Whoop, whoop, or no!
Now for those of you that haven’t heard about the Whoop strap, you’ve obviously been riding outside and not on the indoor trainer watching YouTube. I’m currently waiting for more content to be uploaded, as I’ve watched almost all of the videos on YouTube! And here https://www.whoop.com/experience/
So Whoop is all over the cycling media, so this isn’t a general review, Christ, everyone’s been doing those. This is purely my opinion. From layman to the user. I started seeing athletes wearing, and now promoting the Whoop band, about 2 years ago. And although these straps aren’t available in NZ yet, I managed to secure one about 3 weeks ago.
I’ve always been a bit crap at staying off the bike. Riding whilst fatigued. And unless someone tells me to rest, I usually don’t. I respond well to being told to do something. Not listening to my own body’s messages. I’m not unusual, well, in that respect I’m not.
So what does Whoop do exactly? Well, it’s a ‘performance and fitness tracker’. But, it’s a bit more than that. It’s a correlator. It correlates sleep efficiency, workout strain, and recovery, and everything that affects those indicators. The Whoop algorithm then puts it into bite-sized bits of easy to read date pages. And the most useful thing for me is the traffic light indicators as to whether I’m rested enough.
What surprises me most is the effect that coffee and alcohol have on my rested state. Even if it is only one glass of wine. And, there’s simply no fracking way I’m giving up my 3 coffees before 7 am. Just no way. Everyone needs vices.
So, in order to get the best out of my Whoop strap I need to be wearing it for at least a month, and yet here I am writing about it on week 3. After 2 weeks you start to understand the functionality of the Whoop strap. I already know I should drink less. That’s a given. My sleep is disturbed massively, even on one glass of wine. I also know that I should cut down coffee, no way!
My sleep disturbance is markedly increased from 2 to 10 per night if I drink wine and coffee. This directly impacts my recovery. I know, I know, you don’t need me to tell you that shit. But, sometimes you need to see the data to change. One of the things I will say though if you want a great night’s sleep just take magnesium. It’s a super drug!
What I have noticed since wearing the Whoop strap is my power (FTP) has increased. Admittedly it’s not by much but is noticeable. And any increase is greatly welcomed. I solely put this down to listening to my Whoop strap. I’m a sucker for an authoritarian regime. A regime that tells me to get into line. A regime that tells me when I can exercise, and when I can’t. Ok, maybe that’s slightly extreme, but is definitely the case for me.
So even if it’s all subjective, and just one big placebo, I’m all over the Whoop strap for all of the reasons above. Now, it can just act as a heart rate monitor. You can pair it with your Wahoo or Garmin, but what’s the point of paying $30/month for that!
So would I recommend it, absolutely! Is it for everyone, absolutely not. Those that are elite, and disciplined will not need one. It won’t tell them what they already know. It’s for people like myself. People that need data to understand that they can or shouldn’t go hard. But for now, it’s definitely worth it.
So if you are thinking you’d like one, then you can get a discount here: Get a free WHOOP strap and your first month free when you join with my link: https://join.whoop.com/#/F8B245 but you may need to get a US or Aus delivery address.
