Revisiting Whoop – Three Month Review (2024)

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In 2022, I tried out the Whoop band for three months.

Ultimately, it didn’t stick.

The review only happened because Whoop got in touch to see if I fancied covering the popular yet rather niche fitness band on my channel. Before that contact, I hadn’t thought once about adding Whoop to my health and fitness tracking.

I am, after all, an Apple Watch Ultra guy. Or at least, I was. I think I can now say that in the past tense – my recent experience with the Garmin MARQ Commander (and, indeed, all of the Garmin watches I’ve tested) suggests I’m not far from being able to ditch Apple’s wearable completely for something that isn’t tied to the Apple ecosystem.

Whoop is something entirely different, though. It isn’t a watch, it doesn’t have any form of ecosystem to speak of, and it’s rather expensive compared to something like the Apple Watch when you take into account the annual fee.

So, why, you might ask, was a new Whoop band and 12 months’ subscription to its service my first tech purchase of 2024?

Let me explain.

My first experience of Whoop

At the end of my three-month Whoop review, I concluded that, while it was a great device for a very specific audience, it wasn’t for me.

There were a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, the sheer wealth of health and fitness data available in the Whoop app was impressive but overwhelming. It’s the same as the detail Garmin’s Connect app goes into following a workout; I know there are people out there who understand every metric and data point, but most of it goes over my head.

Heart Rate Variability (HRV), sleep debt, respiratory rate, and graphs like the one below almost immediately turned me off Whoop.

The reason for this is simple: if you know me by now, you know that I rarely operate below the base layer of functionality on most of the devices I use or test. I’m the most ‘normal’ of normal users, and it’s the point of view from which all of my reviews are conducted. Whoop felt like a mammoth task to understand – but I could appreciate why some people (mainly athletes and F1 team principals) found it so useful.

The other reason I decided against continuing to use Whoop beyond that three-month testing period was that I lost the charger. I’ve received a fair bit of stick about this (understandably) in the comments section of that video, but, at the time, I stood firm by my conclusion that having to charge the Whoop band via a ‘puck’ was a daft idea. Because you would lose it at some point, like I did.

I found it a couple of months later, in case you were wondering.

This all begs one very big question, doesn’t it?

Why I returned to Whoop

I purchased my Whoop subscription on 27th December last year – nearly a year since my first flirtatious period with the fitness band. I’d managed to sneak in just in time to take advantage of a festive offer that reduced the annual subscription fee by around £30.

This resulted in me paying £198.33 for my Whoop experience (the band is included for ‘free’). That’s about £16.53 a month, which felt ok; it’s a fraction of the cost of my monthly gym membership, and if I play my cards right, could offer a wealth of return in terms of my overall health and fitness goals.

There are two reasons I’ve decided to leap back into the world of Whoop. Firstly, I’m concerned that I’m either over-training or not training at the right times. I’m a consistent gym-goer, and, over the last few years, it has become a habit I sorely miss when circumstances prevent me from going.

The problem is that I possess no expertise whatsoever when it comes to how to use the gym properly. I’m aware that, on any given day, my body will either be ready for a workout or in need of rest – and getting that wrong can be costly.

Secondly, I do not get enough sleep. At all. I’m what’s known as ‘a night owl’, which is a poor excuse for not going to bed at a decent time and being grumpy in the morning.

Anyone who has sailed past the age of 40 will know that you immediately spend more of your time considering how long you have left on this planet and paying more attention to the stuff you do that influences the number of days you have remaining. The more I hear experts talk about sleep, the more I realise I’m not doing myself any favours with my sleeping habits.

Whoop is designed to help you with three vital metrics: sleep, recovery, and strain. All three metrics are intrinsically linked, and if you want to be as healthy as possible and live a long, fulfilling life, you need to understand how your behaviours impact them.

The premise is simple: get enough quality sleep, and your body will recover effectively. If your body has recovered effectively, you’ll be able to take on more strain and maintain great heart health. Fail at the sleep stage, and your body never truly recovers, which means it’s never ready for strain and incapable of maintaining a healthy heart.

There’s a lot more to Whoop than that, obviously, but one of my goals for this year is to improve my sleep, and I owe it to my body to find the best tool for the job. Whoop might be that tool.

Initial thoughts after three months of Whoop

I was wrong – the Whoop charging mechanism is a stroke of genius.

If you weren’t aware, the Whoop band is designed to be worn constantly to receive the most accurate reports on your fitness and health. To counter the need to charge the band, Whoop comes with a waterproof battery pack that attaches to the top of the band to juice it up when needed (the app gives you plenty of notice if you’re wondering).

The battery pack charges the Whoop band fully in about 2.5 hours, which provides four to five days of use. It’s convenient, innovative, and ridiculously easy to use.

Unless you’re an idiot and lose it, which, if you do, is entirely on you.

The band itself is pretty comfortable, although I’ve never been a fan of the look. The Whoop 4.0 band resides somewhere between those wristbands you’re given upon entering nightclub venues and the trackers that are attached to criminals to monitor their whereabouts.

It can be spruced up with different coloured bands, but a lot of me wishes it were just a little bit smaller. It’s uncomfortable at times, too – particularly when the ambient temperature rises; anyone who struggles with discomfort while wearing a watch probably won’t get on with the Whoop band.

A note on those metrics. They are voluminous. I don’t understand most of them. But I am starting to gather the intel I need on my health. I now understand what HRV is, my sleep debt makes sense, and I understand how sleep, recovery, and strain impact one another.

The new Whoop Coach has helped immensely in that respect. Developed with the help of OpenAI (who else, eh?), Whoop Coach is an AI-based assistant that can help you understand the data found within the Whoop app, and you can ask questions about the types of workout you should perform based on your health status. This is another example of AI being put to very good use and it’s something that wasn’t present during my first experience of Whoop.

Whoop also makes you question the benefits of drinking alcohol. Put simply: there probably aren’t that many. I’ve heard of several people who have ditched Whoop in fear of constantly being ‘shamed’ by their fitness band for consuming alcohol. I can see why – the impact a single glass of wine can have on your recovery the next day is frightening.

My biggest takeaway from the last three months with Whoop, however, is that it’s entirely on you to benefit from it. All this band and its companion app does is reveal how your body is reacting to what you decide to do each day. It’s up to you to act on the data in front of you and make changes that benefit your health.

Anyone buying into this form of fitness tracking in the hope it’s going to deliver magic results will be sorely disappointed if they’re not prepared to put in serious effort. My sleep is improving, gradually – as is my training readiness – but it’s still a battle, regardless of what Whoop tells me to do.

The plan is to leave the Whoop band on for the rest of this year and compare it against other wearables, such as smartwatches, and smart rings (more on the latter very soon!).

What does this mean for the Apple Watch?

I feel like a cheating lover at the moment. I genuinely love the Apple Watch – particularly the brilliantly over-the-top and not-quite-fit-for-base-camp Apple Watch Ultra.

Apple’s wearable has been on my wrist almost constantly since 2015. But my mind has been opened to alternatives. I love the Garmin MARQ Commander (mainly because ‘Applied Ballistics’ is one of the exercises you have to scroll past to find ‘Treadmill’) and the reappearance of the Whoop band on my wrist is proving far more insightful this time around.

I haven’t given up on the Apple Watch – I promise. I am, when all is said and done, an Apple-centric tech reviewer, after all. This year is going to be about me spreading my wings in terms of fitness tech, though – and I can’t wait to see where it leads me.

Before you go