What Do The Colors Mean On Garmin Connect?

Do you have a Garmin Connect? Are you not sure what the colors mean and they can improve the use of your Garmin Connect? If you are finding yourself asking these questions, this article can help inform you about what the colors mean on your Garmin Connect and how they can enhance your overall experience.

The colors on Garmin Connect differentiate the tracking of heart rate, pace, and elevation via the route taken. If the route is steeper and varies in terrain, the colors will be able to section where the user’s heart rate, pace, and elevation while en route. Colors can also be activity specific.

To learn more about what each color means on the Garmin Connect, keep reading!

What Do The Colors Mean On Garmin Connect?

Colors For Tracking Routes

When you go on a trail run and the terrain is varying in how steep it is and not only does the Garmin Connect track the roughness of the terrain that you are running on, it tracks how your body is responding to running on that terrain.

This information may seem confusing as to why anyone would be interested or need the data of this part of a trail run but it can be helpful in a number of ways. Having different colors to track your heart rate, pace, and elevation gain can help you read the data more easily and make conclusions and improvements needed in regard to the respective area you are working on.

The default color for heart rate is orange. This means that if you just use the program with the original settings the color orange is going to be indicative of how your heart rate performed throughout the duration of your trail run.

The color of the orange is a lighter shade that will indicate that your heart rate is lower in those areas of terrain on the trail. As the color of the orange gets darker as the trail progresses, that will indicate that your heart rate is getting higher and is more strained in those areas of terrain on the trail.

The default color for pace is green. This means that if you are still just using the original settings of the program the color that will indicate the progression of your pace as you run through the trail during this workout session will show up as green.

The way the color gradient moves is the same as how it is for heart rate. As you run at a slower pace than your average pace, the color gradient will become a lighter green color and as you increase your pace to be faster than your average pace the gradient will progressively get darker which will indicate that your pace was faster during this level of terrain in the trail.

The default color for elevation gain is blue. this means that if you are sticking with the original settings of the program without altering them at all, the color that will show up and will indicate the increase or decrease of elevation gain as you run through the various levels of terrain throughout the trail, will be blue.

As the elevation on the trail stays flat and doesn’t vary, the blue will stay consistent. As the elevation increases the blue will become darker and as the elevation decreases either back to normal or lesser, the blue will become lighter and lighter. This is helpful to know what level of elevation you struggle with.

What Do The Colors Mean On Garmin Connect?

Activity-Specific Colors

Now that we have discussed the colors that specifically are meant to track and show your performance on a trail run, there are also colors that are specific to the overall performance of certain activities that you participate in, not just on a trail run.

Some of these activities include trail runs, strength training, biking, walking, swimming, yoga, and cardio. You can create your own activities if you want more than those basic options and also color specify them as well if you want but these are the ones that automatically come with the program on the Garmin Connect.

The colors of the activities are as follows:

  • Trail Runs: Orange
  • Strength Training: Light Orange
  • Biking: Green
  • Walking: Light Green
  • Swimming: Blue
  • Yoga: Light Blue
  • Cardio: Red

It is important to note that these colors are what you will see on your home activity performance screen.

As you get used to the device and the colors associated with each activity, it will become more convenient to glance at the screen and be able to tell how well you performed in each area without having to click on the ring to tell you what activity that color is referring to.

These colors can also be customized, but these are the default colors that are automatically shown when the device is first set up. If you would like to learn how to customize those colors, the next section will teach you how to do that.

How To Customize Colors

When you first set up your Garmin Connect device there will be default colors for the activities you can track. If you want to customize those colors to colors that you would prefer rather than the default colors this can teach you how to do that.

The first thing you will need to do is to sign into your Garmin Connect account on their website whether that’s on your phone or on your computer. Once you get signed in there should be an option on the sidebar that says “activity”. Click on the “activity” button and that should take you to a page that will have an option on the sidebar to customize your activity colors.

From there you can click on the activity you want to customize the color for and choose from the options it gives you. Once you’re done customizing all the activities that you want to have different colors, don’t forget to save it so the colors change.

You don’t have to customize your colors, you can stick with the default colors if you want, but it can also add a personal and creative touch to your activity rings on your Garmin Connect if you would like to do that.