Everybody and their moms seem to be rocking the newest, latest, slimmest, sexiest fitness watch. The funny thing is – these things aren’t built to tell you what time it is. They’re just bands around your wrist that read your body with little sensors that can tell you some unbelievable things. With names connected to them like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lebron James, Rory McIlroy and Michael Phelps, they’ve seamlessly integrated into the ‘Who’s who’ of athletics.
One of the more prevalent devices is the Whoop. It definitely falls into the ‘not quite a watch’ category, as it is just a sleek black band that you strap around your wrist. It falls into the category of fitness trackers that tell you more about how hard your body is working – with a huge emphasis on how you are recovering.
With all the data connected to the Whoop, where do you start?
There are so many damn metrics you can pull from this thing, it’s intimidateing.
First, check out your recovery score. The recovery score will give you a scale, that happens to be color coded:
Green 67-100%
Yellow 34-66%
Red 0-33%
The first and maybe most important part of putting in a good workout has to be how well you recovered from the previous day. Did you get sloshed knowing you had a marathon in the morning? You’re not a kid anymore. And if you are, grow up.
Between sleep, stress and daily efforts – was your body able to recover well enough overnight? Let the recovery score be your guide.
On a green day, push harder. Increase your exercise intensity, push the heart rate a bit. Have a blast and get your body stronger.
If you hit yellow, get yourself into a moderate intensity. Don’t go balls to the wall, but use that day to work on isolated stuff. Technical work and skill attainment. These are the days you want to slow down a bit while still making it productive through practice. Get some cardio in but work more on the baseline stuff, rather than pushing boundaries.
If your recovery is red, work on recovery. Red days are great for mobility drills, breathwork, going for a walk, or other things that make movement be the primary driver. Do things that improve your body’s ability to deal with stress.
With recovery in mind, you can be more intelligent about the day – to – day stress and guide your physical efforts more effectively.
Now that you have an idea on recovery, the next metric you want to look at is strain.
Strain is calculated by looking at your cardiovascular load throughout the day. It is calculated using heart rate intensity, duration of elevated heart rate and it looks at your heart rate zones/recovery times. One thing it is not – a measure of muscular activity.
How do you use strain? The same way we use recovery as a gauge for intensity, we can use strain goals as a driver for the coming day’s workouts.
An example (not an exact science):
- If you have a green recovery day, your daily strain goal should be 14+
- If you have a yellow recovery day, your daily strain goal should be 10-13
- If you have a red day, your daily strain goal should be 8-10
This all doesn’t really mean much until you understand what activites and levels of strain you may experience look like:
| Strain Score | Level | What it feels like |
| 0-9 | Very light | Recovery walks, mobility, light activity |
| 10-13 | Moderate | Short or low/moderate cardio |
| 14-17 | High | Strength sessions, interval work, long cardio |
| 18-21 | All out/max effort | Competitive matches, long races, brutal efforts |
With all of that in mind, there is a lot you can learn from using a Whoop tracker. This is just the beginning when it comes to the data you can pull from these things. My goal is to introduce you and help guide you through learning more about your body.
You can use these fitness trackers to improve your health in the long term. By tracking your recovery and daily strain, you can guide your body to a more healthful fitness experience, avoiding burnout and increasing your quality of life.
Would also like to shout out to https://www.elitesports.com/. They’re sending me a bag to put this link out. Not sure how the bag is, but free stuff is cool.
Stella Fitness 