Research-Based

Whoop Fitness Tracker Review – A Subscription-Based Fitness Tracker

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By Leslie Waterson

Reviewed by Juliana Tamayo, MS, RDN - Last Updated

Whoop-Fitness-Tracker-Review

It seems like everybody and their brother is wearing a fitness tracker these days. Whether it’s a simple pedometer or a super-expensive smartwatch, fitness trackers are all the rage. The simple trackers discount your steps every day. High-end trackers can monitor your heart rate, blood pressure, and even sleep quality. Fans of the trackers swear that using one makes a world of difference in your fitness.

It’s easy to feel like you’re missing out if you don’t have a tracker. Do the tracker wearers have some secret that you lack? Or is it all a bunch of nonsense? After all, people got fit for thousands of years before fitness trackers came along. Do you really need one on your wrist to get better?

One of the most unique trackers to come along is the Whoop fitness tracker. Promises that their trackers will help you improve by letting you know when to push harder on workouts and when to slow down and recover. They can also tell you how much you need to sleep based on your previous workouts so that you don’t over-train. How does the Whoop tracker fulfill that promise?

Whoop Fitness Tracker Mobile App

Overview: What is Whoop Fitness Tracker?

Whoop Fitness Tracker Product

Like most fitness trackers, the Whoop tracker monitors your heart rate and sleep quality. However, it doesn’t stop there. Whoop encourages its users to where the trackers 24/7 and collect data all day long. Whoop’s software analyzes your heart rate and sleep data and tells you how hard you’ve worked.

Instead of just showing you your heart rate to tell you how hard you’re working, the Whoop fitness tracker gives you a “strain score.” The strain score takes your perceived exertion out of the equation and tells you how hard your body is working. The Whoop app also collects data about how hard your body is working the rest the day and let you know how much sleep you need and how much you should recover.

Whoop combines your activity and rests data to forecast recovery time, too. It can help keep you from over-training by telling you to slow down on your body needs time to recover from tough workouts.

Advantages

  • strain and recovery scores help you know when to push hard and when to slow down
  • sleep tracking and prediction helps make sure you get enough sleep to recover from your workouts
  • the subscription model is much less expensive to start with but requires monthly payments

Disadvantages

  • strain and recovery scores may be a lot more complicated than entry-level exercisers want
  • subscription model requires monthly payments instead of a single purchase

About Whoop

Whoop Logo

The company that makes the Whoop Fitness Tracker is called Whoop. The fitness tracker and app are their primary products, although they also market some clothing and accessories. The mission of Whoop is to help people understand their bodies so that everyone can get the most out of themselves.

How does Whoop Fitness Tracker work?

How does Whoop Fitness Tracker works

Whoop monitors your body around the clock and collects the data. It analyzes the data to help you understand your best and worst moments of the day. Whoop’s goal is not just better workouts, but full-body optimization.

Each day, the tracker gives you a strain score on a scale from 0 to 21. Once you start using it regularly, it will forecast how hard you should work that day. By following the recommendations, you can match the difficulty of your workout to your body’s ability. The Whoop tracker helps you push your hardest on ideal days and make sure you recover on other days.

The Whoop tracker also predicts how much sleep you will need. By monitoring both your exertion and the previous day’s sleep, Whoop lets you know when you need extra rest and when you don’t.

Whoop Fitness Tracker App

Whoop Fitness Tracker App

The secret to Whoop’s success is not the tracker, but the app. They have a programming team dedicated to finding the latest fitness research and translating it into recommendations to the app. Whether it’s exercise, sleep, or recovery, Whoop wants its recommendations to be on the cutting edge of what we know about fitness.

Whoop also collects vast amounts of data from its users. All that data is collated, analyzed, and used to predict results. The strain scores, recovery recommendations, and sleep times are all generated based on the best evidence we have on hand. 

Where to buy Whoop Fitness Tracker

Whoop Fitness Tracker Website

The Whoop fitness tracker is only available from Whoop. They have an unusual pricing model – the tracker is free, but you must pay a monthly membership fee to use it. Subscriptions start at $30 per month for six months. Prepaid subscriptions are available at a lower monthly rate. For the cost of a high-end tracker, you can get a year’s subscription.

Whoop Fitness Tracker: Is It Worth It?

Is Whoop Fitness Tracker Worth It

If you are a casual exerciser who only wants to shed a few pounds, the Whoop fitness tracker is a pricey solution to a problem you don’t have. Very few people exercise enough for over-training to be an issue. If you hit the gym a couple of times a week, or just go for a few jogs around the neighborhood, this tracker is probably not for you. You’d be better off buying a simpler tracker with no monthly subscription.

If you’re trying to maximize your performance, this tracker might be just the ticket. This is the tracker for a runner who wants to not only finish a marathon but set a personal record. It’s excellent for dedicated athletes who want to take their performance to the next level. 

If you find yourself wondering whether you are pushing hard enough each day, or if you’re pushing too hard and should give yourself some rest, this is the tracker for you. It’s worth the monthly fee to be confident that you are working out precisely hard enough and getting adequate recovery too.

Overall Rating:
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Leslie Waterson

Leslie has been passionately involved in the health and fitness industries for over a decade. She is constantly reviewing the latest scientific research and studies in order to take a research-backed approach to lifestyle optimization. Her main areas of interest include nutrition and supplementation. Leslie shares her findings on Fitness Clone to help other health enthusiasts choose the products and routines that will help them achieve their goals.