Rack Strength for Garmin: Your Fenix Should Know What You Lifted
Your Fenix Is a $900 Watch. It Should Know more.
The Problem
Garmin’s native strength mode logs your workout as a timer. There is no exercise memory, no progressive overload tracking, and no recovery intelligence between muscle groups.
The Fix
Rack syncs with your Garmin watch over Bluetooth in real-time, tracking every exercise, set, and PR as you train. It learns how your body responds over time.
What Rack Does
- Real-time watch sync — log sets on your wrist, see them on your phone instantly via BLE, not post-workout API sync
- Hot-Swap — squat rack taken? Change exercises mid-workout from your watch without restarting
- DataBuffer — phone in the locker? The watch queues every set and syncs when you reconnect. No lost reps
- Exercise memory — autofills your last weight and reps so you stop guessing
- PR detection — get notified the moment you hit a personal record, on your wrist
- Per-muscle-group recovery — know which muscles are ready for heavy work and which need another day
- Pre-Workout Brief — before every session, see what has recovered, what to prioritise, and whether to push or hold back
- Progressive overload trends — PR timeline, overload compliance rates, and muscle focus heatmaps across weeks and months
What Rack Doesn’t Do Yet
- Auto-detect exercises from wrist motion — on the roadmap
- Mid-workout AI coaching on the watch — on the roadmap
- Apple Watch support — Garmin-first for now
- Replace Garmin Connect — Rack complements it, not competes with it
Why This Exists
Hevy applied for Garmin API access and was rejected. Some apps sync via Connect’s deprecated cloud API after the workout, which is the path Garmin tightened. Rack writes a standard FIT strength activity through the watch’s Connect IQ BLE channel during the session, the same FIT format Garmin’s own ecosystem partners use, generated natively on the watch as you train.
The longer you train, the smarter Rack gets. After six months, it knows your recovery patterns, flags muscle imbalances before you feel them, and detects plateaus with specific proposals to break through. That accumulated knowledge compounds with every session.
Pricing
- Free — Start Logging: unlimited logging, Garmin watch sync, Hot-Swap, Pre-Workout Brief, and PR tracking.
- Pro — $9.99/mo or $54.99/yr: everything in Free, plus DataBuffer, Smart Swap Suggestions, full history, progressive overload graphs, and deep analytics.
- Early Bird Lifetime — $99.99: everything in Pro, forever. Limited to 50 slots.
- Founder — $119.99
Get Started
Install on iPhone, pair your Garmin, and start logging. No credit card required.
Install Rack on Garmin Connect IQ — RackStrength.com
More: How Rack Writes Real Garmin Activities (And Why It Won’t Break)
This is an unpaid community post. the5krunner occasionally features independent developers and early-stage products where there is genuine value for the sports tech community
Last Updated on 2 May 2026 by the5krunner
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tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors. ID
Is Rack a UK only app? When I go to their website and scan the QR it tells me that the app is not available in my country or region. I am in the US.
I reached out and the dev said the US version is submitted for review in the App Store
Thanks, Look forward to trying it out. The Garmin experience could definitely be better so this could be the fix.
This is now live in AppStore!
I saw there there is a similar app for Android users called Kilo Gym Logger.
It’s been on the Garmin IQ store and Google Play Store for a few months.
https://www.thekiloapp.com
Hi, i believe you are the developer of that app. you are more than welcome to add a similar article here to rack strength’s.
Noah here, Rack dev. Sorry I’m late to this. US App Store went live April 7, so anyone who hit the “not available” wall earlier should be sorted now. Thanks @Deverett for fielding the question while I was buried in review, and @Christian Neo for the heads-up. @Stavrogin if you’ve had a chance to try it, I’d genuinely like to hear where the Garmin strength experience still falls short for you, that’s the fastest way we get better.