When it comes to exercise and training, most of us put our emphasis on how hard we're pushing ourselves during the workout. But, it's recovery that can play the biggest part in your performance - no matter your sporting discipline.
That's where WHOOP fits in. It analyzes your activity levels and sleep performance to let you know precisely how recovered you are before your next session.
How does it all work? Let us explain.
WHOOP during workouts
The WHOOP Strap 3.0 can be used for a wide range of exercises. It’s small, lightweight and waterproof, so it has no trouble going from the track, to the pool, to the weight room - all the while tracking actionable strain data.
Packed inside the WHOOP Strap 3.0 is an advanced heart rate monitor that separates it from other wearables. WHOOP used this to present you with real-time heart rate data and a live strain score based on the cardiovascular load you are putting on your body. The Strain Coach also gives you an optimal strain target to aim for during your workouts so you won’t push yourself too hard, or quite too soon and leave potential fitness gains on the table.
This level of understanding is key to avoiding overtraining and any potential injuries, and has made WHOOP extremely popular with professional athletes across the NFL, NBA, MLB, PGA Tour, CrossFIt, and more.
Wear it where you want
One of the strengths of the WHOOP Strap 3.0 is that you have a choice of how you want to wear it. As the standard you’ll probably mostly keep it on your wrist, but you can also wear it higher up your forearm or across your bicep.
That’s great news for sports or exercises that require wrist wraps, team athletes looking to wear the device in games under their uniform, or contact sports that make it awkward to have anything on your wrist.
Achieving 360 fitness
Since the WHOOP Strap 3.0 is designed to be worn 24/7, it also detects the strain you’re putting on your body outside of workouts.
Anything that elevates your heart rate, such as carrying shopping bags, playing with your kids, or even a stressful day at work, will all have an impact on your strain levels. All of this is then tallied together along with your workout strain to provide you an overall Day Strain score.
But it’s not just about what happens to your body during the day.. When you wear WHOOP at night it monitors your sleep duration and sleep quality, measuring in detail exactly how much time you spend in each stage of sleep. This insight proves to be extremely useful in understanding how your sleep impacts your recovery.
It’s all about recovery
This is where the WHOOP Strap 3.0 goes one step further than a normal sleep or activity tracker. It augments the data with your workout goals to recommend exactly how much sleep you need in order to adequately recover. You can also program in the days when you want peak performance in order to better prepare your mind and body.
WHOOP uses your sleep performance, resting heart rate and heart rate variability (the variation in time between each heartbeat and a great indicator of your body’s readiness to perform) to calculate your daily recovery score each morning. Color coded as red, yellow or green, you’ll know at a glance just what your body is capable of handling that day.
How we test
Before joining Wareable, Richard was Wearables and Fitness editor and then commercial content editor at Trusted Reviews.
He's also written for Expert Reviews and Computer Shopper magazine, covering every aspect of the tech world.
Richard still reviews tech to this day, with a particularly keen interest in where wearables are going around strength performance and conditioning.
He's now your go to writer for all of the best deals and discounts. You'll otherwise find him powerlifting in a gym somewhere.