WHOOP - We’re BIG Fans!
Ever wonder what a Whoop Strap is or what it does? A couple months ago, I wondered the same thing but dismissed my curiosity as just another want of the fickle consumer in me. With so many biometric devices on the market, Whoop just seemed like another device that would report perhaps not altogether useless data but maybe not entirely useful data either. Having now worn one long enough to potentially see the advertised benefits, here are my thoughts.
(The TL;DR here is Whoop is worth the investment. )
The Strap is essentially ready for use out of the box. After unpacking, you begin by syncing it up to your phone and then adjusting the band to your wrist. Once it’s on it’s basically on for good which, to be honest, was an adjustment for me. Having never been one to wear bracelets or even a watch, I had to consciously keep myself from taking off the band. (The device requires three sleep cycles of wear to calibrate to your body.) That adjustment period quickly passed however; the strap itself is light and unobtrusive. The initial data was interesting (e.g. hours and quality of sleep, daily strain level, etc.) but not necessarily altogether useful; however, when the full features unlocked after the calibration period, I immediately saw how those metrics could immediately impact my daily habits and optimize my performance both in and out of the gym.
Without going too much into the nuts and bolts of the thing, the two game-changing features for me were (and continue to be) the sleep coach and the strain coach. As someone who’s historically been terrible at sleeping much or even deeply (prior to using the sleep coach, I averaged somewhere between 4-5 hours of sleep), Whoop’s sleep coach was the kick in the butt I needed to motivate myself to bed earlier and maybe not have that nightcap three or four times a week. Since employing the sleep coach, I’ve raised my average sleep to 5-6 hours and am seeing sleep efficiency improve (via respiratory rate, hours of Deep and REM sleep, and number of disturbances). You can set your target performance and the sleep coach will adjust the requisite hours necessary for that level of performance; so, for instance, if I know I’m going to have a high intensity workout on Friday — whether that’s max effort on the assault bike or volume sets of heavy-ish squats — all I have to do is set Friday as a high performance day and the sleep coach will calculate recommended hours of sleep. This isn’t just a number calculated within the context of that day, however; go too many days with sub-optimal sleep and, come Friday, the strain coach will suggest a target strain level that isn’t permissive of the programmed workout.
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Now the strain coach, though not as personally useful as the sleep coach, has also helped me beyond anticipating the perceived and actual exertion of a workout but has also helped me structure intra-workout rest intervals. Rather than intuiting a general rest interval of 3-5 min between sets of high intensity strength work, the Whoop Strap has provided live feedback telling me exactly when my heart rate has come back down to a general baseline. Within the strain coach and in the general interface as well, there’s a fun function that permits recording video that also displays strain, heart rate, and calories; though it’s perhaps inconvenient to record every set you crank out, it provides a valuable means of tracking strain per set. Plus, as I mentioned above, it’s fun and maybe that’s a good enough of a reason to record your sets. Pair all this with the recovery function, and I’ve been surprised to find myself under-performing in workouts I didn’t think I was sandbagging, and equally surprised to find I shouldn’t push myself on days that I might’ve trick myself or caffeinated myself into thinking I’m better recovered than I am.
Tracking all these metrics requires zero effort. The Whoop Strap will automatically detect activity and sleep; all you have to do is turn on the app and occasionally identify what activity it was that you performed. Doing absolutely nothing, Whoop can help you identify patterns that ultimately help structure your sleep schedule, optimize your fitness programming, and both of these not just across days but even weeks and months for which the app provides a weekly and monthly performance assessment which will not only make sleep and performance suggestions but will clearly bias mean values and identify outliers for what they are. The Whoop Strap will also place you within a demographic to show how aligned or how far off its population mean your sleep and strain behaviors are.
In the brief month+ I’ve had my Whoop strap, they’ve updated a number of features and the firmware itself. There are a number of fun functions that allow for a social aspect that is ripe for those more competitive-minded, and there are so many other metrics not mentioned above. You can log all your workouts and see which have been the most demanding; you can monitor changes in heart rate variability (HRV) (which is awesome but I won’t get too much into as a future blog post will elaborate on how valuable tracking HRV can be); you can track how recovery correlates to strain, what percentage of your days are high/low strain and high/low recovery; you can track average daily caloric expenditure; and so much more. Of course, as with any data, it’s really as useful as you make it to be, and I do find some of the metrics can (and likely will) be better integrated; but even having just scratched the surface, Whoop has been a game changer for me.
The practical aspects of wearing the strap have their pros and cons. The strap, unlike a number of its competitors, doesn’t provide any actual function beyond the biosensor. Sometimes, I think it’d be nice if there was even just a clock function, step counter, etc., but the flip side of that is the minimalist design keeps the device compact and convenient to use. For instance, as there’s no display, one charge can last a week and the charging process itself is as simple as sliding a “puck” or external battery over the device — meaning you can track while charging — and it only takes fifteen-ish minutes to charge for the rest of the week.
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As with any purchase, I’d recommend going straight to the source and evaluating the Strap’s value from the Whoop website as well as reading about others’ experiences; but, for this trainer, I’d highly recommend the Whoop Strap. As it’s not necessarily limited by its minimalist design, I’d imagine a Whoop Strap’s lifetime would far exceeds its competitors for whom the hardware might quickly become defunct. The app has improved in the short time I’ve used Whoop which foretells active improvement and progressive value for its lifetime. For those with an eye for pragmatism, minimalism, and great data, this is likely the best option at this price point.
Functionality: 5/5
Design: 5/5
Price: $
