Who has a WHOOP band and how are you getting on with it?

I personally think Whoop under reports calories burnt. It is always showing about 20-30% less than Strava thinks I burn. Having said that, I've always thought/said that lifting weights doesn't do much for calorie burn and Whoops reports that. Half an hour lifting and it will say I've burnt maybe 60 cals...
 
I think we discussed this in the cycling thread a while back Andy. Doesn't Strava just use your bodyweight, distance and speed to equate to a relative effort in calories? Where by Whoop has your HR so knows exactly what your output is.
Weight lifting absolutely burns calories but relative effort is important. A few bicep curls is not the same as a clean and jerk session.

 
Doesn't Strava just use your bodyweight, distance and speed to equate to a relative effort in calories? Where by Whoop has your HR so knows exactly what your output is.
No, probably the reverse. All Whoop really has is bodyweight, time and HR. Strava has that AND the actual power I have put through the pedals, which my understanding is the most effective way of knowing what energy was used.
 
Started my Whoop journey in Feb this year knowing that I have some large running/cycling events later this year and I'm very much prone to over training which causes injury and stops me from training. Just to caveat we have a young kid (18 months) so somewhat impossible to follow the sleep coaching what Whoop provides, however:

  1. Generally happy with the wearability, I wear my Whoop band on my right wrist and a normal wristwatch on my left the majority of the day. Don't really get any weird comments etc and on a black strap it's fairly inoffensive. I wear a Garmin watch when I'm running for more relevant stats like pace, distance blab blah blah. Battery life is fine and charging is hassle free enough, comfortable to sleep with. I did find I had to wear the Whoop band a bit higher up my wrist than I initially thought, kept getting very intense HR spikes when I was just doing menial things around the house but moving the band up a bit seems to have sorted this.
  2. Really enjoy the feedback I get from training and sleep, I can definitely see how to some people it could become quite offensive/judgey when you wake up feeling awful/shattered and Whoop is telling you that you're recovered well and you should push yourself with a harder effort in training etc. For me it's all about balance, yes it's great having these wearables but they cannot tell how you're feeling emotionally etc.
  3. I wish there was a way to be more specific with the sleep, with a young kid I am inevitably up some nights (sometimes for hours) and Whoop isn't always that good at recognising this, sometimes thinking I'm in 'light sleep' whilst I'm sat perfectly away on my kids floor shushing them back to sleep. I think on average it does balance ok but a bit frustrating at times.
  4. I'm finding the recovery scores hugely helpful to my training so far, there's been days with Whoop where I've been badly recovered and felt a bit 'off' and in the past I definitely would have done some training but instead I've taken it easy and had a day off. Likewise when I've been really well recovered I've pushed myself a bit more in my sessions - whether that's an extra hill effort or whatever.
  5. In terms of HR accuracy I would say on the whole it's alright. It does seem to struggle when I'm cold and cycling I guess due to the angle of my wrist etc but taken across an average of all my activities I'd say it's within 3-4% of a chest strap.
  6. They seem to be rolling out new features pretty consistently, the stress monitor is cool to see and pretty mad to see when I've had an awful nights sleep due to anxiety that although I was actually asleep I was in actual fact extremely stressed. The new 'Insights' feature is great, basically logging your behaviours each morning will eventually tell you what can lead to a better recovery, as an example for me spending a day with friends+family will generally increase my recovery by ~8%.

All in all I'm pretty happy, I paid for 12 months up front because I knew I wanted to track things until about November this year. You can obviously get 30 days free so if your on the fence just get the trial and see how you get on with it.
 
It's a good thread this. Did you end up getting one OP?

I have a month off the booze each May, stems from changing jobs during peak covid lockdown in 2020. Had all of May off and thought if I treat it like a holiday then I'd balloon in weight so decided not to drink for that month. It's also pretty much start of winter for us here, clocks have changed, earlier dark nights, no more bank holidays etc so have continued it each year since. Also we are going to Bali for a couple of weeks in June so thought be a good time to shred a little. Dropped my calories, training twice per day and decided to resurrect my whoop and been wearing it last two weeks. I usually do a gym session before work plus a few other bits and pieces sporadically. I also have a infa red sauna at home that I rarely bother with during summer.
New regime as of end April is gym in the morning monday to Sat. Zwift race Monday night, Oly lifting club tuesday night and sunday morning. Sauna Wednesday night and saturday afternoon. Hiit class thursday night, bike race on zwift Friday night. I also walk 40 min / 4km each way to work and back Monday to Friday. Calorie consumption 2,000 - 2,200 each day. Not had a drink since 25th April. Expecting total exhaustion although it hasn't happened yet. :D
46 years old, 92 kg.

Some whoop thoughts and data collection from 28th April to this morning, 9th May.
  • App has changed quite a bit since I last used it. I dont think it's for the better.
  • Stress score is new, seems a little varied and unpredictable. Not entirely sure of the point of it.
  • Resting heart rate has steadily moved from 55 to 49.
  • HRV has steadily climbed.
  • Recovery has been in the green everyday and was 93% friday which coincided with my highest HRV of the week however I was absolutely shattered when I got home from work. Body was aching from running treadmill interval sprints the night before. Decided not to ride my bike. RHR slightly up.
  • Sleep has been super consistent. 7.5 to 8.5 each night.
  • Had 1 yellow recovery 34%. Was yesterday. Went to bed 9pm Sunday night, got up at 1:30am to watch football, went back to bed at 3:40am. Awake 6:20am. Really felt it all day yesterday, actually felt hungover. HRV crashed to 79. Didn't go to the gym but did a zwift race at 6pm. came 24/111 and only 6 seconds behind the winner. (category C). That's pretty much peak performance for me although before I started I felt anything but.
  • I had never started an activity for sauna while in there. Was very surprised at results. I did an hour in there on saturday and measured it. HR went from 56 steadily up to 139 and a stress change of 2.1 (whatever that means!)
  • Can still get my max HR to 200 :cool:
  • Total calorie burn between 2,400 and 3,000 per day
As for calorie measurement and a comeback to Andy's point above. I tracked my last three Zwift races (short crits, pretty much flat out each race). Running Zwift on Apple TV, Tacx Neo smart bike, whoop as the HR monitor and no standalone power meter.
Whoop has some wild results.

Distance​
Zwift​
Strava​
Whoop​
15.9​
370​
369​
355​
17.8​
410​
410​
447​
24.1​
567​
567​

735​
 
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Great analysis there vandle thanks.
yea I got one, its still calibrating some metrics at the moment although I have been filling in the journal and what not.
its not going to give me much useful data for a while as I'm all but totally sedentary while I get over this second case of covid (assumed it's covid anyway as I didn't test) mostly got over it and back at work but not gone near the gym or done anything athletic at all yet. Just sat on my puddin
 
I gave it a try but ended up returning it, stats were good, informative, liked everything about it - I just can't wear a watch/band all the time. Based on general feedback and reviews I was expecting it to be much more low profile but it still felt like any other watch i've used before. It's a shame because at it's core, it's a decent device.

I have the same issue with my wedding ring, gets taken off when I enter the house and put back on when I leave, also less clothes the better, think i'm designed to be a nudist :D
 
Fist exercise today, just 30 mins of cardio to see how I get on first day back..
Auto detected it as a walk, (I was on the treadmill) Seems pretty good so far.

emlJ5LW.jpg
 
So I've come through a month or so of increased training, reduced calorie intake and no boozing.

TLDR, I have just cancelled my Whoop membership and won't renew again. I am also going to get absolutely wasted this weekend. :D

Bodyweight down to 88 so 4kg off and no loss in strength. Have matched my previous bench and DL PBs in that time and also bettered my clean and jerk by a mighty 2kgs. Also been racing weekly in the Zwift crit club which are short flat races circa 20 to 30 minutes at about 80 - 90% effort with the final minute or two at full gas.

My recoveries have followed a very similar pattern. High 90's on a monday morning that diminish as the week goes on and training load goes up down to 40 - 50% by saturday. Weekends I generally have longer sleeps as my alarm goes off at 5:10am on weekdays plus I usually have a long sauna session followed by a power nap (its actually pretty much a crash into a super deep sleep for 30 minutes or so) on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. However I seldom feel much better on a monday morning compared to a Friday.
Had 1 red recovery in that time, 19% on a Sunday after a 4,000 calorie day output on the Saturday and only 6 hours sleep.
Highest day strain was 20.4, saturday just gone after an epic crossfit workout (Murph, wearing 20lb vest) that was 1,307 cals. (allegedly). The day after I was absolutely exhausted. All I did all day was go for a 30 minute light walk, rest of the time I was plonked in front of the TV on my PS5. Whoop said I was in the green and 67% recovered even though my sleep was only 67% and just over 6 hours.

Below an update on calorie assessment between Strava and Whoop when riding on my trainer.

DistanceStravaWhoop
21km361I didn't tell it I was doing an activity. It didn't register it automatically.
17km391476
25km531446
16km361413
 
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I wore my Garmin watch for a HIIT class one night, treadmill interval sprints. It recorded 351 cals against Whoops 645 version of events. On top of this, the whoop is somehow disconnecting from Zwift for periods during races which makes me end up with an average HR under 100, makes it look like I'm cheating. I also walk to work and back each day, 4km each way and a brisk pace. Same route, same distance and same level of effort. Some days whoop picks it up as an activity and sometimes it doesn't.
Despite me having a whoop for such a long time this is the first time I have taken such a dive into it, I have just assumed any inaccuracies or quirks have been down to my varying degrees of training and lifestyle choices (drinking too much, not sleeping enough) but it seems that's not the case. The fluctuations in its data swing too wildly to be taken seriously and I really don't feel a correlation between it telling me I am recovered and feeling recovered. It almost feels like its just a randomly generated number at times.
However the worst, most frustrating part for me is the fake workouts it finds. These usually come an hour or two after an actual workout of decent intensity. The below was this morning after some assault bike intervals that were 11.7 strain. I drove home from the gym and was back by 6:30am. This activity was me having a cup of coffee, packing my meals for the day and showering. Average HR was 126 and above 155 for quite a bit of time. I'm not a noob, I understand my HR, my zones and when I am pushing. I would definitely notice a period of time at that level of output. Looking at my assault bike metrics I'd recovered to 150bpm by the time I had got off the bike and manually ended the workout in the app, likely within 2 minutes of completing the workout. Total rubbish. This has happened 3 times in the last month. My battery needs a charge every three days too.
It's a shame really as I love the app, tracking stats and the fact it is discreet and feel like I can wear a normal watch too but I'm taking it off before my first sip of that sweet, sweet liquor on Friday night and never putting it on again.:)

 
I don't think it's clear what you're saying about fake workouts? I assume you mean you're sitting about a few hours after an actual workout and then it decides you just went for a walk or something?

It actually sounds like you might have a faulty one. Mine has never reported a fake workout, I think only one or two times has it not captured a workout (in a year or more). Mine lasts 4 to 5 days between charges and has never stopped reporting HR, although I haven't used it as my main HR connected to anything very often, maybe 3 or 4 times in emergencies (like when the battery went in my chest strap during a 6 hour ride, I switched my head unit to use the Whoop)

I really don't feel a correlation between it telling me I am recovered and feeling recovered. It almost feels like its just a randomly generated number at times.
This is one reason I like having it. I sometimes think the same, sometimes I feel crappy but maybe it's telling me I'm 70% or something, so I go for a ride and once I get going, I actually feel pretty good. I almost trust the metrics more than my brain.
 
Yeah maybe I could have worded that better. Try again...

So throughout my time of wearing a whoop (had three of them) one of the things that has bugged me is it detecting phantom workouts. Just randomly telling me it has detected an activity and is ready for review. Like in the case of the screenshot above, they are periods of time when I have been doing little more than household stuff. Cooking dinner, showering, tidying up. Definitely not something that would sustain a 120+ HR. lately they have come 30 to 60 minutes after a decent workout which it has already processed separately.
I have contacted Whoop support about it and they think its because I am not wearing it high enough. I try to keep it and inch or two off my wrist joint but its hard to pinpoint exactly where it was 20 minutes ago when it thought I was at 155bpm!

Your last point is a fair one. I almost won a zwift cat C race when whoop told me I was ok but I felt anything but.
 
I really liked mine when I had it, meant I could do fitness tracking yet still wear a "nice" watch - but ultimately I couldn't justify the monthly cost once the subscription was to an end. I now use an Apple Watch, and if I am going somewhere and I want to wear a nicer watch, I just wear the nicer watch - Apple Watch is my main and I make sure I have it on for any activity (other than cycling as I use a computer, HR Strap and Power Meter) and sleeping.
 
I trialled one for a couple of months and didn’t find any correlation between recovery scores and how I felt during training so binned it. It’s good if you need to gamify things to do them (sleep, not drinking etc) but there aren’t any magic bullets, just common sense.
 
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