How to Pause Workout on WHOOP (What You Need to Know)

Whether you got a phone call in the middle of an exercise, have to go to the bathroom, or are just segmenting your workouts, you might be wondering how to pause workout on WHOOP?

This happened to me the other day on a long hike. I wanted to pause the workout at the top of the mountain so I could enjoy the view before heading back down.

And of course, there were no guides available. So here it is. Continue reading to find out the details of pausing exercises on a WHOOP strap.

How to Pause Workout on WHOOP

Unfortunately, the Whoop strap doesn’t allow you to pause an exercise like other traditional fitness trackers, such as the Apple Watch.

Instead, Whoop’s design focuses on continuous monitoring. This provides users with uninterrupted data collection, as it captures your movement, strain, and recovery, 24/7.

While it may seem like you’re missing out on an important feature, it actually benefits you because it is collecting additional data, leading to more in-depth insights.

Let’s talk more about why.

WHOOP’s Continuous Monitoring

As mentioned, the entire point of Whoop’s system is its continuous data collection mechanism. Let’s talk a little bit more about how this is relevant to its lack of ability to pause exercises.

• Uninterrupted Data Collection: WHOOP’s design is built around capturing data without any interruption, which allows it to offer users richer and more detailed analytics.
• Automatic Activity Recognition: Without needing to start or stop a session, WHOOP can recognize varying activity intensities, understanding when you’re active and when you’re at rest.
• Strain and Recovery Metrics: With non-stop monitoring, WHOOP precisely calculates the strain you’re putting on your body and the recovery you need afterward.

Knowing this, it becomes easier to understand why WHOOP doesn’t allow you to pause a workout.

Say you have to take a quick bathroom break mid workout, your heart rate will still be elevated during that time.

That elevated heart rate means you’re still burning calories, and that data will be relevant to your overall daily strain.

There is simply no benefit, from a data collection standpoint, to be able to pause WHOOP exercises.

Alternatives to Pausing WHOOP Workouts

While Whoop doesn’t offer a pause feature, there’s a strategy employed by some users for specific workout scenarios:

Segmenting Your Workouts

If you’re engaging in activities where you’d prefer not to have breaks included in the total duration, like taking a moment at the mountain peak during a hike the solution would be to stop and then start a new workout session.

This way, you effectively segment or ‘pause’ your activities. Though it’s not a direct “pause” function, it offers a solution for those wanting precise log times without breaks skewing the data.

The downside to this is that you can’t combine the two segmented workouts at the end. They will remain segmented forever, unless you manually update the first using the data from the second segmentation.

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