Virtual Climb - Angels LandingRecord a floor climbing activity with 1,500 feet of ascent.Virtual Climb - Mist TrailRecord a floor climbing activity with 1,000 feet of ascent.Virtual Climb - Druid ArchRecord a floor climbing activity with 735 feet of ascent.Virtual Climb - The NarrowsRecord a floor climbing activity with 334 feet of ascent.

You're grinding away on the Stairmaster at your gym, but your Garmin stair climbing badges stay at zero? You're not alone. This is a well-known issue: Garmin watches only count floors when they detect the elevation pattern of a real staircase — meaning a brief horizontal pause between floors. The Stairmaster moves continuously without that pause, so your watch simply doesn't register the floors climbed.

The good news: there's an easy fix.

Why Garmin Doesn't Count the Stairmaster

Garmin watches use a built-in barometric altimeter to detect floors. The logic is: roughly 3 meters of elevation gain followed by a short horizontal phase (the landing between floors). On a Stairmaster, the motion is continuous — there's no pause, no landing. The watch doesn't interpret this as "stair climbing" and counts nothing.

The Fix: Edit the Activity Manually

The workaround is straightforward: manually start a Stair Climbing activity on your Garmin watch, do your Stairmaster workout as usual, then enter the floors climbed from the machine's display into Garmin Connect afterward.

Step by Step

1. Start the activity: Before stepping onto the Stairmaster, start a Stair Stepper (or Stair Climbing) activity on your Garmin watch.

2. Do your workout: Complete your Stairmaster session as normal. The watch records time and heart rate — the floor count will simply be missing for now.

3. Save the activity: End and save the activity on your watch as usual.

4. Open Garmin Connect: Open the Garmin Connect app on your phone and navigate to the activity you just saved.

5. Edit the activity: Tap the three-dot menu or the pencil icon and select Edit.

6. Enter the floors: Type in the number of floors shown on the Stairmaster's display into the floors field.

7. Save and enjoy: Save the activity — Garmin Connect will now calculate whether you've hit any stair climbing badge thresholds. Congrats!

Which Floor Count Should You Enter?

Just check the Stairmaster's display: most machines show the total floors (or stories) completed during your session. Enter that number directly into Garmin Connect.