Im adding a video to better explain my question:  Youtube Video

Thanks for the help.

In this case the back button acts like lap button but in the case of training program it ends the 'current' session and goes to the next one. Imagine having intervals or any other multistep training session: if you want to abruptly stop the current and go to the next one you press the back button. If the training activity has only one session it ends the session.

Yeah unfortunately, turning off Lap Key in settings has no effect during workouts, like you said. It's a quirk that people have complained about for a while.

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running-multisport/f/forerunner-945-lte/289173/disable-lap-button-during-workouts

www.reddit.com/.../

Instead, the LAP/Back button *always* advances you to the next step of the workout, which in this case is the end of the workout. I think the reason they did this is that some workouts have open-ended steps (e.g. "Warmup until LAP press"), so they want you to have a standard way to advance to the next step in cases like this. (Yes, some people will point out that you can also assign LAP to a hotkey, but that ignores the fact that not every device has hotkeys, and not everyone will set a hotkey.)

I know this isn't a great solution, but you could lock your watch during workouts: Hold LIGHT > [lock icon] Lock Device. Then your watch won't respond to any button presses until you hold a button down.

You could also suggest to Garmin that they respect the Lap Key setting for workouts, or perhaps have a separate setting for workouts:

www.garmin.com/.../

As a workaround, you can go to the watch menu » System » Hot Keys and (besides what WillNorthYork mentioned) you can also define a hot key combination either for the SET key, or for the Home screen (if that is what you use the Back/Set button for).

trux said:

As a workaround, you can go to the watch menu » System » Hot Keys and define a hot key combination either for the SET key, or for the Home screen (if that is what you use the Back/Set button for).

The point is that you can't disable the Back/Lap button for workouts - it always advances the workout to the next step. The OP's problem is they press Back/Lap by accident and their workout is over. This is a problem for more than one person judging by the 2 links I posted (there have been more over the years)

Assigning a hotkey to set a Lap or return to home screen does *not* help unless there's also a way to disable the Back/Lap button for workouts. The complaint isn't "I don't have another way to take laps / advance to the next step during workouts", the complaint is "I don't want the Back/Lap button to do anything during workouts because I press it by accident."

That's why I suggested locking the device during workouts.

WillNorthYork said:

The point is that you can't disable the Back/Lap button for workouts - it always advances the workout to the next step.

That's exactly why I am telling to assign a Hot Key for the Home screen (tested) or perhaps also for the SET/Back (not tested) functionality, instead of assigning it for the Lap functionality. Works without problems even in workouts. I use it all the time, it does not advance the workout in any way, like the Lap key does.

trux said:

WillNorthYork said:

The point is that you can't disable the Back/Lap button for workouts - it always advances the workout to the next step.

That's exactly why I am telling to assign a Hot Key for the Home screen or the SET/Back functionality, instead of assigning it for the Lap functionality. Works without problems even in workouts. I use it all the time, it does not advance the workout in any way, like the Lap key does.

I think one of us is not understanding the other one here.

The OP is complaining that they press the Lap key by accident and it ends their workout. The concept here is they weren't trying to do anything special, they just pressed a button by accident.

Assigning a hotkey to go to the home screen or to trigger lap functionality does not help, because it doesn't prevent you from pressing the Lap key by accident and messing up your workout. It just gives you a different way to trigger laps on purpose.

What you're suggesting helps in the case when someone wants to press a button combination on purpose. While that may be the case in a subset of the complaints (e.g. using Back to dismiss a notification, but mistiming it *), but I think the general case is someone simply pressed Lap by accident.

(* And in this case, hotkeys still don't help since there's no hotkey functionality which maps directly to "dismiss notification" or "Back functionality")

After all, the whole point of the Lap key option seems to be to help people avoid taking laps by accident during a regular run. What the OP and others are asking for is to have the same functionality apply to workouts.

I'm also not sure what you mean by "SET/Back" functionality if you're not referring to Lap functionality. In my region (English/North America) and my device (945 LTE), the hotkey actions are:

Alarm Clock
Backlight
Baro Watch Mode
Broadcast HR
Change Sport
Clocks
Dual Grid
Flashlight
Lap
Lock/Unlock Device
Metronome
MOB
Navigation
Phone
Save Location
Screenshot
Stopwatch
Sync Time
Timers
Wallet
Watchface
Wi-Fi

If you mean just "generic Back button functionality without ever taking a lap", that's not available on my watch but maybe it is on Fenix 7?

Either way it doesn't solve the OP's problem.

A different way of saying all of that: OP is simply asking for a way to disable the Lap button for workouts, not enable a different way to take laps, return to the watch face, or anything else.

Yes, sorry, I missed the point of pressing the button by accident. Using it on the other wrist could help with that.