Five Hacks Every Fitness Watch User Should Know

Whether you've just unboxed your first running watch or you've been logging miles with one for years, there's a good chance you're only scratching the surface of what it can do. Beyond simply tracking your run, today's smartwatches are packed with features that, with a little know-how, can genuinely transform your training. Here are ten hacks to help you get more out of your smartwatch running companion.

Try wearing your fitness watch somewhere other than your wrist

In terms of placement, your wrist isn't the only option. Upper arm placement can actually improve optical heart rate accuracy by giving the sensor better contact with a meatier part of the body, with less wrist-movement noise. It's an underused trick that can be especially useful during rowing, strength training, or any activity where wrist movement interferes with readings.

Display lap pace instead of current pace

Current pace—the real-time speed your watch calculates from GPS—sounds like exactly what you'd want to see mid-run. In practice, your "current pace" number can jump around constantly, spiking and dropping in response to GPS signal fluctuations or brief changes in effort.

The general consensus among runners (at least in running subreddits) is that lap pace is the smarter alternative. It shows your average pace for the current lap or interval, smoothing out the noise for a more stable readout. During any kind of workout where consistency is the whole point, glancing down and seeing a steady lap pace tells you far more about how you're actually performing than a current pace figure that's bouncing every few seconds. Swap it in through your data field settings (most watches support it across all run profiles) and you'll wonder why you ever ran without it.

Use your fitness watch's hot keys and customizable buttons

Most running watches allow you to assign shortcuts to physical buttons or gestures, but not enough runners ever bother to set them up. You can assign shortcuts to bring up the weather or the stopwatch, to save your current location, to turn on a “night shift” mode, and more. If you find yourself repeatedly diving into the same sub-menus before or after a run, assigning them to a button shortcut can save time and frustration.

Let's use Garmin's features as an example. By going to the settings menu and selecting System and then Shortcuts (previously “Hot Keys”), you can assign features to long presses or combination button presses. Beth shares that on her watch, she holds the DOWN button to bring up music controls, and the BACK button to turn the touchscreen on or off.

Disable the fitness watch's touchscreen during activities

Touchscreen running watches are the norm these days, but an accidental mid-run swipe can pause your activity, skip to the next screen or—worst of all—end your session entirely. If your watch allows it, disable the touchscreen during activities. This is especially important in wet weather or when you're wearing a long sleeve top that brushes the display. This setting might be buried in the activity settings or accessibility options. Find it, switch it on, and never accidentally stop your watch at mile three of a rainy long run again.

Do a factory reset of your fitness watch if it's feeling stale

This one sounds drastic, but it's a legitimate trick that many serious runners swear by. Your watch builds its fitness models (VO2 max, training load, recovery time) from accumulated data over time. But if you've recently lost significant weight, recovered from a long injury, gone through a period of illness, or simply noticed that your HRV and sleep stats have been stubbornly poor for weeks with no explanation, that historical data can actually anchor your watch to an outdated version of you.

The fix: Log into your watch platform from a computer, export or note any data you want to keep, then factory reset the device. In Garmin, you select “Delete Data and Reset Settings” option to clear all performance metrics. You'll also need to delete the data within your companion app, since it's usually saved there as a back-up. The point of this is a running watch equivalent of rebooting a computer that's been running too long. You can wipe the slate clean and let your watch rebuild a fresh, accurate baseline from where you actually are right now, rather than where you were months or years ago.