My experience echoes many in here. I tried it for 6 months @ $30/month. Overall I loved the analytics and monthly reports. It sort of became an obsession each morning to see green. But at the end of the day, it changed literally nothing in my life.
I focused on sleep hygiene, but life still happens and I could only control so much. I have a work schedule and a training schedule - I don’t have a coach, I follow plan builder. So recovery scores were a competition, but had absolutely no impact on my training. Red on Saturday morning w/ 90 min over unders in week 5 of base? Still doing it. Red again Sunday w/ 2 hours of sweet spot? Still doing it.
And I agree with those that say the HR accuracy is questionable. Which puts the recovery score into doubt, which is sort of the whole point. I tried every trick in the book, wore it all over my wrist and forearm. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it was laughable. At the end of the day I lost faith in the data and recognized the value just wasn’t there for me.
Curious on people’s thoughts on this, and I hope it hasn’t already been covered.
The main reason I bought whoop was for the recovery score. Knowing when to train and when to rest was a huge selling point for me since I’ve often jumped on the bike when feeling great and performed badly. And also vice versa. I hoped Whoop would help prevent this…
However. I failed midway Mary Austin -1 last week. I know it’s a hard workout, but I’ve completed it many times in the past (without Whoop) and my recovery score that day was 85%.
So my question is…what value does one get from Whoop if it tells you that your body is ready to perform and then your legs during the workout tell you otherwise?
whoop is cardio based, as you know it measures your HRV, RHR, Strain and sleep. Then gives you a general “readiness” score.
What it doesn’t account for, is muscle fatigue. You could be 90% recovered, because you’re rested and your HRV and RHR are doing good. But you could be carrying DOMs still?
I have had a whoop since December, I use it as another marker on my overall wellbeing. Guess that’s the best way to use it…use it as another thing to help you decide how hard to go and not take it as gospel.
In the green and your legs feel like lead…? Doesnt mean you’re still going to be able to smash it because you’re in the green.
I believe it does but not enough to effect things that dramatically to swing things. But I am no professional.
I check it when i wake up, then think how i my legs feeling? I was quite highly recovered the other day, and had Donner planned after 1hr15min of Vo2 efforts a couple of days before. I entered the warm up of Donner and thought nope my legs dont have it! So swapped the workout for a 90min z2.
Use the whoop as another metric to help you understand your body better i guess.
Another tip (well how i use my whoop) say you have a 90min SS / Threshold planned…and on the day your recovery isnt what you thought, maybe take that 90min down to 60 or even 45. It’s better mentally that you reduce the workout by time than fail it all together IMO.
The more you use it, the more you get to learn the work out types and how much strain they give, depending on your recovery. Then you’re able to adjust from there.
I use it as a guideline and not a rule. Occasionally the score is just off. I know I’m recovered and it is lower than it should be. Rarely though is it the other way around where I’m super tired/beat up yet the score is green.
I have on occasion switched up my workout based on both the result and how I’m feeling. If the score is very low, I may take a recovery day or do an easier workout than planned.
One thing that was very interesting… I had my lowest recovery score ever of 7% that day after I got my second dose of the Covid vaccine. I was feeling horrible like I had a bad flu, but clearly the Whoop picked up on this.
I just had my second dose last Friday and experienced the same - lowest recovery score I’d seen yet, primarily based on the lack of sleep (I roll over a lot and my arm was in pure PAIN) and lowered HRV.
I work with sports scientists who tested the whoop for Olympic athletes. And their conclusion was to don’t use the whoop. The HR was of and sleep tracking was very poor.
If sleep tracking is important to you use Polar. Their watches came closest to the medical equipment when comparing sleep data.
Do you have a link to their research? I’m now using a whoop and find it incredibly accurate, even at high intensity, when compared against my wahoo chest strap.
Good to know, supports the conclusion I’ve come to. The recovery metric is garbage - I’ve had a series of greens when I’ve been ill, and a series of reds when I’ve felt great. I only now use it for sleep, but I only use it as a rough guide and not as “gospel”. Given the cost just for measuring sleep, I’ll try Polar.
Agreed… I’ve been in the green before, but because I was on my feet for over 12 hours the day before, my legs were tired and heavy and I definitely could not have “smashed” a workout successfuly.
Been using Whoop for 1.5 years now and I’m finding it is out to lunch more often than not. Today I was in the red, 32%. My workout was Raymond +7 in SusPBMV. I CRUSHED it. Felt amaze-balls! Unfortunately, I’m paid up till November, but it’s gone after that.
Word of warning to those with Whoop accounts. If you signed up for the 1 year plan to get the discounted rate, after the plan ends Whoop will simply start charging you $30 a month after that and not email you about signing on again at the discounted yearly rate, at least that was my experience. At minimum annoying, but I would put that in the “super shady” category.
Contrast this with TR that keeps you grandfathered in at prior rate AND sends you a warning prior to being renewed.
Given Whoop’s shadiness, I think I’m going to take a break from it for a while.
I’ve been using Garmin’s Body battery. A little different but very accurate i find. Plus you just buy the device that has the body battery and no subscription.
I dont like the subscription model whoop has.
Did some research and Garmin uses Firstbeat technology in their body battery.
The Body Battery is interesting. I have a Fenix 5, so it’s not available to me. Given that Garmin doesn’t tend to offer new features on older models, I will wait to see what the inevitable Fenix 7 will bring to the table.
