How performance apparel and recovery habits work together daily

Originally published on June 16, 2020

Performance apparel only earns a place in your routine when it solves a real problem, comfort, breathability, odor control, or versatility across training and daily life. In Episode 78 of the WHOOP Podcast, Rhone co-founder and CEO Nate Checketts explains how he built Rhone around that standard, and how WHOOP data changed his own approach to sleep, late meals, and training.

This article covers five practical threads from the conversation: the market gap Rhone saw, the fabric details Checketts obsesses over, the recovery habits he changed after wearing WHOOP, what COVID taught him about work and family, and the advice he gives people who want to start a business.

Note: This article covers WHOOP Strap 3.0. For the latest hardware, see WHOOP.

To listen to episode 78 in full, head to the WHOOP Podcast on Spotify.

How do founders spot a real gap in performance apparel?

Founders usually spot a real gap by mapping category structure, customer behavior, and pricing together. Checketts said Rhone started when he and his team saw strong direct-to-consumer growth, a broader shift toward performance-minded daily wear, and no premium activewear brand built primarily for men.

Before Rhone, Checketts had worked at the National Football League and had already gone through one startup. That experience made him more sensitive to speed, product feedback, and category white space. Instead of trying to outscale larger apparel companies, Rhone looked for a narrower opening and built around it.

Describing that market gap, Checketts said:

"You had kind of this new cluster of brands that were less than 15% of their sales were to men, so 85%+ to women. And they were selling at a 40% price premium to Nike at an index level. [...] Let's look at the premium model on the men's side. 85+ percent focused on men's at a price premium to the big players that we've grown up with. And there was no one."

What you should take away

• Category gaps become clearer when you compare pricing, audience mix, and buying behavior together.
• Checketts built Rhone around a premium men's activewear opening rather than trying to cover every use case at once.
• Experience inside large organisations helped him see how much speed and focus matter in a younger brand.

If you want to hear Checketts unpack Rhone's early market thesis, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

What makes performance fabric worth paying attention to?

That market thesis only works if the product holds up. Checketts said Rhone spends heavily on fabric because comfort, dry time, and odor control decide whether a piece stays in your weekly rotation.

He drew a clear line between different materials. Reign Tech tops are built for training and moisture management. Element tees lean more toward Pima cotton comfort for daily wear. He also spent time on Goldfusion, a treatment Rhone developed for odor and bacterial control, and on warp-knit short fabric that aims to balance stretch, breathability, and water resistance.

Explaining why Goldfusion stood out, Checketts said:

"We pioneered this fabric technology called Goldfusion, which uses gold and silver particles that get infused into the fabric to fight odor and bacteria. It actually improves the dry time [...] at 100 washes, still 99% effective."

What you should take away

• Fabric choice changes how a shirt handles sweat, odor, and comfort during repeated wear.
• Checketts separates training-first fabric from daily-wear fabric instead of treating every piece the same.
• Goldfusion was positioned as a durability and odor-control upgrade, with Checketts citing 99% effectiveness after 100 washes.

If you want to hear Checketts go deeper on Goldfusion and fabric construction, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

How did WHOOP data change Nate Checketts's sleep habits?

WHOOP data helped Checketts connect daily habits to measurable recovery changes. The biggest shift for him was meal timing, especially late-night eating, and a stronger commitment to getting in bed earlier.

Checketts said he already paid close attention to physiology because he lives with type 1 diabetes and wears both an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor. WHOOP added another layer by showing how behaviors affected sleep and next-day readiness. For a refresher on how WHOOP interprets sleep, recovery, and strain, see what WHOOP measures in Episode 51 and Will Ahmed's overview of Recovery and HRV in Episode 74.

Summing up the habit change, Checketts said:

"I try not to eat after 6:30. [...] If I can get in bed by 10, which is hard for me, that 10 to 2 is more valuable than if I were to extend those hours later on."

What you should take away

• WHOOP can help you see whether late meals line up with worse sleep and lower next-day recovery.
• Checketts used a roughly 3.5-hour gap between his last meal and a 10 p.m. bedtime as a working rule.
• Earlier sleep timing mattered to him as much as total time in bed.

For Checketts's full take on late meals, bedtime, and recovery habits, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

What did running a company through COVID teach him about work and family?

Remote work made Checketts more open to flexibility, but it also exposed the limits of all-day screen work. He said productivity could stay high, yet energy, motivation, and creative flow were less consistent.

That tension is familiar to many founders. Checketts missed being in the office with colleagues, but he also saw value in protecting time at home. During that stretch, he and his family often shared three meals a day, a routine he knew would be temporary. The wider workplace rethink from that period also shows up in Episode 83 on returning to work with WHOOP.

On the family side of that change, Checketts said:

"I've got 3 kids, three boys ages 11, 8, and 4. [...] Most of the days we get to eat 3 meals together a day. I'm trying hard to protect that because I know that this is a small moment in time that's likely not repeatable."

What you should take away

• Work-from-home flexibility can help productivity while still making creativity and motivation less predictable.
• Checketts treated shared family time as a real gain rather than a side effect of disruption.
• Founder routines changed during COVID, but he did not want those lessons to disappear when offices reopened.

If you want to hear Checketts unpack remote work, motivation, and family routines, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

What advice does Nate Checketts give new entrepreneurs?

Checketts gives direct startup advice: be honest about how hard building a company is, then move before you feel fully prepared. He said entrepreneurship gets glamorized, even though the day-to-day reality is long, uncertain, and emotionally uneven.

That view fits his own path from a first startup, to the National Football League, and then back into a founder role with Rhone. It also lines up with another WHOOP conversation on leadership and setbacks in Episode 58 with Marc Randolph. For people balancing mixed training instead of one sport, Checketts's comments also echo Episode 91 on strain and doing a little bit of everything.

His clearest advice was:

"The truth is the data shows most businesses fail. [...] Embrace your own ignorance. Don't feel like you have to know everything. Just start moving, start making momentum, start going down the path."

What you should take away

• Checketts wants prospective founders to assess commitment before chasing the title of entrepreneur.
• Momentum matters because early action teaches faster than overplanning.
• Honest expectations about failure, stress, and long timelines can prevent shallow commitment.

For Checketts's full take on startup pressure and founder momentum, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

The bottom line

• Rhone was built around a specific market gap: premium activewear designed primarily for men.
• Checketts treats fabric as the product decision that most directly shapes comfort, dry time, odor control, and repeat wear.
• Goldfusion was described by Checketts as a gold-and-silver particle treatment that remained 99% effective after 100 washes.
• WHOOP data helped Checketts identify late-night eating as a consistent drag on his sleep and recovery.
• Checketts used a practical rule of stopping food around 6:30 p.m. when aiming for a 10 p.m. bedtime.
• Remote work increased flexibility for Rhone, but Checketts said creativity and motivation were less stable on constant Zoom schedules.
• Shared family meals became one of the most valuable routines he wanted to protect during COVID.
• Checketts's startup advice is to expect difficulty, accept uncertainty, and build momentum before chasing perfection.

Frequently asked questions about things discussed in this episode

How does WHOOP help you see whether late meals are affecting sleep?

WHOOP helps surface that pattern by showing changes in Sleep and Recovery alongside behavior logging in the WHOOP Journal, so you can compare nights with earlier meals against nights when you ate later.

What does WHOOP measure when it shows Recovery?

WHOOP calculates Recovery from signals such as heart rate variability, resting heart rate, sleep performance, and baseline trends, giving you a daily view of how ready your body is for strain.

How does WHOOP fit a mixed training routine?

WHOOP works well for mixed training because it tracks strain across different activities, so a week with HIIT sessions, running, and daily stress still shows up in one recovery picture.

What does WHOOP do for people who already track other health data?

WHOOP adds a second layer of context by connecting sleep, recovery, and strain to daily habits, which is why Checketts said it complemented the physiological feedback he already gets from diabetes tech.

How can WHOOP help you compare work stress and workout stress?

WHOOP captures strain from both exercise and the rest of your day, which makes it easier to see when work pressure, poor sleep, or late eating may be affecting recovery before your next session.

For people balancing training, work, and family, WHOOP makes routines like meal timing and bedtime easier to evaluate with real data instead of guesswork.