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A new update to Garmin watches brings a rucking activity, with a pack weight setting, to the Instinct 3 (both regular and Tactical), the Fenix 8 series, and the Enduro 3. Rucking is also available at launch for the new Forerunners, the 570 and the 970. The same software update also brings breathing variation detection to a wide variety of watches, including Vivoactive, Venu, Lily, and Forerunner models.
Rucking—walking with a weighted pack—is both a fitness activity for people looking for a little exercise, and a necessity for many hikers and backpackers. But without a specific activity or pack weight setting, the only obvious way to track it was as a regular hike. Since you move slower when you’re carrying a heavy pack, that was impacting people’s VO2max scores—the watch thinks you’ve slowed down because you’re losing fitness.
The pack weight setting changes that. Besides the rucking activity, the running, trail running, hiking, and walking activities will all have this setting as well (on the supported watches I mentioned above, anyway). This lets you log today’s ruck as being done with a 15-pound pack, and tomorrow’s with a 10-pound pack, if those are the weights you’re carrying.
So far there’s no word on whether rucking or pack weights may be coming to other watches in the future. Older Forerunners, including the just-replaced 265 and 965, aren’t getting the new rucking features.
How to track rucking if your watch isn’t included in the update
If you have one of those older Forerunners, or another watch that doesn’t get rucking in this update, there is a workaround. As pointed out in this Reddit thread, you can create a Cardio workout. (Go to the More menu in Garmin Connect, then Training and Planning, then Create a Workout.)
What do you think so far?
Create one step in the cardio workout, and for that step, set the exercise to “Walk.” You’ll be able to add a weight. This activity won’t track your location with GPS—so it’s not a great option if you’re hiking in the wilderness or need to track your speed—but some users have found it helpful as a way to record pack weight and time rucked.
What else is in the update
The new software update does have a little treat for the -65 level Forerunners, plus the older 255 and 955, as well as several other watches like the Venu 3, Vivoactive 5, and Vivoactive 6. That’s a feature to detect “breathing variations” during the night. It uses the pulse ox (blood oxygen) feature to detect “shifts in your breathing patterns” while you sleep. They don’t want to call it sleep apnea detection, since this isn’t a medical device, but these variations are the kind of thing you might see if you had sleep apnea.
The update also brings a passcode to lock the device to several devices that didn’t have it before. (Passcodes were introduced for some devices earlier this year.) According to a chart Garmin released with the new update, recent Venu, Vivoactive, and Forerunner watches already had passcodes, and the update brings them to the Lily 2 and the Instinct 3 and E.