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About a month ago, I purchased a Whoop, after hearing about it repeatedly within the fitness community and was intrigued. After working really hard on getting my sleep under control, I wanted to dive into some cold hard data and see if I was actually attaining my goals. It’s one thing to feel like you’re improving the quality of your life, but it’s another thing to see it in numbers and graphs.
It’s a subscription based product, so you buy the black standard strap for nothing (other colors start at $25), and you can pre-pay for your subscription. I bought a 12 month subscription for $288, and with taxes and shipping it came out to $315.28. I thought it was pretty pricey, but figured I’d see what the hype was about, and I could always return it if I wasn’t into it.
And at first, I wasn’t into it. Like, at all.
Initial Impression of Whoop
It comes with zero instruction. No little booklet of information. No crash course tutorial on how to use it or what data I’m supposed to be looking for. I went to YouTube and typed in ‘How to Use Whoop’ in order to figure out what to do. Essentially, you download an app, sync it to your whoop strap, and put the strap on your wrist like a watch. (For the record, the strap itself doesn’t give you any information - it is not a watch.)
Then you log into your app. It takes about 5 - 7 days for it to configure and understand your body, so you can’t get too bent out of shape over the first few days’ readings. And I was really bent out of shape. I mean each day it gives you an analysis of your sleep and tells you how recovered you are. 100% recovered means just that, and displays in green. 70% recovered and gives you a yellow reading along with its numerical display, and on day three I woke up at 25% recovered, which displayed in red, and I all but convinced myself I was dying a slow death.
To make matters worse, the strap was meant to be put on tight. That is the one thing they do tell you on the box. But I put it on way too tight, and woke up in the middle of the night on the first day with my hand pretty much blue because I’d cut off circulation. There are little sensors on the bottom of the strap so I was concerned that if I loosened the strap the sensors wouldn’t pick up my heart rate, which is what the entire premise relies upon.
Over the next few days, I loosened it until it became comfortable, and now I don’t even notice it.
So, as you can see, the Whoop and I got off to a rough start. No good instructions, takes a few days to calibrate to my body which I wasn’t prepared for because of the lack of said instructions, and initially, it was extremely uncomfortable (my fault entirely).
So why did I call this post The Recovery Tracker I Never Knew I Needed?
Because my God does it give you so much information.
How Whoop Works
The Whoop is always calibrating your heart rate and analyzing it. This is incredible data, especially if you’re a bit of a nerd like myself. You can open it up and see a graph of what it looked like when you were walking the dog, stressed out and having a touch of road rage, or working out as hard as you possibly could. Or, conversely, when you felt like you were working out hard, but then you opened up the app and dang, your heart rate wasn’t actually that elevated, which lets you know that sometimes I might feel like I’m giving it my all, but I actually have more to give.
The Whoop, with regards to working out, can work two ways. You can hit a button under the Strain section, and boom, it starts recording your heart rate as a workout. Or, because it is tracking your heart rate 24/7, it detects when you are working out or having an elevated heart rate and starts recording it as such. You can also go in and categorize what you were doing during the elevated heart rate. They’ve got everything in there from Commuting to Playing Baseball, which I think it cool because my heart rate is far more elevated when I take a dance class vs when I lift weights, and it’s neat to see.
The Whoop also tracks your sleep, which to me is one of the coolest pieces of information it gives you. You can see a display of your entire night’s sleep the next morning (your sleep is automatically detected, no need for you to record it or put it into the app). It’ll break down your sleep into Awake, Light Sleep, REM Sleep, and SWS Deep Sleep. For example, last night I was in bed for 9 hours, and I was Awake for 1:02 of those hours, spent 3:21 hours in Light Sleep, 2:02 in REM Sleep, and 2:35 in SWS Deep Sleep. It also tracks the number of disturbances throughout the night. It also tracks Sleep Latency - the time it takes from you being fully awake to sleep, and Sleep Efficiency which is the percentage of time you spend in bed that you are actually asleep.
Then, based on your sleep and Heart Rate Variability (which I am still trying to grasp), it computes how recovered you are, and will give you suggestions as to what kind of Strain to take on that day. For example, right now, on Day 4 of my vacation, I am 99% recovered. (I’ve never been that high before), and it suggests my body is ready for a major Strain (workout). I won’t be doing it, because I’m dealing with a slight hip impingement, but it’s pretty cool to see.
It also analyzes your sleep performance and can coach you on how much sleep to aim for depending on your goals the next day. Just want to Get By tomorrow? Get X amount of sleep, it says. Want to give Peak Performance? Get this amount of sleep, it says.
It also gives you Weekly Performance Assessments that become available after 28 days of use. These assessments give you an overview of the Strains (workouts) you’ve put out, an overview of your Sleep Status, and Sleep Performance (I am currently 6% higher than women in my age category, WHOOP! See what I did there? lol).
It will also tell you how many calories you’ve burned throughout the day, and how charged the strap is. You do need to charge it once every five days or so for about an hour. It comes with a charger that you just slide over the strap so you don’t even have to take it off. It does make the strap a bit bulky, but it really only needs an hour or so to charge so it’s not a big deal. The Whoop strap and sensors are waterproof so no need to worry while swimming, showering, or washing the dishes, but the charger is not waterproof.
I thought the novelty of all that information would wear off but so far, after a month, it hasn’t. I am loving all the information and learning more about my body and how to live and sleep more optimally, so I feel better. I am so thankful I stuck it out because I was not into it at all at first. If I were to change anything, I would say I wish they would include a booklet of instructions because it felt like it was pretty much on me to figure out how to use it. That said, I did it and feel like I know what I’m doing now, but for the sake of simplicity, it’d be nice to have some instructions. I love this thing and cannot see myself without it!
If you’re into this type of information and want to check it out you can use my affiliate link which will give you $30 off.