How to build a winning performance culture for long term success

Originally published on August 20, 2019

Long-term winning comes from controllable behaviors, clear standards, and a system that treats performance as something you can prepare for every day. In Episode 36 of the WHOOP Podcast, Global Head of Human Performance, Principal Scientist at WHOOP Kristen Holmes and Elite Performance Manager at WHOOP Mike Lombardi explain how sustained success is built, from values and recruiting fit to sleep, recovery, and the way athletes appraise a task before competition.

Holmes brings unusual coaching experience to the discussion. At Princeton University, her field hockey teams won 12 Ivy League titles in 13 seasons and the program's first national championship. Lombardi adds an Olympic rowing background and a coach's view of what separates one strong season from a repeatable standard.

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

To listen to Episode 36 of the WHOOP Podcast in full, head to the WHOOP Podcast on Spotify

What does it mean to say performance is a choice?

Performance is a choice when daily behavior helps you show up closer to your actual capacity. Holmes argues that high performance rests on three factors: talent, skills and expertise, and performance lifestyle.

The first two matter. Elite athletes usually arrive with rare genetics and years of training. Holmes says the separator appears in the third bucket, the choices people make every day around sleep, recovery, training behavior, stress, and routine. Those choices either increase capacity or chip away at it.

Lombardi frames the goal as helping each athlete move toward personal potential so team results become the byproduct of many people doing that consistently. Holmes adds that this requires intention. People need to know what performance means, what influences it, and how to measure whether they are moving in the right direction.

That is where education matters. Holmes says bright athletes want the why behind a standard. When a coach explains why a recovery behavior matters, or why a training constraint exists, buy-in grows because the athlete can connect the behavior to a purpose instead of treating it as arbitrary control.

Holmes defines performance this way:

"[Performance is] the capacity of an individual to intentionally behave at a level equal to his or her physical, mental and emotional potential."

What you should take away

• Holmes separates performance into talent, skill, and lifestyle, and says lifestyle is often the deciding factor over time.
• Performance becomes more repeatable when people can intentionally connect daily behavior to readiness.
• Athlete buy-in improves when coaches explain why a standard exists instead of asking for blind compliance.

If you want to hear Holmes unpack how she defines performance, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

How do coaches build a winning culture that lasts?

If performance starts with individual choice, sustained winning depends on a team setting that makes good choices normal. Holmes says lasting culture starts with value alignment and honest expectations before the season even begins.

Her view is simple: people need purpose, a sense of competence, and a feeling of control. Values help establish that foundation. During recruiting at Princeton University, Holmes tried to make the reality of the program clear. Chasing championships in a demanding academic setting meant sacrifice, structure, and hard decisions away from the field. That clarity helped the program attract fit, not just talent.

Holmes also says culture took time. Early in her head coaching career, she pushed hard on technical and tactical details, listened to blunt feedback from athletes, and kept refining the system. By her fourth year, the program had a performance education track that guided athletes through a four-year process. The point was consistency, not intensity for its own sake.

That same emphasis on behavior shows up again in Science of Winning, Part 2, where Holmes and Lombardi go deeper on team standards and leadership traits. A related thread also appears in Pressure of Performance with Dr. Jim Loehr, where energy, purpose, and identity shape performance under stress.

Holmes puts the expectation piece bluntly:

"I think unhappiness invariably ensues when expectation does not meet reality."

What you should take away

• Winning cultures start with value alignment and clear expectations during recruiting, hiring, and onboarding.
• Fit matters because people perform better when the demands of the environment match what they actually want.
• Culture usually takes years to build, and feedback is part of the building process.

If you want to hear Holmes go deeper on value alignment and recruiting for fit, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

Why do the other 22 hours matter more than a practice plan?

Once standards are clear, the next question is how athletes live between practices. Holmes says the hours away from formal training often have more influence on readiness than the session itself.

Her argument is grounded in what she has seen in the data. External load from a two-hour practice does not reliably predict next-day Recovery on its own. The rest of the day, sleep behavior, fueling, hydration, emotional stress, physical stress, and how well someone alternates strain with rest, shapes how much capacity that person brings back to the next session.

This is also where physiology and mindset meet. Holmes says you can only talk yourself into so much before biology takes over. If sleep is poor, recovery behavior is inconsistent, and stress has accumulated, resilience and focus become harder to access even for highly motivated people. In her framework, sleep behavior, training behavior, and recovery behavior form the foundation of a better mental state.

The same logic sits behind a deep dive on WHOOP Recovery, where Recovery is discussed as a daily view of readiness, and The Science of Recovery, which explores how recovery habits reset body and mind.

Holmes describes the blind spot this way:

"These other 22 hours of the day are extraordinarily important as it relates to performance."

What you should take away

• Practice is one input, while sleep, stress, fueling, and hydration shape how much readiness you bring back the next day.
• Mindset works better when physiology is supported by consistent sleep and recovery behavior.
• Looking only at training volume can hide the factors that are actually driving low readiness.

If you want to hear Holmes unpack why the other 22 hours shape readiness, listen to the full episode on Spotify

How can data change the way teams prepare and manage load?

If the other 22 hours shape readiness, coaches need a way to see readiness before they add more load. Holmes says data becomes valuable when it helps coaches understand capacity, appraisal, and how athletes respond to the same external demand in very different ways.

One of her simplest coaching rules was that the score is always 0-0. That kept task orientation clear. Another was never naming the opposition inside the team environment. Holmes wanted players to see each game as an opportunity to impose their standard, not as a status contest built around rivalry, reputation, or the idea of a trap game.

WHOOP data helped show why that matters. Holmes says she would ask coaches to rank opponents privately based on expected outcome, then compare those expectations with the lead-in data. Before perceived easy games, athletes often showed higher day Strain, later nights, weaker recovery behavior, and lower quality preparation across the week. They might still win on talent, yet the performance standard dropped. Holmes even used constraints to change appraisal in game situations, such as limiting a dominant midfielder to two-touch play so the task stayed demanding.

The same principle carries into load management. Holmes says coaches need both external load and internal response. Minutes, distance, or player load tell you what someone did. Recovery, heart rate variability, resting heart rate, and daily Strain help show what that work cost.

Speaking about internal team management work, Holmes cited a clear example from WHOOP operations:

"We've got 237 athletes that we're actively managing from August to January of 2018, and we only had 7 injuries."

That discussion connects closely with The Science of Strain, which looks at how hidden stress changes readiness and performance.

What you should take away

• Data is most useful when it shows capacity before load is added.
• Appraisal changes preparation, and perceived easy games can produce worse lead-in behavior than harder matchups.
• Load management improves when coaches pair external work with internal response instead of treating volume as the whole story.

If you want to hear Holmes go deeper on appraisal, readiness, and load management, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

Which habits move the needle most for sustained performance?

After measurement comes execution. Holmes says the biggest performance habits are usually simple, repeatable, and cheap: consistent sleep timing, good light habits, useful recovery work, and daily breathing patterns that support a calmer nervous system.

Sleep sits at the center of her model. Holmes calls it the most important behavioral experience humans have, and she treats it as a skill that can be improved. The goal is consistent, restorative sleep, not occasional long nights. She points to circadian rhythm as a major factor here, with light exposure on waking, meal timing, and regular sleep-wake timing all helping the body stay aligned.

Holmes also recommends starting with low-friction recovery behaviors. She says she does ROMWOD at least three times per week and credits the practice with changing how she approaches recovery. Lombardi highlights why it works for many people: low-skill mobility, passive stretching, and breathing built into the same session. Nasal breathing is another favorite for Holmes. She tries to default to it throughout the day and views it as a recovery behavior on its own.

Her later work on recovery and mental energy reinforces the same pattern. Better performance grows from repeatable basics, not a constant search for expensive fixes. The standard begins with sleep, then expands to the rest of the routine.

Holmes gives the sleep piece a clean definition:

"Sleep is a skill, and if you are not good at it right now, that's OK, let's figure it out."

What you should take away

• Sleep consistency is the first habit Holmes would address when trying to raise readiness.
• Morning light, meal timing, and a regular sleep-wake schedule help anchor circadian rhythm.
• Recovery work can be simple, and breathing plus mobility are habits people can practice several times each week.
• Nasal breathing is one of Holmes's preferred low-cost behaviors for supporting recovery.

The bottom line

• Holmes defines performance as the capacity to intentionally behave at a level equal to your physical, mental, and emotional potential.
• Talent and skill matter, while daily lifestyle choices often decide how often that potential shows up.
• A winning culture starts with value alignment and honest expectations long before a season reaches its biggest moments.
• The hours outside formal training often influence next-day Recovery more than the practice itself.
• Data helps most when it shows both the work an athlete performed and the internal cost of that work.
• Perceived easy tasks can reduce preparation quality, which is why Holmes treated every game as 0-0 and focused on standards over opponent identity.
• Sleep consistency, morning light, nasal breathing, and simple recovery routines are practical behaviors that support long-term readiness.

Frequently asked questions about things discussed in this episode

How does WHOOP help show whether performance is a choice?

WHOOP makes daily behavior visible by connecting Sleep, Recovery, and Strain to how your body responds over time. When bedtime, stress, alcohol, or training load changes, the WHOOP app can show whether readiness changed with it.

How does WHOOP measure readiness before training or competition?

WHOOP measures readiness through Recovery, which reflects overnight physiology and sleep context in a daily score. That gives you a quick view of whether your body appears ready for more strain or needs more support.

What does WHOOP do for the other 22 hours of the day?

WHOOP helps you see whether the hours away from training are supporting performance or dragging it down. Sleep timing, daily strain, and behavior patterns can be reviewed in the WHOOP app instead of guessed at.

How does WHOOP help with load management?

WHOOP helps with load management by pairing Strain with Recovery so work and readiness can be viewed together. That makes it easier to spot when more load may be productive and when capacity looks limited.

What does WHOOP show about sleep consistency?

WHOOP shows that sleep consistency is a behavior you can track instead of a vague goal. Bedtime and wake time patterns in the WHOOP app help reveal whether your routine is steady enough to support recovery.

How does WHOOP help you spot overreaching?

WHOOP helps you spot overreaching by showing whether low Recovery is a single-day event or part of a trend. A string of poor recovery days alongside high strain can signal that the body is carrying more stress than it is clearing.

For people trying to win more consistently, the WHOOP app can reveal whether the hours away from training are actually building the readiness they expect on game day.