Yes, you can definitely swim with the Forerunner 970. It's rated to 5 ATM, which means it handles pool swimming, open water swimming, and showering without issues.
What you CAN do:
- Lap swimming in pools
- Open water swims in lakes or oceans
- Showering (obviously)
- Snorkeling and casual water sports
What you SHOULDN'T do:
- Scuba diving (that's Fenix 8 territory with its 10 ATM rating)
- High-pressure water activities like jet skiing
Pool swimming features:
The watch automatically counts your laps, identifies your stroke type (freestyle, backstroke, breast, butterfly), calculates your SWOLF efficiency score, and lets you log drills. There's also a rest timer for tracking recovery between sets.
Important: Make sure you set the correct pool length in your settings. If it's wrong, your distances will be off. Most people find lap counting works reliably once that's configured properly.
Open water swimming:
Here you're using GPS instead of lap counting. It tracks distance and stroke counts. Wrist heart rate works too, though with some limitations (see below).
A word about GPS accuracy: Testing has shown the 970's open water GPS isn't quite as sharp as previous Garmin models. It can struggle to reacquire signal when you stop to rest. For casual training it's fine, but serious open water swimmers might want to research this further.
Heart rate in water:
Here's the deal. All wrist optical sensors struggle with water. If accurate swim HR matters to you, pair the watch with a chest strap like the HRM-Pro Plus. It stores data during your swim and transfers it to the watch when you finish.
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How we researched this
Where this comes from: this answer draws on the product's published specifications and the reviews ShopSavvy collected for it, alongside prices from ShopSavvy's price data.
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