Why Boston's Whoop Fitness Tracker is Revolutionizing Health: An In-Depth Review
By: Sarah Lapinsky
There are many Boston landmarks that stand out as you stroll through the city. From the Charles River to the Boston Public Library, and now the huge WHOOP sign on the Commonwealth Building in Fenway, there’s always something bound to catch your eye! While many are familiar with this sign, what it stands for is less well known. My first thought was that it represented a cheer for the Boston Sports Teams! Even though this thought wasn’t entirely accurate, the company does support both athletes and everyday people with technology that revolutionizes how we monitor fitness. In this post we’ll dive into what makes this technology so exciting!
Background on WHOOP
WHOOP is a Boston based company started by Harvard students Will Ahmed and John Capodilupo. As a varsity squash athlete and weightlifter, these students noticed there was a lack of fitness trackers to measure important health metrics beyond step count. This led them to their goal to develop a fitness device capable of accurately assessing an individual's recovery, sleep, workout strain, and more.
In order to achieve this goal, Ahmed and Capodilupo would have to develop a technology that has never been seen before. The main problem was that there was no way to measure heart rate both accurately and consistently, without using very bulky equipment that would limit everyday use. To solve this issue, Ahmed and Capodilupo teamed up with Cambridge Consultants. Using expert knowledge on biomedical machine learning and signal processing, a first of its kind fitness tracker was developed!
Key WHOOP Measurements
Sleep
One really helpful metric WHOOP is able to accurately measure is sleep. With their products being super lightweight and not requiring constant charging, they are leading the market in terms of sleep trackers! Whoop is able to track all 4 stages of sleep including slow wave sleep (SWS), REM, light, and awake. Understanding these stages is a huge asset in understanding the quality of your sleep, a very important aspect of recovery for athletes. In addition, WHOOP calculates the optimal amount of sleep for you personally each night based on recent sleep trends, strain, and naps. These recommendations can revolutionize your ability to optimize your sleep!
2. Strain (total body exertion)
Strain refers to the stress put on your cardiovascular and muscular systems throughout the day, taking into account more than just your workouts. Each activity whether it’s yard work, going for a run, grocery shopping, or studying is taken into consideration by WHOOP. The information is then converted into a score from 0-21. This allows you to set goals for yourself and monitor trends. In particular, this is really helpful for weightlifters as WHOOP technology shows you the effect of strength training on your muscles, bones, and tissues. This knowledge has never been provided by any wearable fitness device before!
3. Recovery
WHOOP technology measures a multitude of factors including your heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate, respiratory rate, SpO2, sleep performance, and skin temperature. All this information is used to calculate a recovery percentage from 0 to 100. This score can be incredibly helpful to understand how your body responds to different stressors. WHOOP also provides you with advice on whether you should maintain where you’re at, need time to rest, or are ready to go for more.
4. Stress
WHOOP provides users with a revolutionary stress tracker to help isolate the key stressors in your life. WHOOP looks at your current heart rate and HRV to calculate a stress score. This gives you further insight on your physiological response to stress. This can then be compared to which activities you were doing to see the impact of that activity on your stress level. The stress score is useful for both seeing trends and determining the best advice on how to help manage stress.
5. Other Health Metrics
While Whoop technology has so many innovative metrics it tracks, it also tracks additional measures often seen in other wearable devices. You’re able to see heart rate, blood oxygen, and skin temperature. In addition to this, the WHOOP app also has a journaling feature that gives you a place to record any other health factors you want to keep track of such as caffeine intake, using blue light glasses, and more. These factors are then compared to your physiological data through the WHOOP app to determine the effect of these habits on your health.
Real World Application
WHOOP technology is used by a very diverse group of people including professional athletes, CEOs, military, healthcare professionals, and everyday people looking to improve their wellbeing! The brand has been spoken highly of by several famous athletes such as Micheal Phelps, contributing greatly to the popularity of their products. Since its start in 2012, WHOOP has earned over $400 million in venture capital showing not only how popular this product is but also the vast potential for growth with this technology. A multitude of users enjoy how the technology is durable and fashionable with no distracting screens. In addition you are able to test out the product with a free trial before committing to a subscription!
Conclusion
With so many innovative ways to track health metrics, WHOOP stands out as one of the most revolutionary health devices available to the general public! From advanced tracking of sleep, strain, stress, recovery, and so much more, this technology provides you with the information you need to truly understand your own body. We can’t wait to see the future of this incredible technology, as it already is a leader in revolutionizing health!
