Powering Women’s Health: Optimization & Innovation with Garmin 

Wearables like Garmin give women unprecedented access to personal health data, allowing fitness and wellness providers to tailor experiences to their needs during pregnancy, perimenopause and menopause

Gym and fitness providers are providing more individualized experiences that acknowledge the evolving needs of their customers, including women. With recent advances in women’s health research and femtech, there is a significant opportunity to create digital solutions that deliver relevant support. By utilizing the Garmin Health Connected Ecosystem (GHCE), organizations can combine biometric data, app integrations and meaningful insights to tailor programs to women, strengthening engagement and ultimately driving results.

When Garmin wearables, including the screenless CIRQA™ Smart Band, are connected to a third-party platform through the Garmin Health API or SDK, organizations can support their users by analyzing a wide variety of data points collected via 24/7 monitoring.

“While fitness programming has historically focused on activity and exercise performance, modifiable lifestyle factors — including recovery, stress and sleep — are recognized more than ever as essential components to a holistic fitness and wellness plan,” said Andy Beckman, Director of Garmin Health B2B Sales for the Americas. “For women, the role these variables play in metabolic health makes them even more important considerations in the context of exercise and training”

Through the GHCE, gyms, trainers and coaches can integrate health and activity data from Garmin wearables into third-party platforms, creating experiences that extend beyond workouts and helping members better understand how daily behaviors influence their overall health and wellness.

Incorporating Metabolic Health

Metabolic health is a vital topic related to women’s wellness as awareness grows around insulin regulation, weight management and the role hormones play in overall well-being. While generalized recommendations, which fail to consider varying energy levels, recovery needs or lifestyles, remain prevalent, Garmin is working to replace them. 

“Many Garmin Health collaborators are providing new services to women that include metabolic health insights,” Beckman said. “The result is individualized feedback, a more comprehensive understanding of health and better outcomes for women navigating hormonal changes in different stages of life.”

These insights support goals related to recovery, weight management, stress reduction and overall wellness. 

Rather than focusing exclusively on exercise and in-gym programming, they present fitness operators with an opportunity to develop expanded coaching services, accountability programs and wellness challenges that support metabolic health. Things like skin temperature, sleep score, stress tracking and fitness readiness all integrate easily through the Garmin Health API, an essential part of the GHCE. The Garmin Women’s Health API offers additional insights including menstrual cycle and pregnancy tracking as well.

Insights Evolving Over Time

Because women’s health needs evolve over time as hormone levels rise or fall, personalized services are required to help them address the plethora of reported symptoms and experiences associated with premenopause, perimenopause or menopause. Whether it’s an expectant mother, busy professional or woman experiencing hot flashes, they’ll benefit from guidance that evolves alongside their journey.

“One advantage of continuous data is the emergence of trends and patterns over time,” Beckman noted. “For women navigating changes in hormonal health, this could be represented in variations in sleep quality, stress or HRV. A trainer or coach can’t see that during an hour-long gym session, but it becomes more visible when there is a digital health solution through the GHCE.”

This empowers relevant conversations around training readiness, exercise volume and healthy habits while enabling members to better understand the relationship between daily behaviors and long-term wellness goals.

An Ecosystem Beyond the Physical Gym

However, customizing experiences at scale requires more than wearable hardware alone. By integrating data into third-party apps like coaching platforms and member engagement solutions, organizations are maximizing value and differentiating themselves from competitors. 

Additionally, the Garmin Connect™ app offers several features designed specifically for women. Menstrual cycle tracking enables women to track cycles, log physical and emotional symptoms, add personal notes, and get exercise and nutrition education. Period and fertility predictions are available and become more accurate with each log. 

Select wearables are also capable of receiving past ovulation estimates based on overnight skin temperature and cycle data (The menstrual cycle tracking feature should not be used in support of conception, contraception or birth control. This is not a medical device and is not intended for diagnosing or monitoring any medical condition. See Garmin.com/ataccuracy).

The Opportunity Ahead

By choosing an ecosystem that supports women’s health and wellness beyond one specific app or service, gyms and fitness companies are providing women with a range of potential resources that complement what they are doing inside and outside of the gym. Additionally, since Garmin devices offer outstanding battery life and 24/7 monitoring capabilities, coaches and personal trainers can view a wide range of member behaviors while reducing the friction of daily charging or inconsistent data collection.

The fitness industry continues to evolve, and improving digital offerings for women represents one of the most significant opportunities in recent memory. As consumer expectations shift toward personalized wellness experiences, fitness operators have an opportunity to strengthen loyalty, increase engagement and deliver greater value through data-driven coaching. 

By acknowledging the unique metabolic factors associated with women’s health and incorporating 24/7 biometric monitoring, gym and fitness organizations can develop programs and experiences that generate engagement, improve retention and support long-term health goals. Through the GHCE, these businesses have access to the wearable devices and integration options required to support women’s fitness through every stage of life.

To learn more about how gyms and fitness providers can utilize high quality data to bolster communication and community, visit the Garmin Health Gyms & Fitness page, sign up for the Garmin Health newsletter, or email Andy Beckman, Director of Garmin Health B2B Sales for the Americas.