Whoop Strap 4.0 – Worth It or Useless Gadget?

You might have seen me on YouTube or Instagram looking like a complete tool with an Apple Watch and a Whoop Strap on my wrist.

What can I say? I like data.

I have been using the Apple Watch for years, but it lacked the ability to measure sleep and the more I learn, the more I realize that sleep is critical. It also measures respiratory rate, blood oxygen, resting heart rate, heart rate variability and skin temperature. These all work together to get you a read on your overall strain and gives you a recovery score. I have also found every time I get a little bit sick, like sniffles or a little stomach bug, the Whoop Strap basically predicts this.

If I disregard what the Whoop Strap says, I pay the price.

I have been using the whoop strap for months. Let me show you some screens:

The strain rate shows how much you strain over the course of a day. This is used to decide how much sleep you need and how well recovered you are.

It measures sleep performance. Not only how long you sleep, but also your light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep. This was what made me buy this strap, the sleep data I always wanted to measure but I couldn’t.

What the Whoop Strap told me didn’t really teach me much of anything to be honest.

On the nights I sleep well, my recovery is high, and my performance is better. On the nights I don’t get enough sleep or sleep poorly, my recovery is garbage, and my performance is disappointing.

I don’t need a strap to tell me this. This is common sense and when coaching kids, I can tell when an athlete is well fed and well rested and when they were out partying. It isn’t that difficult.

So why the heck would anyone wear the Whoop Strap?

For me, it’s what I do. I train as a competitive professional bodybuilder and coach multiple high-intensity sessions per day. To be able to analyze what I did the day after a night’s sleep, like drinking diet soda after 5pm, and how it affects my sleep, can help me adjust my habits to support better sleep.

Whoop Strap also automatically generates reports over weekly and monthly time periods to help you visualize your progress to optimize your life. Did your performance at work correlate with more sleep? Did you get a raise? Did you get along with people better? How was your training? Did you feel energized? How was your cardio? Were you breathing well?

For the average person trying to be healthy and be the best you ever, the Whoop Strap is unnecessary, and I would bet my left nipple that most normies would get tired of wearing it and cease use after a couple of months. But for the hardcore athlete or health nut like myself, it is a very useful tool.

I spoke above about the healthy lifestyle choices the Whoop Strap enforces. Here are some I live by:

• Sleep 7-9 hours a night or as much as possible with your schedule.
• Avoid caffeinated beverages and too much stimulation and light before retiring for bed.
• A good sleep supplement can help. I recommend MTS Nutrition Sleep Aid.
• EXERCISE DAILY! Whether it’s cardio, weight training, yoga, or anything else, exercise will help regulate your circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythms are 24-hour cycles that are part of the body’s internal clock, running in the background to carry out essential functions and processes.
• Get as much light as possible early in the day and taper it later in the day.
• Try to let your brain rest before bed, meaning no cell phone 20-30 minutes before laying down to sleep.
• If you are short on quality sleep, adjust your training volume and intensity accordingly.

While the Whoop Strap 4.0 is a critical tool for someone as obsessive as me, for a large majority of the population, it isn’t necessary.

Do you have a Whoop Strap? Let me know how you like it – hit me on the DMs @marclobliner on Instagram!