Request: to please enable the sync function to include indoor workouts to Garmin Connect – this will allow for a central planning calendar of workouts. Thank you
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When you do a workout inside with trainerroad it should push to Garmin Connect
I usually sync twice, first time to get the workout, 2nd time to have my training load updated from my watch.
I think what the OP is asking for is for all scheduled workouts to be pushed to Garmin Connect Calendar not just the “Outside” or completed indoor workouts.
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That is 100% correct
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I would love this too…Just got myself a Fenix so I would love all the swim, bike, and run workouts to be pushed into my Garmin Connect calendar.
I will always come back to the TR calendar, but to have them pushed to the GC calendar then I can see the workout on my watch and its notes before I started it.
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Folks have been requesting this for ages. TR has basically said they won’t do it, but I haven;t really seenan explanation as to why. Frankly it sucks because the ability to add anything other than rides (like weight training, pilates, etc.) to TR is a useless “Other”, so that forces users to look elsewhere for a comprehensive training planning calendar (like Garmin Connect or Training Peaks). TR does not support exporting planned indoor training structure to either platform. It will send outside versions of workouts to GC and can ingest custom workouts from TP, but no-go on exporting anything beyond a plain calendar feed of workout names, durations, dates and full description text (but no structure).
While I appreciate the avoidance of feature creep and the cycling only focus of TR, I suspect this limitation may be more about revenue and IP protection. Allowing long-range export of TR plans including workout structure might allow a user to buy a month, plan 5 years of events and training, push them GC or TP and cancel. Even worse, export with structure could allow a bad actor to scrape the entire workout library. Seems like this would be easy enough to handle - just allow a 30 day forward window of plan exports or limit exports to a single active training plan. Anyone doing that would lose adaptation functions, testing and resulting FTP adjusts, etc., but i get the need to protect the workout library. Pretty sure it is not a garmin limitation as it would be odd to permit export of outside structure but not inside.
TR is not alone in this. Garmin in particular engineers stuff to rigorously lock down to their own device dependent ecosystem - ironically a limitation even for me with literally thousands of dollars of Garmin head units, watches and cameras in use.
Training Peaks at least partly solves for some of this, but mostly if you are working with a coach and doing you plan building (alone or coached) in TP and sending it out from there to TrainerRoad and GC. I don’t race any more and so I don’t pay for Training Peaks premium. I’d love to be better able to leverage the planning aspects of TrainerRoad in a way that played nicely with other scheduling tools, but the entirety of the blame is not necessarily on TR. An explanation for the limitation would be helpful.
Such as? I’ve got a Garmin 840 bike computer and can’t think of anything locked down. Guess you can cite Garmin maps, but I can load my own. The workout fit files have a lot of data that companies ignore, so that seems pretty open. Maybe you are referring to Garmin watches/scales, I don’t own those but am aware Garmin can sync some of the Body Battery / HRV / weight / BMI / etc to TrainingPeaks.
TR already share some data using the calendar .icu file format. They should be able to share the same data with Garmin Connect and/or TrainingPeaks without making it easier to steal their IP. They can just share the workouts as text descriptions as they do with the calendars today.
I find the TR Calendar to be one of the better, but non-cycling (e.g. run and XC skiing) workouts should be better supported. My XC Skiing workouts don’t even show up in TR when completed, so not easy to get a full overview of what I have been doing in the colder 6 months of the year. Not I have to manually add the activities to see the total training time and TSS.
I think they could easily share the same information as they
When RGT first came on the scene they couldn’t get their rides to seamlessly integrate to Garmin Ecosystem (they could for Strava though) or even read accurately the RGT .fit files, due to the barriers Garmin put in place. I think thats what @tempfoot means by Garmin being notorious for locking down their own ecosystem.
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They lock down the analytics. I have an Edge 540, which has their fancy stuff, but record my runs with an old Venu that does not. On run days, if I want to see some fancy stats (load focus etc), I have to sync my 540.
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Pointing out that you have no issues using Garmin apps…with a Garmin device isn’t a great example of Garmin playing nice outside their own device ecosystem. That said I don’t mean to overstate the point, or perhaps to mischaracterize the point of Garmin “platforms”. None of them (that I know of) are actually general platforms for general training planning and management, though they try to look like it. Yes, you can import single activities recorded on other devices, but systems like Connect really are not ‘platforms’ - even though they look like that. They are 100% device specific support systems. I’m not even claiming that Garmin should make them anything else - they are selling devices after all. It’s just frustrating that Connect for example seems so close to being a general platform.
To be fair, I’ve only taken a cursory glance at Garmin’s API channels and it looks…unsurprising. Activity records are outbound only, workouts, courses, and longer training plans can be sent into Connect - exactly as one would expect to support their devices. There is obviously a way to send workout data in as well (TR does this) but that’s basically just advanced activity file upload. Getting Concept erg rower data in is either use my Fenix app data or a manual dump and upload to Connect from the Rower’s own data/app. Maybe up to Concept 2 to implement something and they just haven’t. Nothing going the other way either (send a planned workout to the rower app).
I really like my Garmin devices and TR, and wish whatever barrier prevents this long-standing request from being implemented could be addressed.
TR has decided to NOT sync inside workouts to Garmin, but TR will sync outside workouts. That is completely 100% a decision taken by TR.
On the platform stuff and lock down, from where I sit Garmin hasn’t “rigorously lock down” anything. That statement comes across as Garmin’s engineers are systematically locking things down.
I use my Apple Watch to record swims and grocery store trips on my city bike, those are automatically sent to Garmin Connect using a 3rd party app (RunGap) via Apple Health.
Weight lifting recorded in the Strong app and sent to Garmin Connect using that same 3rd party app.
For example here are laps auto-detected by my Apple Watch, and are picked up in Garmin Connect after RunGap syncs from Health:
and then Garmin does some analytics - SWOLF, HR zones, etc.
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I’ve acknowledged that it’s less accurate to say that Garmin locks things down, than to say that the entire Garmin ecosystem exists only to facilitate Garmin hardware. Your use case is Interesting - but is that anything more than just importing a data file (requiring an intermediating app)?
How do you push a planned swim or strength workout in Garmin Connect to your Apple watch?
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The same way you push TR indoor workouts to Garmin or Wahoo 
I get your point once you rephrased.
FWIW I just swim, no workout. Rides on my city bike are rides, not workouts. My weight lifting routine is in Strong app on my phone. I’m simply archiving completed workouts on Garmin Connect and TrainingPeaks.
Having used the Strong app on my Apple Watch, I’ll stick with using my iPhone to record and potentially reorder the weight lifting routine. Swim stroke detection works surprisingly well on the Apple Watch.
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