Interesting Ways to Keep Occupied and Catch Your Breath Between Sets

If you’re like us, then you hate downtime, even when it’s only a few minutes, be efficient and use the downtime resting between sets to do something else entertaining or productive. Whether you’re stretching and keeping limber for the next exercise, having a short mental stimulation break and playing a game, or practicing mindfulness, keeping occupied between sets at the gym is efficiency at its peak.

When you push it at the gym, you should be allowing yourself a quick few minutes between sets so your body can reset and you can catch your breath. The main point of these short breaks should be recovery, but they can be used for more than just rest. By engaging in various activities outside of just staring at the wall, you can get your mind working at the same time and potentially even boost your workout. This article will explore some interesting and, we hope, fun ideas to occupy yourself while you catch your breath between sets.

Stretching And Mobility Exercises

While you should primarily stretch before and after a gym session, not during, a little extra mobility exercise isn’t a bad thing. The best types of stretching to do quickly between sets should be simple and should target either the muscle you just worked or the one you’re about to work. A key thing to remember about stretching and mobility around workouts is that if you are planning to use those muscles you want to be focused on dynamic stretches that will keep those muscles warmed up and engaged. A 2023 study in Sports Medicine – Open suggests that stretching during and before workouts can have a marginal effect on improving range of motion.

Play Online Casino Games

Okay, hear us out. It might seem odd at first, but using your recovery time between sets to play a quick game of something like blackjack or slots is a good way to refresh yourself. Doing something fun like engaging in the best online casino experience for Canadian players will give you a dopamine boost, which will help you feel good and feel mentally ready to push through the next set. The key here is choosing games that only require a small amount of time to play, so that it hits that perfect two or three-minute interval that you need to get your breath back, but not long enough that you start cooling off too much. Many online platforms and apps are built with intuitive and simple controls so that they are perfect for banging out a quick game and they can just about perfectly fit our criteria for time.

Focusing On Your Breathwork

You should always be focused on your breath when exercising for a number of reasons, both to improve your own performance and to reduce the risk of injury. Between sets, focusing even deeper on your breathwork can help you to reach a stable recovery state faster, shortening the gap between sets and getting you through your workout slightly faster.

Doing this will have the added benefit of keeping or getting you focused for the next set and being focused is important.

An unfocused workout is probably a sloppy one, and you might hurt yourself when your technique gets sloppy. Breathwork is of particular importance if you are about to head into a particularly intensive workout. Keeping the oxygen flow to muscles up will help prevent fatigue and allow you to push further.

Record Your Progress

If you’re serious about working out, then you’re probably already doing some form of tracking. We think that using the time between sets to jot down notes about the last set is a great idea, and over time it would allow you to check the numbers of your last time doing the next activity. This can be a great way to keep yourself motivated as you improve over time and an excellent way for you to keep an eye on how close you’re getting to your fitness goals.

Make Sure You’re Hydrated

It might sound silly, but making it part of your routine to always fill up your water bottle in the gap between certain sets can be a good idea. While you exercise you need to drink lots of water, especially if you’re using supplements like creatine. Making sure that your water bottle is getting finished a couple of times a session should ensure that you are optimally hydrated and you aren’t running low on fluids.

While we may look great when we’re a little dehydrated according to sources like the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) having as little as 2% body weight dehydration can reduce physical performance. This can be a good time to have a quick recharge snack as well. Things like protein bars or bananas make excellent healthy snacks for long workouts if you need a quick boost of energy.

To conclude, while there shouldn’t be big gaps between sets, filling those small moments with other activities is a great idea. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, stretching, journalling or engaging in a quick casino game for a mental break, what matters is that you’re doing something that will boost your next set. All of these activities can have slightly different benefits, so choosing one of them that properly aligns with what you think you need is the real trick.