i've been using the woop 4.0 for over a year now and i have some thoughts so today i'm going to
be giving you my review and i'm going to keep it concise give you all of the basics you need
to know about whoop the pricing the gear the pros and the cons and call it a day because if you're
anything like me you don't want to spend an hour watching a review video you just want the facts
so if you aren't familiar woop is a wearable device that's designed to monitor your recovery
sleep training and health and provide insights that go far beyond anything else on the market
as an athlete and a health coach who has a strong interest in sleep and recovery
i was immediately drawn to woop the first time i heard of it i have used and still do
use numerous fitness and sleep tracking devices everything from garmin watches to aura ring and
i previously used the woop 3.0 for years before upgrading to the 4.0 as soon as it was released
so i think i do have a fair bit of experience when it comes to wearable devices to compare it to
hey guys welcome back to my channel if you're new here my name is kait i'm a certified health and
nutrition coach i post videos twice a week here on youtube talking all things insulin resistance
sleep weight loss and more so if you're ready to take control of your metabolic health make sure
to click that subscribe button and you can also find me on tik tok and instagram where i share new
posts every single day now before we get into it i just want to say that this video is not sponsored
i paid out of pocket for this device i pay the monthly subscription fee which we'll go over
a little bit later in the video i have spent probably far too much money on the compatible
loop gear which we'll also go over later in this video so i just wanted to put that out
there before we begin but let's start by going over the basics woop is a health fitness sleep
and recovery tracker that claims to provide you with the most in-depth feedback available
and let me say right away they aren't lying woo provides you with a lot of information
and a lot of insight way way more than any garmin watch than any apple watch than any
aura ring or any other device i've seen probably 20 to 30 times as much and i am not exaggerating
but we'll come back to that in a second the device itself is just a tiny rectangle but
you can attach it to a band to wear on your wrist there's also a band that goes around your forearm
and there's also a chest strap or else they also have clothing that you can insert the device into
and that is something that i think is super cool not to mention functional especially if
you're competing in any sport and especially a contact sport during these sports you usually
aren't able to wear something like this on your wrist and if you are it's usually not
optimal but like i said i'll get more into the clothing a little bit later on unlike
most of the competitors on the market whoop doesn't actually have a watch face or a screen
you view everything through the smartphone app it provides you physiological data 24 7. and
gives you a score every day for your recovery and your strain which is your activity and your stress
the device is waterproof and one charge can last you multiple days this device is meant to be worn
24 7 to the extent where you even charge it when you're wearing it by just slipping the charger on
you wear the device when you sleep and every morning when you wake up you're going to have a
sleep performance percentage a recovery percentage and a day strain score to aim for let's start off
by talking about how it tracks sleep woop measures your heart rate your resting heart
rate your heart rate variability your sleep stages your sleep disturbances and your respiratory rate
based on all these factors along with how much of your sleep need was met it's going to give
you a sleep performance percentage now i think that the sleep tracker is great in a lot of ways
but not so great in other ways overall i do think it is a fantastic overview of how well you slept
metrics including resting heart rate and hrv seem to be consistent with other sleep tracking devices
i have including my aura ring but when it comes to the sleep stages they tend to be a bit off
honestly i don't think this is the biggest deal in the world though what really matters when it comes
to determining your recovery is your resting heart rate and your heart rate variability or your hrv
and when you get adequate sleep and enough deep sleep and enough rem sleep then these are going
to be optimal now you can go over to the coaching tab and woop will give you recommendations on what
time you should go to sleep based on what time you're planning on getting up your strain for
the day your sleep debt etc and it will also give you some deeper insights as well and this is a new
feature but whoop now allows women to track their menstrual cycle and based on where you are in your
cycle it takes this into account as well and this is so important because based on where we are in
our cycle whether we're in the first half or the second half this can make a big difference in
our sleep and our recovery in our performance and this is unfortunately out of our control
i used to get so frustrated because in the week leading up to my period my hrv would be
so much lower than it usually would despite me doing everything the same my recovery score would
be lower as a result so the fact that whoop now factors this in and tailors your recommendations
is fantastic now let's talk about the recovery score by measuring resting heart rate heart
rate variability and sleep performance whoop will give you a percentage score from 1 to 100
a low percentage will show up as red moderate will show up as yellow and a high percentage will show
up as green signifying just how recovered you are and how much your body can take on that day
and based on how recovered you are will coincide with the strain level you should aim for that day
if you go above your optimal strain score then thinking is it will take you longer to recover
if you stay under your optimal strain score you're going to recover faster and if you're
right in that sweet spot in the optimal zone you're going to be able to balance fitness
improvements and recovery and now let's discuss strain a bit more strain is a measure of how much
mental and physical stress you're putting on your body similar to the sleep coach whoop also
provides you a strain coach and as we just said based on your recovery whoop is going to give you
a strain score to aim for that day this score is going to be between 0 and 21. every activity you
track throughout the day is going to be given its own strain score these are all going to contribute
to your daily strain and even activities you don't track will contribute to your daily strain as well
now because whoop is tracking and storing your heart rate data 24 7 if you forget to start an
activity you can always enter the times in afterwards you can also log things like yard
work or doing chores around the house or you can not log them and like i said they will contribute
to your strain score as well as the day goes on your strain score is going to increase
your strain coach will also give you real-time data during the workouts you're tracking and
it's going to give you a target exertion goal for that workout if you choose now provide the daily
scores and insights woop also provides you weekly and monthly reports as well and if you thought
the daily reports gave you a lot of data you have no idea first off i should say that every morning
when you open the app you're gonna have a journal checklist to complete you can go through and
tick off whether you spent time outside that day the diet that you ate vegan keto they even have
carnivore did you get a massage did you use red light therapy and there are literally hundreds
of options but don't worry you can go into your settings and turn on and off the ones that are
applicable to you they even have an option whether your cat or dog was sleeping in the room with you
because let me tell you that can impact your sleep i'm telling you whoop goes so in-depth
so the weekly reports are pretty basic they just let you know whether your sleep and your
training was optimal but the monthly reports that is when you're going to find out whether all the
things on your checklist helped or hindered your recovery and this can be really really helpful
for example my august report found that i recovered better when i took magnesium and
creatine and when i used red light therapy alcohol was the thing that negatively impacted my sleep
and my recovery the most followed by a high strain score and eating too close to my bedtime and i get
comments all the time from people asking about whether using alcohol to fall asleep is a bad
thing when you use a tracker like whoop and you see how alcohol impacts your sleep and recovery
it becomes painfully obvious how bad it is even just a couple of drinks yes it can help you fall
asleep but the quality of your sleep is pretty badly impacted not saying not to drink ever but
just something to be mindful of now i want to talk about the clothing because whoop has
really outdone themselves here so i have a couple of the sports bras i have one of the bralette
and the way it works is you just insert the sensor into the band you can barely feel it it still
tracks everything and this is so good if you play sports yes the wristband and the forearm band are
fine if you're just training in the gym or even if you're just doing cardio like running but if you
play any sport really the wrist strap isn't gonna cut it i play ice hockey competitively and even
when i have my gloves on the wrist strap will move sometimes so now i just wear the sports bras every
time and that has been fantastic for women they also have underwear and leggings and for men they
have underwear shorts and a compression top like i said this is one of the coolest things about whoop
i don't think there's any other device on the market that is offering clothing like this
okay but enough about the clothing now let's get to the fun part or the not so fun part
the pricing unfortunately woop is based on a subscription model if you pay monthly it's 44
a month yearly it's 35 a month and for two years it's 30 a month so yeah it's not cheap with your
first subscription you do get the device free for what that's worth and then if you want to
switch the band to a different color obviously that's an additional feed to pay for the band
all of the clothing and that's an additional fee and yeah the subscription model it kind of sucks
as a consumer and this is part of the reason why i don't think woop is the right choice for casual
exercisers i really think it is only suitable for athletes and people who have specific athletic
goals because if you're just a casual exerciser if you're just trying to improve your health in
general what woop is providing you is too much you do not need this much information maybe if you're
training for a marathon or another specific competition then yeah it might be suitable
but for the average person i think you're better off going with a garmin watch if you're looking to
track fitness and the aura ring if you're looking to track sleep anyways guys that's all i have for
you today i hope you enjoyed this review let me know in the comments down below if you want
me to do a full review on the newest model of the aura ring because i've been using that for
probably over a year now i can't remember exactly when that released but i have the newest one and i
do use that as well and let me know if you have any other questions about woop in the comments
down below i'll try to answer as many as i can i'm also going to put a link in the description
box down below to get one month free when you join whoop so make sure to check that out and
also let me know down below if you are someone who currently uses woop or if you're considering it
if you guys did enjoy this video you might also enjoy my video all about red light therapy which
i mentioned in this video you can check it out here if you want to catch up on my most recent
upload you can find it here and if you want to check out my coaching programs including my 7
day insulin resistance master class you can find that here thanks guys i'll see you next time bye