Why I Don’t Programme Swim Sessions Directly to Your Garmin

Every now and then, an athlete asks if I can programme their solo swim sessions directly into their Garmin – so they can load the workout, press start, and let the watch give them the session. It sounds easy. Convenient. Almost like having a digital coach on your wrist.

But I don’t write sessions that way, and there’s a reason – several reasons, actually – and they all come back to something much more important than convenience: the thinking, awareness, and ownership that makes a swimmer better.

Reading The Session Is Part Of The Training

One of the most valuable parts of a training plan happens before you get into the pool: the moment you read the session. You’re not just swimming a session. You’re absorbing the purpose. You’re deciding how it should feel. You’re reading the coaching notes. You’re imagining the rhythm of the main set. Maybe you’re memorising it, or scribbling it down on a Post-it before sticking it to your water bottle.

This isn’t admin – it’s education. It builds familiarity with the patterns I use, so over time you start recognising what kind of swimmer each session is trying to make you. If the watch simply gives you your next rep, you lose that moment of understanding. You show up and press “go,” but you don’t engage with the why. And the why is where the real growth hides.

Swimming Isn’t Linear – And Neither Are You

Training plans give structure, but real swimming is full of micro-decisions. When everything is locked into a watch, you lose the freedom to respond to your own body in real time.

Maybe you’re someone who likes to throw in a fast 100m after the warm-up to see where you’re at (there are more of them than you think!). Maybe you sometimes need another couple of easy hundreds before you feel ready for the main set. Maybe you try a rep and it feels off, so you want to do it again. Maybe you’re having a great day and want to repeat the final block because things are clicking.

Those small adjustments are meaningful. They’re a sign you’re paying attention – and attention is the heart of good swimming. A pre-programmed watch doesn’t care if something felt right or wrong. It just beeps at you to move on. And that’s not coaching – that’s choreography!

Pools Are Unpredictable Places

In your training plan, the set might look perfectly tidy. On the poolside, at 7am, in a busy public lane? Not so tidy.

You might need to skip a rest interval because someone is touching your toes. You might need to change your stroke counting work because the lane suddenly has five people in it. You might hit traffic halfway through a threshold rep and need to adjust how you’re pacing it. Or you might realise that the “standard” 4 x 100 warm-up simply isn’t enough today – you need a bit more distance-per-stroke, a few more looseners, a longer settle-in.

Your watch doesn’t know any of this. It can’t see the old man walking up and down your lane. It can’t sense you’re not yet ready to shift gears. It can’t adapt the way an actual human swimmer must.

Your swimming – especially solo swimming – needs flexibility, not rigidity.

Garmin Can Guide, But It Can’t Coach

Don’t get me wrong: the Garmin is brilliant for recording sessions, spotting patterns, tracking pace, and keeping you accountable. But it isn’t a coach, and I don’t think it should act like one. A watch tells you what to do. A coach tries to help you understand why you’re doing it – and when you should change it.

When swimmers rely too heavily on their wrist for instructions, they often stop noticing the water. They outsource awareness. And awareness is the one thing I cannot let you lose.

The Point Isn’t To Save Thinking – It’s To Improve Thinking

Solo swims are often where you learn how your own engine works. Where you learn to judge effort, rhythm, timing, breathing patterns, pacing. Where you start to recognise the early signs of “good day” and “not today.” Where your sense of feel develops. Where you begin to own your swimming.

The goal is not simply compliance. You’re a swimmer who’s learning, growing, adapting.

This is why I won’t programme your sessions straight to your Garmin. Not because it’s wrong, not because it’s bad technology, but because it removes the exact thing that matters most:

Presence. Choice. Ownership. Awareness.

The parts of swimming that actually make you better.