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{{DISPLAYTITLE: WHOOP Review: a good idea fatally flawed?}}
The current iteration of WHOOP is deeply, possibly fatally, flawed. There may be some usefulness for some athletes, if you understand the problems. However, of the five WHOOP devices I've had, only one has worked even moderately well, so you may also need to be lucky. Even the working WHOOP is providing little value, and I won't be renewing my subscription.
=What is WHOOP, and why might you want one?=
This is not a full review of WHOOP, and I'd recommend checking out something like the [https://the5krunner.com/2024/11/23/whoop-4-0-strap-review-best-discount/ 5K runner review] as background. For our purposes, we going to assume that you are an athlete, and you are looking to optimise your training and recovery. Knowing how hard to push your training, and how much to recover is one of the objectives of good training. and this is the primary purpose of WHOOP, so you'd hope they do a better job than alternatives like Garmin. (I've found little to no value in Garmin's training advice, though it's general recovery metrics are useful.)
* Because WHHOP has a subscription model, there's no residual value. If you decide you don't like it, you can't give it away or sell it.
* The lack of display means you're probably going to have to use another device for displaying metrics. So, WHOOP is only ever going to be an add-on.
=The (Possible) Benefits of WHOOP=
Given all the problems, it's worth pointing out there are still some residual benefits to WHOOP.
* The sleep tracking seems reasonable, and better than my Garmin. Even having a full sleep clinic analysis has some subjectivity to working out sleep stages, so any device that shows sleep stage can only be treated as a rough estimate. Looking at the simple awake and asleep data WHOOP seems more plausible than Garmin.(WHOOP did a software update that radically changed my awake time so that it's much closer to Garmin now.)* The recovery metric is nice and simple and seems broadly reasonable. However, as far as I get the impression that can tell, it's heavily nearly all based on overnight last night's HRV, rather than modelling strain and performanceor any other metric. The recovery metric is easier to understand than what's provided by Garmin but doesn't seem to add much. Just looking at Garmin's HRV score for last night gives the same information.* I really like the idea of the target strain, where you're told how hard you should work out. But the values given don't seem to reflect my actual training status, and translating their strain numbers into a training run is unclear at best. In theory you can use the app and run until it says you've had enough strain, but that doesn't help you plan a training session.The strain measurement is logarithmic, which is appropriate, but counterintuitive. The example WHOOP gives is that a marathon run might give a strain of 20.4, but running a second marathon on the same day would only increase the strain to 20.6. That might be technically correct, but so counterintuitive that I find it unhelpful. If my hard day is 20.5 and my complete rest day is 10.9, was my rest day really easy? And how does that rest day compare with one that's 13.9?
=Other reviews of WHOOP=
Lots of reviewers seem to respect WHOOP and think it's worthwhile. Are they able to get much better data than I am? Are they getting "reviewer special" devices that perform much better than retail units? Is WHOOP providing incentives that bias reviews? I'm not sure, and I read enough reviews from people I believe are credible to pay for WHOOP. There are some contrary views, such as this analysis [https://youtu.be/wYx85gnsyvQ?si=wsHb1gzP06WrJhRo Data Scientist Breaks Down why WHOOP doesn't Work], but they are few and far between. I should have listened to the many individuals that don't write reviews, but found WHOOP to be unhelpful at best, rather than the bigger reviewers. Caveat Emptor, Your Milage May Vary, etc.
=Should you get a WHOOP?=
Maybe. It seems like the sleep tracker is reasonable, and maybe if you're a cyclist the data quality issues won't be so bad. The sleep score and recovery metrics seems plausible, though given all the issues, it's hard to trust WHOOP. Personally, I'm finding WHOOP like a sick cat that I need to look after rather than a valuable training tool.