How To Enable Rucking On Any Garmin Watch (Even Without Native Support)

Quick check first: Garmin has rolled native Rucking support into its tactix, Instinct, Enduro, and fenix lines, and the Vivoactive 6 picked it up via a recent beta. If you own one of those on current firmware, open Activities on your watch, scroll to Rucking, and it’s already there with pack-weight input built in. You don’t need this guide.

This is for everyone else: Forerunner owners, Fenix 7 series owners (more on that below), and any Garmin watch that hasn’t received — and likely won’t receive — the update.

The good news is you can replicate most of the tracking with a free Garmin Connect workaround, or get genuinely better load-aware data through a couple of Connect IQ apps built specifically for this gap.

Table of Contents

Why “Walking,” Not “Hiking”

The trick is choosing the right base activity to clone. Garmin counts Walking activities toward step challenges and daily step goals; Hiking doesn’t contribute the same way.

So instead of duplicating Hiking and renaming it, you copy Walking. You end up with a custom “Rucking” activity that still feeds your daily step total, which matters if you’re tracking steps as part of a broader fitness goal.

How to add a rucking activity in Garmin Connect for accurate tracking

How to Enable Rucking on Any Garmin Watch Setting It Up

Open the Garmin Connect app on your phone.
Tap your watch, then go to Activities.
Select Walking, and use the copy/duplicate option to create a new activity based on it.
Rename the copy “Rucking.”
Back on your watch, tap the + icon in the activity list, find “Rucking,” and add it to your favorites so it’s one tap away.

Set Your Pack Weight Correctly

This is the part most guides skip, and it’s the one that actually affects your data.

Garmin’s own rucking implementation lets you enter pack weight directly and factors it into calorie and effort calculations.

Since your custom Walking-based activity doesn’t have a dedicated weight field, the practical workaround is to add your pack weight to your body weight in your Garmin Connect profile before you start the activity, then reset it back afterward.

One thing worth knowing: Garmin’s own support documentation on the rucking activity profile states that any added load of 2kg (about 4.4 lbs) or more disables VO2 max recording for that session.

That’s intentional — carrying weight changes your heart rate response enough that Garmin doesn’t want it skewing your fitness trend.

Don’t be surprised if a hard ruck doesn’t move your VO2 max number; that’s by design, and Training Status will still account for the load when calculating your recovery time.

Better Than the Manual Method: Two Connect IQ Apps Built for This

If you want load-specific calorie math without editing your body weight before and after every walk, two community-built apps fill the gap more precisely than the renamed-Walking trick:

RuckTrack logs your session as a Hiking activity in Garmin Connect, but underneath it runs the Pandolf equation — the U.S. Army Research Institute’s load-carriage model — using your pack weight, speed, terrain grade, and surface type (Road, Gravel, Trail, or Sand).

The extra data (pack weight, ruck calories, pack bonus kcal, terrain factor) shows up under the Connect IQ tab on the activity detail page, so the load context isn’t lost even though the activity type itself reads as “Hiking.”

One developer specifically built it for an older Forerunner because the existing options on the Connect IQ store weren’t terrain-aware.

Rucking for Everyone is a simpler free option that works across a wide range of Garmin models and handles pack weight input directly in its own on-device settings, without needing the body-weight workaround at all.

Neither will make your activity history literally say “Rucking” — only Garmin’s native firmware rollout does that — but both give you more accurate calorie and effort numbers than the renamed-Walking method, especially on hilly or mixed-terrain routes.

Pin It to the Top of Your Activity List

To avoid digging through menus before every session:

On your watch, open the activity list and tap Edit.
Find “Rucking” and tap the + next to it to move it up.
Pinning it keeps it at the top, so it’s the first thing you see when you start an activity.

Which Garmin Watches Actually Have Native Rucking?

Watch	Native Rucking?	Notes
tactix 8	✅ Yes	First watch to get it
Fenix 8 / 8 Pro / Solar / E	✅ Yes	Rolled out via 2025 firmware
Enduro 3	✅ Yes	Same firmware wave as fenix 8
Instinct 3	✅ Yes
Vivoactive 6	✅ Yes	Added via beta — somewhat unexpected for a non-rugged line
Forerunner 970 / 570	✅ Yes	Confirmed in Garmin’s May 2025 update alongside Pack Weight for other activities
Forerunner 965 / 265	❌ No	Workaround or Connect IQ app needed
Fenix 7 / 7 Pro series	❌ No, and unlikely to get it	Garmin has continued shipping bug-fix-only updates with no new activity types — see FAQ below
Instinct 2 / 2X	❌ No
Older Forerunners (165, 255, 55)	❌ No

If your watch isn’t on the “Yes” list, everything in this guide applies to you.

Does the Manual Method Give You Worse Data?

Honestly, yes — a little. Garmin’s native Rucking profile uses motion detection tuned specifically to distinguish a weighted ruck from a regular walk, which a renamed Walking activity doesn’t have.

You’ll still get accurate distance, heart rate, and duration, since those come from the watch’s standard sensors regardless of activity label.

What you lose is the calorie model that accounts specifically for load-carriage biomechanics — which is exactly the gap RuckTrack and Rucking for Everyone are built to close.

For most people using this purely to log step credit and track heart rate effort, the renamed-Walking method is fine. If you’re training seriously for something like a GORUCK event and want load-specific calorie precision on hilly terrain, install one of the Connect IQ apps above instead.

FAQ

Will the fenix 7 ever get native Rucking?

It looks unlikely. Garmin’s own forum threads on this have Garmin staff and long time users saying they expect only bug fixes for the Fenix 7 series going forward, not new activity types. The most recent Fenix 7 stable updates have been fix-only releases with no new features. If you own a Fenix 7 or 7 Pro, plan on using the workaround or a Connect IQ app rather than waiting for a firmware update. It looks unlikely. Garmin’s own forum thread on this has long time users and contributors confirming they expect only bug fixes for the Fenix 7 series going forward, not new activity types.

Does this affect my Training Status or Training Load?

Yes, in a good way. Even with VO2 max recording suspended during a heavy ruck, Garmin’s Training Status still factors the session’s heart rate strain into your Training Load and recovery time calculations. You won’t see your fitness trend move from that session, but your watch won’t think you’re undertrained either.

Can I use this method with trekking poles or on a treadmill?

Yes — the renamed Walking activity tracks the same way as a normal walk in either case. On a treadmill, make sure you’ve calibrated stride length in your Garmin profile for better distance accuracy, since you won’t have GPS to correct it.

Will the activity show up correctly in Garmin Connect’s activity calendar?

It will show up labeled as whatever you named it (“Rucking”) if you used the duplicate-and-rename method, since Garmin Connect respects custom activity names. If you used RuckTrack instead, it’ll log as “Hiking” with the extra load data nested under the Connect IQ tab, not in the main activity title.