What’s a WHOOP? It’s whatever I want it to be!
WHOOP unlocks a trove of data about you. Use it anyway you want. There’s no right or wrong answer here. Here is a collection of photos taken of my WHOOP in different settings along with screenshots of the app and its data.
What do you want WHOOP to be?
When I applied to law school, I started the essay for my application with this lawyer joke . . . An elementary school teacher, a statistician, and a lawyer each apply for a job which requires an interview. They were called into the interview room one at a time to answer one question before a panel – “What is two plus two?”
The elementary school teacher went first, and simply answered, “Four.”
The statistician then gave a more complex answer taking into account probabilities and variation, answering “Four with a possible deviation of eight percent.”
The lawyer went in last, and when asked the question, closed the door, walked up to the panel of interviewers, looked around the otherwise empty room, and then leaned in and answered, “What do you want it to be?”
I told this joke in my law school application to write about how much I looked forward to learning all that the law has to offer and keeping an open mind to its possibilities, but I tell it here because when I am asked the question, “What is a WHOOP?”, I think the best response is, “It’s whatever you want it to be!”
First, let me say that the WHOOP has been the single most important piece of fitness tech that I have ever owned. There are many reasons for this, but one overarching principle behind this is that the WHOOP, and my use of it, have both been constantly evolving since the day that I first got mine four years ago.
Finding out it was just my 4th anniversary with WHOOP by using its AI feature.
That summer was pivotal for my fitness because, like many others, mine was spent isolated during COVID lockdowns. Gyms were closed; personal training was off; and I had health issues that made me particularly cautious against contracting the virus. Without my trainer guiding me through a workout routine, I had to take my fitness into my own hands more than ever before. I saw that the WHOOP was gaining lots of publicity, as many athletes were new to using the device. Incidentally, it also detected COVID in some of them even days before any positive test, but let me start with the basics.
Broadly, the WHOOP provides data on three categories – Recovery, Strain, and Sleep. These are the foundations for living a fit life.
Recovery
Every morning, WHOOP calculates a Recovery score when you wake up which is based on an algorithm that factors in various metrics including, heart rate variance (HRV), resting heart rate (RHR), sleep performance, and respiratory rate.
Your recovery score will appear in one of three categories – green (> 66%), yellow (34-66%), or red (<34 %).
A fairly even breakdown of possible recovery scores over a week.
The score reflects how much your body is ready to take on that day. The higher the score, the more strain you can handle. That said, don’t ignore the most important thing — listening to your body. If your WHOOP says you are in the green, but your body feels like it is in the red, then it would be foolish to ignore your body. Your WHOOP may know you well, but you know you better.
As I said, WHOOP can be whatever you want it to be. Your recovery score is data that can help you learn your body in both the short term and long term. How you use it is up to you. Everything you do in a day can affect your recovery score from the amount of strain you take on, to what you eat or drink, to how and when you sleep. WHOOP tracks certain behaviors and also has a journal feature where you can log others. Then WHOOP provides analytics to show how those behaviors affect your recovery. Examples of behaviors that have a positive impact on my recovery include, early workouts, sauna, consistent bed time, and sleeping in my own bed, while those that negatively impact my recovery are alcohol, late meals, and high strain days.
Some behaviors that help my recovery score. Others like alcohol which have been shown to hurt my recovery score do not appear anymore because I have not logged enough “Yes” entries (need at least 5) over the past 90 days.
Most days, I use my recovery score to determine how hard I can workout. I go to bed every night with three workouts in mind for the next day – a hard one, a medium one, and something light. When I wake up in the green, and my body feels in line with that, I am ready to go hard. Conversely, when I am in the red, I know it is a day that I should go lighter to focus on restoring my body. Most days, what my WHOOP says generally aligns with how I feel.
My schedule, like many others, has variation to it. When I am at trial, my recovery scores generally run much lower than when I am back in my normal routine. Stress and lack of sleep will greatly impact the trend. I know there is no avoiding more days in the red during that time, but the key is that I use the data to address whatever it is my body needs to whatever extent I can.
Strain
The next major category that WHOOP calculates is Strain. Strain measures a combination of cardiovascular and muscular exertion and generally reflects the amount of energy you expend in a day. At a basic level, more strain generally means more calories burned, but more is not always better.
WHOOP provides an optimal strain range for each day based on your recovery score. Staying in the optimal range is a good way to maintain your fitness and be ready to take on more the next day. Going above the optimal range is considered overreaching while going under it is restorative. Overreaching can lead to greater fitness gains but may also require additional rest and recovery. More strain leads to the need for more sleep. Conversely, a restorative day that goes below optimal strain could be a good way to set yourself up for an intense day that is coming ahead.
WHOOP’s daily overview showing optimal (left), overreaching (middle), and restorative (right) strain levels.
As my use of the WHOOP evolved, I focused more on the optimal strain range and trying to achieve it each day. Initially, I merely observed the data within my usual routine and some days I hit the optimal range while others were either below or above it. I learned that, for me, the most cardio intensive workouts lead to the highest strain levels while strength training or shorter workouts tend to stay in a somewhat lower range. Focusing on this metric proves to be particularly beneficial on days when my recovery is high. I know I have no choice but to kill it! On low recovery days, I often don’t hesitate to exceed the optimal range unless my body tells me not to, but I always try to question myself about it first if I am going to exceed WHOOP’s recommendation.
Each Monday, WHOOP provides a weekly report that lets you know if your week was optimal, restorative, or overreaching.
From WHOOP’s Weekly Performance Assessment showing an optimal strain week (left) and an overreaching week (right).
WHOOP also tracks your activities from workouts to recovery methods either by detecting them on its own or by having the workout and time of it manually entered into the app.
Using my WHOOP to log all activities from workouts to recovery.
Since I am a data junkie, I also keep a spreadsheet every year that tracks my workouts each day and my weekly patterns. In recent years, I added columns that track whether I reach weekly optimal strain levels or above in an effort to best achieve that goal. In 2023, my first year tracking it, I was either optimal or overreached 39 out of 52 weeks. The early part of the year was slower, but seeing the data helped me develop a pattern that ultimately achieved at least optimal strain every week. So far, in 2024, I’ve been at optimal or have overreached every week.
My workout spreadsheets from the end of 2023 (left) and through yesterday for 2024 (right).
While this is how I use my WHOOP strain data, by no means does this mean it is how you should use it. This is merely where I am in the process today as I learn more and more each day about how my WHOOP can help me. Every year – often even every month or every day – has been different in terms of how I use it. I’ve adopted new habits in using my WHOOP and abandoned some old ones. But embracing WHOOP’s strain data has taught me when to go harder and when not to (to the extent I can bring myself to listen to that). At one phase in my journey, I had to learn how to better reach the highest levels. Now, my biggest need may be learning to let myself reach lower levels when necessary – especially when my sleep levels are low.
Not exactly a model of going lower when my recovery is lower. This week landed me in the overreaching category.
Sleep
Which brings me to the WHOOP measurement that feels like the hardest one to control over the long term – Sleep.
First, WHOOP provides three basic categories for the sleep you achieve – not enough sleep (< 70%), enough to get by (70-84%), and optimal sleep (85+%).
The WHOOP learns your body, your sleep habits, and your circadian rhythm to determine how much sleep you need.
WHOOP also has a planning feature that provides the optimal window for your sleep where you can choose which sleep category to shoot for - Peak, Perform, or Get By. When I know I am not going to get much sleep, I use it to let me know how much I need to just get by. When I have the luxury of getting more sleep, I aim for performing or peaking.
WHOOP’s Sleep Planner lets you plan the best timing for the sleep you are aiming to achieve.
Then WHOOP analyzes your overnight sleep to determine how much you got and what the quality of it was. I’ve learned some behaviors that can impact the quality of my sleep, such as putting on blue light blocking glasses an hour or two before bed – which is especially important when I cannot always stop my screen time so early. Wearing blue light blocking glasses before bed leads to a higher percentage of deep sleep during the night, which promotes recovery (deep sleep is the part of sleep where your body restores itself physically).
WHOOP breaks down the various stages of your sleep. I was low on SWS (Deep) sleep that night.
During periods when I have a more regular schedule, I can control my sleep better and get more of it, but for much of my year, I simply cannot. When at trial, I get low sleep for the entire time. Lately, balancing work, the blog, and my Pearl Jam tour from a few weeks ago has cost me in this category. Sleep debt and strain are the biggest factors that increase sleep need. When I need to perform on a given day, and I know I won’t sleep much, that’s a good day to go lighter on my strain. Other days, I may know I won’t get much sleep but still push it hard when I don’t have to worry about the next day. The point here, is that the data helps, and you can use it to your advantage.
From WHOOP’s weekly report showing sleep consistency. Some weeks are just better than others.
Getting enough sleep – especially at the times that you need it most – is part of winning the day, but sometimes winning comes from anticipating when you won’t get enough and incorporating the proper amount of strain to account for it.
Don’t let WHOOP stress you out!
Finally, a key lesson to learn as you embark on a WHOOP journey is — don’t let the WHOOP stress you out! The first time I drank alcohol when I had my WHOOP, my recovery was in the red the next morning. I played golf that day and did not play well. But was that because I was in the red, or was it because I let the fact that I was in the red get to my head? You never know where you will land each day until you wake up, but regardless of the outcome, you are still there to win the day. Also know that WHOOP has a feature where you can hide your recovery if you fell you are better off not knowing on a certain day. Quite frankly, there are probably times I would be better off turning on that feature, but I just can’t! Yet.
There’s much more that a WHOOP can do, and I’ll have more to say about it throughout this journey, but the last thought I will leave you with is – first, use your WHOOP to get to know yourself better, and then use it to make yourself better! Your data, like your journey is a long game. And WHOOP has lots of longer term trend data to show that too . . .
6-month trends for Recovery (left), Strain (middle), and Sleep (right)
A section of WHOOP’s Monthly Performance Assessment that illustrates long-term data over the past year for Strain (top), Recovery (middle) and Sleep (bottom).
Aaron