There are many swimmers who focus on counting their strokes while clocking kilometer after kilometer of swimming. Other swimmers focus on their pace or technique, and others enjoy an uninterrupted stream of consciousness as they swim in pools and in the open water on long swims.
I prefer listening to music using my list on Spotify, streamed by a Garmin Fēnix 6 Pro smartwatch [shown above], amplified by the Amnis Stream underwater headphones [shown above] that is powered by FINIS bone conduction technology. The swim data is automatically uploaded and the heart rate zone is automatically uploaded every 10 minutes (or more frequently, if desired).
Not only do I get to listen to my favorite songs – that I can always change as my tastes evolve – but I also get an accurate reading of the distance swum, pace, and heart rate zones.
I click on the Amnis Stream underwater headphones on my goggles and place the Garmin smartwatch snugly under my swim cap. Both have worked flawlessly over the last three years of testing in many different pools and different lakes and oceans around the world.
Audio Prompts
On the Garmin smartwatch, I can set the audio prompts to alert me of my various physiological metrics every 1-10 minutes, as I wish. I can learn the following metrics in real time as I swim:
- heart rate zones
- maximum heart rate alert
- lactate threshold
- speed/pace (that can be set for short-course or long-course pools in yards or meters, or in miles or kilometers in the ocean)
When I am swimming in a pool and can view a pace clock, then I enjoy listening to music as I work on reducing my heart rate while increasing my pace (if possible). Or if I am swimming well, it is comforting to know that all my physiological metrics are within my target swimming pace (e.g., 1:20 per 100 meters within a Heart Rate Zone of 3.
My ultimate goal of each workout – both in the pool and open water – is to minimize the Heart Rate Zone within the 2-3 range while maximizing my speed (per 100 meters in the pool or 1 kilometer in the Pacific Ocean).
Heart Rate Zones
Probably the most informational of all the data that I can hear underwater via the Amnis Stream bone conduction headphones is what Heart Rate Zone that I am in. The data is stated every 10 minutes – that I can hear very clearly underwater as I am swimming in the pool or ocean – range can from a moderate pace of 2.3 (as in, “…your heart rate is 2.3…“) to an intense pace of 5.5 (as in, “…your heart rate zone is 5.5…“).
Music
So in any given workout, I am looking at the pace clock at the side of the pool (sometimes it is an analog clock and sometimes it is a digital clock), keeping track of my pace or my pace relative to my swimmates, while listening to my favorite music that is constantly streaming an endless loop of tunes (without commercials).
The music is fed from my Spotify list that I uploaded to the Garmin smartphone. This music is downloaded to the Amnis Stream headphones on a continuous basis. If I am diving deep under large surf along the California coast or I am deeply streamlining underwater off of a flip turn in a pool workout, then the Bluetooth signal is lost. In this case, I temporarily lose hearing of a few bars of music.
Synopsis: Real-time Audio Prompts + Music
All in all, I am receiving my desired physiological metrics in real time either motivates me to swim faster or satisfies me in knowing that I am swimming well. I receive these updates every 10 minutes while listening to my favorite music. This barrage of content is greatly welcomed whether I am in a pool swimming up and down a lane alone or with a group – or along the California coast in the Pacific Ocean.
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