Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar: Check Out Its 48 Exercise Modes And Fitness Features

The Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar is one of the most capable runner’s and fitness watches in the world. At $849, though, it is far from a small investment.

I’m currently working on a review of the watch. It will look at elements like its heart rate and GPS tracking reliability, the solar-charging feature and battery life.

However, some of you likely just want to know if it can, or will, do what you need it to.

There are 48 workout modes preinstalled on the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar. Below you’ll find a list of all 48. And underneath you’ll see screenshots from the bolded modes in the list, showing what info screens you’ll see when you start that form of workout.

The Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar is nothing if not comprehensive, though. You can customise the visible displays, and create your own from scratch using the “other” option in the workout menu.

This sort of thing, and the sheer diversity of info screens, is why a Garmin watch is such a great tool for those serious about working out.

Here’s the list of workout modes:

1. Backcountry Ski
2. Bike (outdoor)
3. Bike indoor
4. Boat
5. Bouldering
6. Breathwork
7. Expedition
8. Cardio
9. Climb
10. Climb Indoor
11. Clocks
12. Elliptical
13. Floor Climb
14. Golf
15. Hike
16. HRV Stress (heart rate variability)
17. Indoor Track (running)
18. Jumpmaster
19. Kayak
20. Open water swimming
21. Other (generic)
22. Map
23. MTB (mountain biking)
24. Navigate
25. Pilates
26. Pool Swim
27. Project Waypoint
28. Row Indoor
29. Run
30. Row
31. Ski
32. Snowboard
33. Stair Stepper
34. Strength (weight lifting)
35. SUP (standup paddleboarding)
36. Surf
37. Swimrun
38. Tactical
39. Track Me
40. Trail Run
41. Treadmill
42. Triathlon
43. TruSwing (golf)
44. Virtual Run
45. Walk
46. XC Classic Ski
47. XC Skate Ski
48. Yoga

Let’s look a little deeper into some of the most important, or at least most popular, items in this list.

Mode 2: Bike (outdoors)

There are just two primary info screens to the top-billing outdoor biking mode. You can see speed and distance, time and heart rate.

As standard the “lap” is set to 5km, but you can change that before starting your workout.

Mode 3: Bike Indoor

Your average simple fitness tracker isn’t great at indoor biking, but the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro is great. It assumes you’re using a smart turbo trainer, cadence sensor or other piece of sensor hardware.

I tried it with the Elite Drivo turbo trainer and a Wahoo Tickr heart rate strap. It picked up both near-instantly. There are three full pages of stats including speed, cadence, distance and lap times.

Mode 4: Boat

Surely, this must be one of the least-used Garmin modes? However, Boat still has plenty of bespoke info. Two key info screens show your nautical distance, and nautical SOG data.

That’s “speed over ground” for those, like me, who can barely tell port from aft. The second key screen shows average and max speeds.

Mode 5: Bouldering

Bouldering is perhaps a little more difficult to track than standard climbing, with less use for altimeter readings. The primary metrics are time and heart rate.

However, before you start you input the grading system and difficulty, a must for keeping a proper record of your workouts.

Mode 6: Breathwork

This one isn’t really a workout at all in the traditional sense. Breathwork offers guided mindfulness breathing exercises. And they’re much better than those in some other wearables.

Instead of having an obsession with grading your performance, there are multiple modes for different lengths of meditation. And structure to each session, using the vibration motor as a non-visual guide of when to breathe in and out.

Mode 9: Climb

Look how different Climb is to Bouldering, despite the two disciplines seeming similar from an uneducated perspective. Your main monitoring screen shows ascent, descent and current elevation. The second shows distance travelled and Vert. SPD.

I’ve never heard of this, as a non-climber, but it indicates your vertical ascent speed. A third screen shows the location, in latitude and longitude.

Mode 14: Golf

Garmin has been a bit of a golf star for years. Start up this mode and the Fenix 6 Pro uses the GPS to show the golf courses nearest your location.

Choose the course and you can see mini hole maps, along with your current distance to the tee. The watch’s buttons can be used to work out the distance you need to hit to reach certain parts of the course too.

Mode 20: Open Water swimming

Garmin’s open water swimming mode keeps its stats fairly simple. There’s no focus on strokes, just distance and “lap” times.

Laps are set to 500m automatically, but you can record one manually too, by pressing one of the side buttons. Like other GPS-tracked modes, open water swimming also has a mapping page.

Mode 23: MTB (mountain biking)

The mountain biking mode is completely different to the standard cycling mode. There’s no focus on speed, just elevation, ascent total and distance. You’ll also see your location on a second screen, which might be handy as a navigation aid.

Want speed too? You can add that by customising this workout mode.

Mode 28: Row Indoor

Have a home rower? This is the mode you want. It is, predictably, fairly simple as the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro can’t harvest data from the average rowing machine. Smart rowing machines do exist, but there aren’t many of them.

You’ll see your stroke rate, time and heart rate.

Mode 29: Run

Here’s the classic outdoors running mode, sure to be the most-used of the lot. There are two primary screens of info, followed by a map of your current location and the time.

It’s a traditional line-up of running data. You’ll see distance and pace on the first page, your progress into the “lap” and current lap pace on the second. The lap distance is set to 1km as standard, and can be customised.

Mode 31: Ski

The Garmin Fenix 6 Pro’s ski mode has more info screens than most. There are four info pages, plus the time and a map.

These offer speed, distance, descent and time stats for your current run on the first page, then the same stats for your total session on the second. There’s also a view of your current elevation, speed and the ambient temperature, plus an elevation graph. This shows your elevation over time.

Mode 34: Strength

Providing meaningful info with a fitness tracker when using weights and non-smart gym equipment is not easy. Use the Free sub-mode in Strength tracking and the Fenix 6 Pro will simply track your heart rate and reps.

However, there are also guided structured workouts that take you through exercises like barbell bench presses, deadlifts, overhead presses and barbell curls. Each comes with a little animation — although if you don’t know how to perform them you should probably ask someone who does.

Additional custom plans can be made, and other Garmin-produced ones added, in the Garmin Connect app.

Mode 48: Yoga

The Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar is great at most kinds of fitness tracking, but it is not a hit for yoga. Why? There are several custom yoga workouts in the Garmin Connect app, but they are not compatible with this watch.

When you fire up the yoga mode you will just see an ultra-simple screen that shows your heart rate, a timer and an estimate of calories burnt. A second screen shows the time.

You can still use your phone to watch Garmin’s guided workouts. But the watch alone does not offer a way to learn yoga moves.