The kind souls over at WHOOP have given me a subscription for 6 months to see how I get on with WHOOP 4.0. It's been around a month since I started wearing the band, as I start to unlock some of the more detailed reports that WHOOP provide I thought I would share them with you all on here so you can see the insights for yourselves.
The short answer to the title of this blog post by Track Cycling Coach is YES! the insights around my sleep and recovery can all be worked on. The only reason this is possible is because they have been observed.
The WHOOP 4.0 has made me super aware of my sleep needs. The dashboard tells you how many hours you're getting vs how much it thinks you need. If you get less each night than it thinks you need you end up going into debt and the amount of sleep you need increases. I can really feel that if I'm not getting enough combined with bad quality sleep my fatigue levels are high and I feel below average. This knocks on to my Hear Rate Variability which starts to decline and my resting heart rate starts to increase. It's incredible how powerful your sleep is when you're doing it wrong and when you're nailing it. If it was a supplement that I could take to get it right every night then I would 100% be taking it. Unfortunately, it isn't that simple and there are a lot of variables that factor into it. That leads me on to the Journal from WHOOP, but I haven't accumulated enough entried in to that just yet to unlock the report. More to follow on that later.
Here you can see that I'm flying close to the wire with how many hours I'm getting vs how many hours I need. I've had a busy few days and I can definitely feel this trend taking its toll.
To further back up my overall feeling here is my Heart Rate Variability. As you can see the trend is towards a lower HRV which is the opposite of what we want. We want the Heart Rate Variability to be higher, which gives the heart greater ability to speed up and slow down when needed.
One of the main metrics that WHOOP 4.0 focuses on is Strain. Various factors feed into this score, it's heavily impacted by recording an activity using the app. This could be something like a cycling session or a run. As strain builds up your recovery needs are increased, if you manage to keep your strain low then you should set yourself up well for the next day. It's not an exact science, it's an indication that allows you to make a more informed decision around your own training goals and needs.
Here you can see the main dashboard. As we have discussed above my lack of sleep is weighing down my recovery. Based on my recovery WHOOP 4.0 gives you an optimal amount of strain for the day. You can set the band to vibrate when you reach this for the day to make sure you don't overcook yourself. Or you could go past your optimal strain for the day and overreach. You might have a rest day the next day to fully recover. As I said above it's not an exact science, it's an indication and allows you to get a picture of your trends and current status.
Here's where things get interesting. If you've managed to read through my poorly articulated review so far then you've done well. Each month WHOOP generates a detailed report for you to you can identify trends. Below is my first monthly report from the WHOOP 4.0
Feel free to browse through my monthly data below and drop me a message if you have any questions HERE
