Understanding Hill Score on My Garmin Watch

The Hill Score feature found on advanced Garmin® watches helps you understand your current capacity for uphill running. For this feature to provide meaningful insight, it is important to regularly record outdoor runs with GPS and heart rate. This will help ensure your running VO2 max reflects your current fitness level while also providing additional performance data necessary for the Hill Score analysis. 

For more information on how to get a VO2 max estimate, see   What Is VO2 Max Estimate and How Does It Work?

When you record a running, walking or hiking activity with your compatible Garmin device, uphill segments with a grade of more than 2% are automatically detected and analyzed. Your most recent activities have the greatest influence on your current hill score, but several months of data are considered in the analysis. Your watch will also offer advice on how to become a better and stronger uphill runner. The analytics engine used to calculate your score will also provides personalized insight to help you improve.

For additional information about hill score, including hill endurance and hill strength, check out our Running Science page.

To see if your watch supports Hill Score and get instructions for how to add the glance to your glance loop, see your owner's manual.

The gauge on the watch displays a score of 1 to 100 along with a corresponding expertise level. Below is a key to the above information: