I have had the calories count consistely low. There are swims (always freestyle) where I do 2,500 meters (thats my big swim) and I get 90 calories. It's slow swimming 4:00/100m but its continuous no resting. Near as I can research this is a moderate pace (yes I know it's slow). The MET calculation consistently comes up with 10.5 calories per minute for that 100 minutes. so Garmin owes me 900+ calories. Recently I swam at the same rate for 71 minutes (1750 meters) continuous, garmin says 261 calories. Every time garmin comes back with how it cannot provide accurate counts here because water gets between the optical sensor .. forever.
Why can't garmin use my profile weight, age, pace, swim time and employ as accurate a formula variant as they can using this as a starting point:
Calories = (MET * 3.5 * weight in kilos)/200
where MET:
- Leisurely/Moderate: 5.8 METs
- Backstroke: 4.8 to 9.5 METs (depending on speed)
- Breaststroke (Vigorous): 5.3 to 10.3 METs
- Freestyle/Front Crawl (Moderate): 5.8 METs
- Freestyle/Front Crawl (Vigorous): 9.8 METs
- Butterfly: 11.0 MET
ANYTHING would be better than that lowball random calorie generator based on lord knows what. Swimmers matter too we also often run and life weights but please do something about this, it is bad. I wish I could edit the calories for the event bit that does not get picked up in the totals.