As a die-hard Fitbit girl, I often look down at my wrist to check the time, step count, and heart rate. I check my health stats 100 times a day, sometimes without even thinking. When I decided to shake things up and try the Whoop 4.0, a fitness tracker beloved by athletes and serious exercisers, my entire world changed.
First off, the Whoop 4.0 doesn't look like your typical fitness tracker. Unlike a Fitbit or Apple Watch, which display all information on an interactive display, the Whoop is a screen-less wearable device that attaches to your wrist via a strap. You can also opt for a bicep strap if you want to wear it on your arm, or pick some from Whoop's Any-Wear line of activewear specifically designed to tuck the tracker into a swimsuit, sports bra, or pair Products in lingerie. leggings.
Rather than accessing your stats on the watch, Whoop constantly sends data to the appropriate Whoop app you need to open to get in-depth information about your exercise, recovery, stress, and sleep. Target? Helping you adjust to your body and develop healthier habits over time.
As soon as I opened the box, I knew this gadget was beautiful, high-tech, and completely unlike any other tracker on the market. This is my honest review of Whoop 4.0 after testing it for a month.
Huhu 4.0 Huhu
quick overview
- Product name: Hula 4.0
- Price: Membership is $30.00 per month
- Best for: Tracking workouts, recovery, stress, and sleep
- Rating: 4/5
What is Shout 4.0?
The Whoop 4.0 is a fitness wearable that uses sensors to track your blood oxygen levels, skin temperature, breathing rate, and heart rate metrics so that it knows what you're doing at all times. The device is designed to be worn 24/7—whether you're exercising, sleeping, showering, or walking around town—so you can collect all the data you want or need about your body, including your resting heart rate ( RHR), heart rate variability (HRV), recovery level and sleep quality.
Whoop also lets you manually track more than 80 different types of workout and recovery activities, whether you're taking a spin class, doing Pilates, or getting a massage. All of this information is tracked and factored into your Stress and Recovery scores, which are designed to let you know if you need a recovery day, extra sleep, or if you're ready to push yourself harder.
tension
The Whoop strain function measures your cardiovascular expenditure on a scale of 1 to 21. You'll get an activity strain score during your workout, as well as a daily strain score that takes into account your activity and stress throughout the day. While activity stress focuses primarily on heart rate during exercise, daytime stress scores include both mental stress and physical stress, so a hard, sweaty session can impact your stress scores just as much as a workout.
The longer your heart rate is elevated, the higher your score. A strain score of 0 to 9 is considered mild strain, 10 to 13 is moderate strain, 14 to 17 is severe strain, and 18 to 21 is all-out strain. Please note that the numbers you receive are highly personalized, as one difficult exercise may be easy for someone else and vice versa. In theory, as you continue to exercise and make lifestyle adjustments, your strain score should start to decrease (because your fitness level is increasing).
sleep
Wear Whoop to sleep and it will monitor your sleep performance by taking into account the duration, quality, efficiency and consistency of your Zzzs. When you wake up, the app shows you a chart that shows all of this information along with data on how much sleep you need versus how much sleep you need, and how much time you spend in bed.
As it collects several days of data, Whoop Sleep Coach will begin recommending an ideal bedtime based on your circadian rhythm. Whoop can also use a haptic alarm, a gentle vibration, to gently wake you up at the ideal time in the morning. All this data is designed to improve your sleep so you can perform better the next day.
recover
When you wake up, Whoop also calculates your recovery and then recommends your optimal exercise intensity for the day. The score is based on the percentage that classifies your recovery as green, yellow, or red.
If you slept well, you'll get a green score (67 to 100 percent), which means you're recovered and ready to work, exercise, or tackle a stressful day. If you get a yellow score (34% to 66%), your body is maintaining and preparing itself to withstand moderate stress. This might mean skipping a super hard workout and monitoring how you're feeling throughout the day.
A red score (0 to 33%) means you really need more rest. This means your body is struggling to recover, perhaps because you didn't sleep well, or you were stressed, overtrained, sick, etc. According to Whoop, the average recovery score for most people is 58%, which looks like that means we could all use a break once in a while.
How does it feel to use Whoop 4.0?
Because I'm so used to looking at my Fitbit device, I feel disoriented when I look down and see nothing but a band on my wrist. It took me a while to get into the habit of opening the Whoop app, but once I did, I was in data heaven. The app gives you graphs and charts and other intricate details about your body's current state so you can better understand when to rest and when to push yourself. (This is probably why athletes like Whoop.)
On the app's home screen, you can see your overview, also known as your daily stress and recovery score. When I wear the Whoop for a few days and the data starts rolling in, I try to plan my schedule accordingly. If I wake up with a green score—meaning I got enough sleep—I know I can exercise to my heart’s content. (Hello, dance workouts!) If I wake up with a yellow score, I have an excuse to relax and do some active recovery.
As someone who walks as much as possible, I do miss tracking my steps. Gee has nothing to do with that life. However, it does allow you to track your fitness habits. Before starting a workout, I would manually tap into an active session, keep the app open, and watch it track my heart rate zones and movements in real time, all of which ultimately added to my daily stress. I wore it during Pilates, dance cardio, walking, and running, and it was so cool to see if I was trying hard enough—or if I was pushing my limits that day. The focus is on finding the sweet spot to get the best results.
Another cool feature? While you typically need to take off a fitness tracker to charge it, the Whoop has a battery pack that slides onto the device so you can charge it while wearing it. It's even waterproof, so if you really want to charge the Whoop in the shower, you can. Of course, this means you never lose any data. For serious exercisers, I can see how this constant flow of information would have a lot of appeal.
result
I quickly became fascinated with everyday tension and recovery. If the latter is lower, I go into full relaxation mode so that my body can get proper rest. Sleep data has also become a guiding light. If Whoop tells me I should be in bed by 10:30, that's my goal - which usually makes me more energetic the next day.
If I wake up and my recovery score is still yellow despite my best efforts, I'll notice that I'm taking longer. A yellow score tells me that now is not a good time to force myself to dance, jog, or stay up late. Throughout the month, my recovery scores were a great reminder to do what is best for me in my daily life, not what I want to do.
judgment
Whoop 4.0 is more technologically advanced than your average step tracker. Wearables like Fitbit can track your steps, exercise and sleep, while Whoop can monitor your every move and make recommendations that impact your day, a bit like a personal health coach.
The price also reflects this. Access to the Whoop app costs $30 per month, which may be worth it for athletes, serious exercisers, or marathon trainers. It's been fun trying it out for a few weeks and I appreciate all the personalized information and advice. Whenever I feel exhausted or I'm training for something specific, I put the Whoop back on, but for my daily routine and simple workouts, the Fitbit works just fine.
Research reference:
Avram, R. (2019). True heart rate standards in the Health eHeart study. NPJ Digital Medicine. DOI: 10.1038/s41746-019-0134-9.
Jemini, F. (2022). Accuracy and acceptability of wrist-worn activity tracking devices: A systematic review of the literature. Journal of Medical Internet Research. doi:10.2196/30791.
Rajendra Acharya, U. (2006). Heart rate variability: a review. Computers in Medical Bioengineering. doi:10.1007/s11517-006-0119-0.
