Everyone knows that you have to train to increase fitness and performance, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing; training too much harms performance just as much as not training enough does. Therefore, top athletes are constantly engaged in a delicate balancing act between overdoing it — risking overtraining and injury — and under-doing it — leaving unrealized performance gains on the table. The motivation behind creating WHOOP was the realization that our bodies were full of information that could help us navigate this fine line, if only we knew how to listen.
WHOOP exposes this information to our Members via two primary metrics: Strain and Recovery (which is calculated using heart rate variability, resting heart rate and sleep). In the sections that follow, we get into the science behind these features and discuss how to use them in order to not only understand the impact of training on your body, but also how to use them prescriptively to plan your training.
