In freediving, many of us start our journey with training tables, but it is not always clear or easy how to do them. For example, you may not always have a buddy available when you have time to do a CO2 table at home. Or you may be taking part in a static apnea (STA) session with your club and want to record it in a useful way, while you focus on the training itself. These situations are what led to this investigation.
What is available and limitations
For pool training Garmin MK3, MK3i, G2 models include a dedicated activity called “Pool Apnea”. As of early 2026 this activity appears to work best on the G2 models, as they were designed specifically with this use in mind. I have only tested it on the MK3i, and my testing was limited to STA tables, as other functions still seem to have some bugs.
I was able to set up both General O2 and a General CO2 STA table1 directly on the watch within the Pool Apnea activity (this cannot currently be done on the phone and then synced to the watch).
When you start a session, you are asked if you want a 2‑minute breathe-up period, which is a useful feature. During this time, you also get a countdown with 3 vibrations at 30 seconds, 2 vibrations at 20 seconds, 1 vibration at 10 seconds, and individual vibrations at 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 second.
This useful feature stops here. During the rest of the exercise, you only receive sound and vibration alerts when the set time for a recovery or a hold has elapsed. This means you need to keep an eye on the watch during the recovery phase so you can start your dive at the correct moment. During the breath hold itself you don’t receive any signals, xcept for the alert indicating that you should surface – some people may prefer this. The same applies for both dry static and pool static training.
The data visualisation clearly marks the programmed Hold and Rest phases. You can also overlay heartrate data to observe your dive response – this assumes that you started and ended each dive according to the set timings.
In the image below, you can see how this looks on the watch, as well as how the data is presented on the app for a General CO₂ table with a 2‑minute breathe-up.
What I (freedivers) would like to have
I would really like to have more flexibility with this type of trainings. I’d like to look at actual dive times and surfacing times, mark somehow when contractions begin, and have some form of countdown during the recovery phase so I can focus more on proper recovery.
It would also be nice to record pool sessions when they are guided by a coach, while keeping the ability to overlay heart rate data on the dives. The system should work for both dry solo training and pool training and allow for recording different types of pool exercises.
NOTE: Never train alone in the pool!
Setting up a work around
After experimenting and testing both in the pool and on dry sessions, I managed to find a workable middle ground. Here is an example of a STA training setup created in the Garmin Connect app and executed on the watch.
The following steps describe how to create a STA session with a 3‑minute breathe-up, followed by a 3‑minute hold, repeated 5 times, for a total training time of 30 minutes.
Steps to create a custom workout2 in the Garmin Connect app:
- Open the Garmin Connect app
- Go to More (the “…” in the bottom menu)
- Select Training and planning
- Tap Workouts
- Tap Create a Workout
- Select Custom
- Delete all the existing steps
- Tap Add Repeat – this creates a “Go/Recover” structure
- Move “Recover” first (this is important – always start these kinds of arrangements with a recovery phase)
- Set the “Recover” time to 3 minutes
- Set the “Go” time to 3 minutes
- Set the number of repetitions to 5
- Give the workout a name, then save it
- Tap the top right button to send it to your watch
Now that the workout has been added to your watch, you just need to find it there and start it. How do you do that?
- Press the main button on the watch to open the activity menu
- Scroll down to “Workouts”
- Find “My Workouts” or “Custom Workouts”
- Find the workout by the name you gave it.
- Select it, then choose Do Workout
- This next step is important, as it determines which sensors will be active and what data will be recorded
- Select the activity “Other”
You are now ready to start your training session!
Notes on the “Other” activity and the custom workout
- You’ll hear a 5second audio signal countdown before each “Recover” or “Go” phase.
- You will get both a sound and a vibration when each phase reaches 0.
- Heart rate is recorded
- By default, GPS and altitude tracking are active in the Other activity. This allows you to record location and elevation, with elevation being particularly relevant in this case
If you run this custom workout in a dry session, you will benefit from the countdowns and alerts. Afterwards, you will also be able to overlay your heart rate data in the app. If you run it in the pool, you also get additional “elevation” data when the watch gets under the water.
Because water is much denser than air, the watch interprets submersion as a rapid descent—like going down a very steep hill. When you return to the surface, it interprets this as a rapid ascent. Small movements underwater will be recorded in a magnified way.
Behavior and Data visualization
– TO BE CONTINUING
