This article is sponsored by WHOOP.
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It’s the strap that’s taking the PGA Tour by storm. Tiger Woods was spotted wearing one at a Stanford football game. Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy have lifted trophies with the same band on their wrists. Check out the wrists of Tour winners Lanto Griffin and Joaquin Niemann, and you’ll see it again. And now, the PGA Tour has provided its players and caddies with the band to help them them detect coronavirus symptoms.
So what is the WHOOP 3.0? And what can it do for you?
In simple terms, WHOOP is your trainer, your tracker and a friend you turn to for advice. It tells you what you need to hear. It encourages you to live your best life. And it’ll give you a heads up when it’s time to catch some extra zzz’s, too.
WHOOP is a fitness tracker that has the goal of optimizing performance for everybody from professional athletes to everyday people hoping to stay a little bit healthier. Rather than focusing on step counts, WHOOP dials in 24/7 personalized insights so that every user can know that much more about how hard he or she should work out — and recover.
WHOOP found a foothold in higher-intensity sports (LeBron James, Michael Phelps and a host of NFL players are among those who have used it in the past) but as golfers continue to turn the corner to becoming full-blown capital-A Athletes, the strap seems to be sticking. Scott Stallings was one of the first in the sport to champion the merits of WHOOP; he lost 50 pounds and underwent a full body transformation. There’s tons of tech to sift through in your strap and your app, but it really comes down to three things: strain, sleep and recovery.
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STRAIN
When you go for a run, a bike, play 18, or even just go about your regular daily activities, WHOOP will track your heart rate and determine exactly how hard your body has been working. Based on those levels of exertion and stress, the WHOOP app will give you real-time advice on how much strain you’ve taken on and how hard your next workout should be. How many calories did you burn? What was your maximum heart rate? Just how strenuous was that workout? WHOOP has plenty of answers.
SLEEP
Want some insight on just how well you’re sleeping? WHOOP tracks your stages of sleep — time awake, light sleep, REM sleep and deep sleep — while also noting the number of disturbances and the overall efficiency of your sleep. As it gets to know your own personal circadian rhythm, , the WHOOP “sleep coach” also dials in how much sleep you’ll need each night so that you can achieve peak performance. Better yet, the WHOOP battery charger just slips on over the strap, so you’ll never have to take it off to charge and miss recording sleep.
RECOVERY
Ever wonder whether you should be pushing through a tough workout versus heading home and resting up? That’s where WHOOP comes in with recovery scores. Using real-time insights focusing on heart-rate variability, resting heart rate and quality of sleep, your WHOOP will tell how ready your body is to perform each day.
The WHOOP Strap 3.0 has a five-day battery life, live heart rate monitoring, an engineered ProKnit band and improved Bluetooth capabilities to integrate with other devices you might use to train or track. The WHOOP Strap 3.0, which is available now, actually comes free with a WHOOP membership. The membership costs start at $30/month for a six-month commitment, but users can reduce that to $24/month for a 12-month commitment or $18/month for an 18-month commitment.
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