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by the TextFit team

How to Create a Workout in Garmin Connect (App, Web, Watch)

  • how to create a workout in garmin connect
  • garmin connect workout builder
  • garmin structured workout
  • garmin interval workout

A structured workout makes your Garmin beep at the end of every interval and show the target for each step, so you run the session instead of watching a stopwatch. You build it once in Garmin Connect, send it to the watch, and start it from the workout menu.

Quick answer

  1. Open the Garmin Connect app and tap More (bottom right).
  2. Tap Training & Planning > Workouts > Create a Workout.
  3. Pick the workout type (Run, Bike, Pool Swim, Strength and others).
  4. Add steps (warm up, intervals, recoveries, cool down), give each a duration and a target, and group intervals with a repeat.
  5. Tap Save and name the workout.
  6. Open the workout, tap the Send to Device icon (a watch with an arrow) and pick your watch, or add the workout to your calendar.
  7. Sync the watch. The workout is now in its Workouts list.

The steps below follow Garmin’s own support guide, checked on 31 October 2026.

Create a workout in the Garmin Connect app

The path is the same on iPhone and Android: More > Training & Planning > Workouts > Create a Workout. Choose the workout type first, because it decides which steps and targets you can use. A run workout only offers power targets if your watch measures running power natively.

A workout is a list of steps. The step types are:

  • Warm Up: easy running or riding before the work.
  • Run / Bike / Swim: the work step, your interval or tempo block.
  • Recover: easy effort between work steps.
  • Rest: a step with no activity.
  • Cool Down: easy effort to finish.
  • Other: anything that fits none of the above.

Each step needs a duration, which tells the watch when to move on: time, distance, lap button press, calories, heart rate (until it reaches or leaves a value) or power. Lap button press is the one to use when you want to decide, for example a warm up that ends when you reach the track.

Each step can also have an intensity target: pace, cadence, heart rate zone or power zone. The watch alerts you when you drift outside it. Get your numbers before you build: the heart rate zones calculator for heart rate, the FTP calculator for cycling power, and the running pace guide for what easy, tempo and interval pace should be.

Build intervals with a repeat

For an interval set, add the work step and the recovery step, then tap Add Repeat and set the count. Example, 5 × 1 km:

  • Warm Up: 15 min, heart rate zone 2
  • Repeat 5 times:
    • Run: 1 km, pace 4:20–4:30 /km
    • Recover: 2 min, no target
  • Cool Down: 10 min, heart rate zone 2

A repeat can run up to 99 times, and one workout holds up to 50 steps. Make the first 15 characters of the name unique (“5x1k 4:25” beats “Tuesday intervals”): most watches show only those. For sessions to copy, the workout library has tempo, threshold, VO2max and hill workouts written out step by step.

Create a strength workout

Pick Strength as the workout type. Instead of run steps you add exercises (squat, deadlift, plank and so on) with reps or time, rest between sets, and an optional weight. On the watch you press the lap button when you finish an exercise to move to the next one.

Create a workout on the Garmin Connect website

On a computer, sign in at connect.garmin.com and go to Training & Planning > Workouts > Create a Workout. The builder has the same steps, durations, targets and repeats as the app, and it is quicker with a keyboard for long sessions. Select Save Workout when you’re done; the workout appears in the same Workouts list as on your phone.

Send the workout to your watch

There are two ways to get it onto the watch:

  • Send to Device. Open Workouts, select the workout, tap the Send to Device icon and choose your watch or Edge.
  • Schedule it. In the app, open the workout, tap the three-dot menu > Add to Calendar and pick a date. On the web, select the calendar icon next to the workout. Scheduled workouts are sent automatically at the next sync, and you can drag them to another day in the web calendar.

Either way, nothing reaches the watch until it syncs with Garmin Connect over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

Start the workout on your watch

On most Forerunner, fēnix and Instinct watches: press Start, choose the activity (Run, Bike), hold Up for the menu, then go to Training > Workouts, pick the workout and select Do Workout. A workout scheduled for today is also under Training > Training Calendar. Menu names differ slightly by model; your watch’s manual has the exact path.

Workout not showing on your watch?

  • Sync again. Creating or scheduling a workout in Garmin Connect doesn’t send it until the watch syncs.
  • Look in the right activity. A workout appears under the activity it was built for. If your watch doesn’t support that workout type (Pool Swim or HIIT on some models), it won’t show at all; Garmin’s compatibility guide lists the types each watch supports.
  • Free up space. Most watches hold up to 25 workouts that aren’t scheduled, preloaded ones included; Edge computers hold up to 200. Delete old ones on the watch.
  • Delete in both places. Garmin Connect and the watch keep workouts separately: deleting one in Garmin Connect doesn’t remove it from the watch, and the other way round.
  • Edit in Garmin Connect, then send again. Workouts are edited only in Garmin Connect. Save the change and send the workout to the watch again.

Where the builder slows you down

The builder runs a good session, but a few things cost time:

  • No ramp steps. A step can’t climb from one pace or wattage to another. A progressive run or a ramp test has to be split into short steps, which eat into the 50-step limit.
  • Fixed-count repeats. “Repeat 5 times” works; “repeat for 20 minutes” doesn’t, so you work out the count yourself.
  • One workout at a time. A week of training means building and scheduling each session by hand, and changing the week means editing them one by one.

Garmin’s own plans, Garmin Coach and Daily Suggested Workouts, skip the builder but choose the sessions for you; Runna vs Garmin Coach compares Garmin Coach with a paid plan app.

Let a coach create and schedule the workouts

If you train from a plan, the builder is the slow part. TextFit is an AI coach for iPhone that builds a week-by-week plan for running, cycling, swimming and strength around your goal and the time you have. Connect Garmin Connect and it puts the next 7 days of the plan on your Garmin Connect calendar as structured workouts, each with targets in your own paces, watts or heart rates. They sync to your watch or Edge like any workout you built, with the same steps and alerts.

When the week changes, tell the coach: “move Saturday’s long run to Sunday” or “swap Thursday’s run for a ride” changes the plan, and the workouts in Garmin Connect follow. Every change shows in the coach chat with Undo. Completed activities, HRV, resting heart rate and sleep come back from Garmin, so the coach can compare each workout with the plan and tell you how recovered you are. If you delete a workout TextFit pushed, it stays deleted until you push it again from the app.

More on how TextFit works with Garmin and how the coach builds a week. 14 days free, then $14.99/month or $99.99/year: start your 14-day free trial.