{"id":1455,"date":"2024-03-13T12:30:37","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T12:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/?p=1455"},"modified":"2024-03-13T12:30:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T12:30:37","slug":"lessons-from-whoop-so-you-dont-need-to-buy-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/lessons-from-whoop-so-you-dont-need-to-buy-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from WHOOP so you don\u2019t need to buy one"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This week will mark a year of looking like a right banana\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s because I\u2019ve been walking around smart activity tracker akimbo, COROS PACE 2 run watch on the left and WHOOP on the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impracticalities aside though, has it been worth subscribing to WHOOP with their strange model of a free device, but pay a monthly\/annual fee for the service?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think so. But I won\u2019t go into it here because the full-on review I made six months ago says near enough what I still think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read it here<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, there are three common lessons that traverse any decisions to buy or not. And they\u2019re overlooked by most athletes:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understand and accept negative impacts, instead of going cold turkey.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, getting your nutrition advice from social media is a dangerous game. It\u2019s being told that 80% of your favourite foods will melt your microbiome within the next week. In reality, we can be grown-up and practical about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re serious about performance but ALSO want to live a life, test things out to understand their impacts, and accept it for what it is<\/strong>. I still drink every week, but mainly 1 to 2 on a Wednesday after run club because that\u2019s when I see my friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find the unexpected trends. The kinda stuff you WON\u2019T find in textbooks.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What separates pro athletes from others is how wacky their pre-workout nutrition is. Take Leicester City footballer, Jamie Vardy. He said: “Three Red Bulls, a double espresso and a cheese and ham omelette<\/strong> is what makes me run around like a nut-job on a match day.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extreme example, I know. But he tinkered and slowly found what works. For me, WHOOP has shown me that late meals close to bed don\u2019t work, two coffees is optimal, and super-rich foods shock my body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more you can influence recovery, the better your performance.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

WHOOP is heavily geared towards promoting recovery. Unconsciously, I now do stuff to bump up recovery like go to bed on time to achieve 100% sleep need, not eat too close to bed, drink less, eat a bigger variety of foods, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a weird way, I\u2019ve sleepwalked into my best performance levels. It\u2019s not surprising because our bodies can only train as hard as we recover. Train a bit harder for longer, and naturally you need to sleep and eat more. The best thing is that this works both ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workout of the Week<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bored of running at tempo for ages? Here\u2019s a little switch-up!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing the floor and ceiling closer together does magical things for stamina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

10 mins warm up <\/strong>
5 mins 10-20s OVER threshold pace <\/strong>
5 mins 10-20s UNDER threshold pace\u00a0<\/strong>
repeat x2<\/em><\/strong>
10 mins cool down<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\udc36 Paws for a min<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

POV: you\u2019re training for a marathon<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It made me MEASURABLY fitter by every metric butttt\u2026 What features actually helped? Did I waste my money? And have I joined a cult?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,18,39,15,14,32,33,35],"class_list":["post-1455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fitness-tracker","tag-hybrid-athlete","tag-marathon","tag-marathon-nutrition","tag-nutrition-for-runners","tag-sc-for-runners","tag-sc-for-running","tag-strength-for-runners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1456,"href":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455\/revisions\/1456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/completeathlete.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}