Garmin : Unlocking the Potential of Garmin Connect

Fitness General Health Outdoor

Unlocking the Potential of Garmin Connect

April 6, 2022

From wellness tracking to training tools, Garmin Connect is your one-stop shop for health and fitness data.

Millions of users rely on Garmin Connect™ as the tool for tracking, analyzing, and sharing health and fitness activities from their Garmin device every day. But Garmin Connect is so much more than just an app. If you dive a little deeper, you'll find dozens of useful features, whether you want to track your wellness statistics, start training for a running or cycling race, or anything in between. 

Wonder how to use Garmin Connect? Here are just a handful of the useful and surprising features you'll find. Take a few taps around the app or clicks around the website, and chances are you'll find even more ways that Connect can help you achieve your health and fitness goals. 

Check in with My Day 

If you're a regular Garmin device user, then you are no doubt familiar with My Day, the Garmin Connect app's homepage. This hub of your health and performance stats presents all of today's (and the past seven days') information in easily digestible cards. These cards may include activities tracked by your Garmin device, daily step count¹, heart rate, stress level and much more depending on your device's capabilities. Even better? You can customize the cards that are displayed on your My Day screen, allowing you to focus on the data you care about most.

If you want more information about a specific metric, simply tap the card to access daily details. Or by tapping the "Reports" icon at the top right corner of each My Day card, you can view charts and analysis of your stats over longer periods to monitor your progress.

View Your Activity Details

One of the main reasons people turn to Garmin Connect is for a closer look at their activity details. Once you save an activity on your Garmin device and sync with Connect, you get an in-depth view of your activity that includes

One of the main reasons people turn to Garmin Connect is for a closer look at their activity details. Once you save an activity on your Garmin device and sync with Connect, you get an in-depth view of your activity that includes relevant performance metrics like time, distance, laps, elevation, pace/speed, heart rate and much more. GPS-tracked activities include a map with a themed polyline that details the metric of your choice along your route. The mobile app and website also provide historical activity reports so you can track your personal records, training history, overall mileage and more. 

Monitor Sleep and Recovery 

Research in recent years has shown just how important sleep is to our overall health and well-being. Garmin is at the forefront of sleep technology with advanced metrics that show you the duration and quality of your sleep over time as well as sleep stages, including REM¹. Beyond tracking your total duration and sleep stages, Garmin Connect gives you a nightly sleep score (with compatible devices) that ranks the overall quality of your sleep and provides guidance. Garmin's exclusive Body Battery™ feature also shows how sleep impacts your overall energy levels each day, and sleep is factored into several advanced Garmin training metrics as well. You can even set some Garmin devices to track your blood oxygen level while you sleep with the Pulse Ox² feature.   

Track Women's Health

Both Garmin smartwatches and Garmin Connect have several women's health tracking features. Menstrual cycle tracking lets you log your period dates, receive future period predictions, track symptoms and more. During each phase of your cycle, you can learn something new about how hormone changes can affect your workouts and nutrition. You can also track pregnancies in Garmin Connect and receive insights, record baby movements and log blood sugar, among other useful features. You'll find women's health tracking in "Health Stats," which is located in the left-side menu of the website and the "More" menu in the app.

Train Hard 

One area where Garmin Connect stands above the competition is as a training tool. Whatever your goal, Garmin Connect likely has a workout, training plan, pacing strategy or performance stat to help you achieve it. Just tap on "Training" in the left-side menu of the website or the "More" menu in the app to get started. 

  The list of training tools hosted within Garmin Connect is lengthy enough to warrant its own article, but one of the highlights is Garmin Coach training plans, which let you choose your running coach, select your race distance, and then the workouts adapt to your performance as you train. Other options include cycling training plans, PacePro™ pacing strategies for running, and advanced training metrics such as Training Status, Training Effect, Lactate Threshold and Functional Threshold Power (FTP) that help you track your training progress.

Connect with Friends 

If you want to connect with other Garmin users, Garmin Connect has you covered for these social needs too. On the "Connections" page of the app or website, you can search for connections via your phone's contacts, Facebook® or Google™, and you can even invite friends to join Garmin Connect. Once you're connected with others, you can invite them to join you in challenges, see their activities in your news feed and much more. 

Earn Badges

Nothing feels better than being rewarded for your accomplishments, and Garmin's wide variety of badges do exactly that. For everything from recording your first activity to achieving a 30-day step goal streak to running a marathon, Garmin Connect will award you a badge and give you points for earning that badge. You can compare your badge achievements with your Connections and climb the badge level leaderboard as you earn more points. You can also join badge challenges each month that provide additional opportunities to earn badges and points.

And So Much More

This may sound like a lot, but it's really just scratching the surface of what you can do with your Garmin device paired with Garmin Connect. Whether using the app or the web, Garmin Connect also lets you create mapped-out activity courses to download to compatible devices, build custom workouts, manage your device's music and a whole lot more. No matter what your health, fitness or training goals may be, Garmin Connect has you covered.  

¹See Garmin.com/ataccuracy

2This is not a medical device and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or monitoring of any medical condition; see Garmin.com/ataccuracy. Pulse Ox not available in all countries.