TST Whoop Group

[saevel25]

I think I get a big boost from my sleep efficiency. I've been using an Oura Ring for a few years now and my sleep efficiency averages above 90%. When I sleep, I am dead to the world. 

 

[TN94z]

12 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

I think I get a big boost from my sleep efficiency. I've been using an Oura Ring for a few years now and my sleep efficiency averages above 90%. When I sleep, I am dead to the world. 

 

My sleep is normally pretty good. It's in the mid 90s usually, but recovery average for 7 days is 47%. Granted I had an outlier in there where I had to get up super early Wednesday so I did not get much rest. But even a normal week, my recovery isn't that great. Mid 50s.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, TN94z said:

I need to read up on how to improve my numbers. So far, I have just been watching the numbers to see the trends. My recovery today was 78% and I believe that is the highest it has been.

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

I think I get a big boost from my sleep efficiency. I've been using an Oura Ring for a few years now and my sleep efficiency averages above 90%. When I sleep, I am dead to the world. 

The amount of time resting isn't super correlated. Look at the last few days of my time. Look at the time asleep versus the recovery. There's a LOT more to it than just sleeping more.

I'll try to get these in order:

29th: 6:46 and 92% (101 HRV)

30th: 7:59 and 87% (79 HRV)

1st: 5:56 and 91% (102 HRV)

2nd: 7:41 and 68% (73 HRV)

3rd: 5:17 and 40% (59 HRV)

Here's a quick chart. As you can see there's no correlation to HRV with sleep time, and the recovery to sleep time is pretty minimally correlated.

It's only a five-sample study, though, so…

[Darkfrog]

5 minutes ago, iacas said:

Here's a quick chart. As you can see there's no correlation to HRV with sleep time, and the recovery to sleep time is pretty minimally correlated.

This is pretty much what I have observed as well. I sleep well most of the time (good amount and high efficiency), and we have really good sleep hygiene in our house due to a bout of post-partum insomnia my wife had after our second kid. But my recoveries are all over the map.

The only thing that I have found that correlates with poor recovery for me is alcohol consumption.

Eventually I am going to read up on HRV, but just haven't had the time.

Today I'm at 98% recovery, so I feel like I need to go on a bike ride or something...

[iacas]

40 minutes ago, Darkfrog said:

Today I'm at 98% recovery, so I feel like I need to go on a bike ride or something...

I see that! I won't post the screenshot, but I see this:

• @Darkfrog 98%
• @saevel25 80%
• @TN94z 78%
• @bweiss711 45%
• @iacas 40% (in our little group).

@Darkfrog, somehow, you have an RHR of 40?

[TN94z]

I agree @iacas about the correlation. I actually just had that conversation with my wife. I was telling her that my sleep has been surprisingly very good. I did not think I was sleeping that well and it was leading to my lack of recovery. Since using the whoop, I see that is not the case at all. So it is now going to put me on the trail of what will increase my recovery more in the future and that will make me feel even better. About today's recovery, it's higher than normal yet I ran a mile last night, worked on some pull-up progressions, and rowed 500m. It was not a super intense workout at all, but just a light, get the body moving type of thing. Odd (or is it?) that one of my highest recovery days came after a lighter type workout. One thing I have really followed is the strain suggestions. I usually just do whatever workout I have planned whether it falls in my max suggested strain or not...

The thing that whoop is starting to teach me is that I do not know as much as I thought I did. Oh and my wife bought her a whoop as well. She has been using it for a week now.

[Darkfrog]

35 minutes ago, iacas said:

@Darkfrog, somehow, you have an RHR of 40?

According to Whoop anyways. I was surprised to see that as well. When I'm sitting or laying down, I'm around 45-60 bpm, so wouldn't be surprised if it got lower in sleep. Never really seen this data before, so still learning about my baseline.

[saevel25]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

@Darkfrog, somehow, you have an RHR of 40?

Is he an endurance athlete? 

Athlete Heart Rate: What’s Safe and What’s Too High?

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The average resting heart rate is usually between 60 and 80 beats per minute, but some athletes have resting heart rates considerably lower...

Here is a list of podcasts on HRV. 

Podcast | Wild Health Podcast

A Deep Dive Into HRV: The Myths & Truths of Heart Rate Variability Testing - Ben Greenfield Fitness - Diet, Fat Loss and Performance Advice

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Click here for the full written transcript of this podcast episode. Australian HRV researcher Dr. James Heathers (pictured above) is

 

 

Edited December 3, 2020 by saevel25

[Darkfrog]

39 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Is he an endurance athlete? 

Nope. I was an avid cyclist at one point, but haven't done any serious riding for at least 10 years. I quit playing soccer maybe 7 years ago because I had too many minor leg injuries that kept compounding. These days the most I do is intermittent hiking, long walks a few times a week, commute by bicycle (pre-COVID, I'm 90% WFH for now), and golf.

I am considering dusting off my road bike and starting to get some rides in now that my bike commute is indefinitely gone.

[bweiss711]

Question for you guys.... I noticed both yesterday and today, that both mornings, my strain score has been 0.0.  Still is for today right now.  My mornings are always light working from home.  I woke up, walked my kids to school (less than half mile round trip), and then sit in my home office the rest of the morning.  But I am moving around a bit, walking up and down stairs between the kitchen and basement and doing some light putting on my mat.  Just seems odd that the strain score is zero.

Is this because I'm still in that initial 5 day window?  I see a few of you are at about 4.  Have you done much more than I have to this point in the day?

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, bweiss711 said:

Question for you guys.... I noticed both yesterday and today, that both mornings, my strain score has been 0.0.  Still is for today right now.  My mornings are always light working from home.  I woke up, walked my kids to school (less than half mile round trip), and then sit in my home office the rest of the morning.  But I am moving around a bit, walking up and down stairs between the kitchen and basement and doing some light putting on my mat.  Just seems odd that the strain score is zero.

Is this because I'm still in that initial 5 day window?  I see a few of you are at about 4.  Have you done much more than I have to this point in the day?

I think maybe the first five days is the reason? I'd consider emailing Whoop. They reply quickly. I see your score at 0.0, yeah. I think though I got scores the first five days, they're just more accurate after that.

[TN94z]

13 minutes ago, bweiss711 said:

Question for you guys.... I noticed both yesterday and today, that both mornings, my strain score has been 0.0.  Still is for today right now.  My mornings are always light working from home.  I woke up, walked my kids to school (less than half mile round trip), and then sit in my home office the rest of the morning.  But I am moving around a bit, walking up and down stairs between the kitchen and basement and doing some light putting on my mat.  Just seems odd that the strain score is zero.

Is this because I'm still in that initial 5 day window?  I see a few of you are at about 4.  Have you done much more than I have to this point in the day?

I would email them. I'm fairly certain that I got scores even in the 5 day window. As a matter of fact, I'm positive you should still be getting scores. My wife did and she has only had hers a week, I think. Regardless of the calibration, it will still be reading something...

[bweiss711]

3 minutes ago, iacas said:

I think maybe the first five days is the reason? I'd consider emailing Whoop. They reply quickly. I see your score at 0.0, yeah. I think though I got scores the first five days, they're just more accurate after that.

Thanks.  Its odd because it seems to calculate my strain scores from my lunchtime workouts the last 2 days and then continues to gradually increase the score for the rest of the day.  But from morning to lunch, I get nothing.  

I'll probably give it until the end of that initial window.  Good to know customer support is responsive.  

1 minute ago, TN94z said:

I would email them. I'm fairly certain that I got scores even in the 5 day window. As a matter of fact, I'm positive you should still be getting scores. My wife did and she has only had hers a week, I think. Regardless of the calibration, it will still be reading something...

Ok, maybe ill reach out earlier.  Its definitely reading my heart rate.  I can see the minute by minute graph and it correlates directly with my activity so far today.  Just no strain score calculation.

[iacas]

I start out at about 4.0 any given day.

Has it processed your sleep? Do you leave the app running? Maybe it hasn't caught up. What time is it through (bottom right)?

But yeah, just leave the app running on your phone all day.

[TN94z]

It is odd that it seems to work any time outside of the morning.

On a side not, I did a little workout again last night and today my recovery is at 90%!. And my HRV is at 90, where it is usually mid 50s or so.  I'm going to keep an eye on this but it seems if I just sit at home and don't do much, the next day my recovery is lower. If I do a little workout of some sort, my recovery is higher the next day.  Does that make any sense?

[bweiss711]

1 minute ago, iacas said:

I start out at about 4.0 any given day.

Has it processed your sleep? Do you leave the app running? Maybe it hasn't caught up. What time is it through (bottom right)?

yes, its processed my sleep and its running. Data is current in the app. I manually start and stop my sleep activity in the app.  

I found this help article:

Why is my Strain 0? – WHOOP

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To start to accumulate Strain, you need to reach 30% of your Heart Rate Reserve. Your Heart Rate Reserve is the range from your resting HR to your max HR. For example, if your max is 200 and restin...

Seems to explain it.  If my calculations are correct, it won't calculate strain until I hit somewhere between 86-90 bpm heart rate.  My walk this morning topped out at 84.  I had a spike over 100 when i sprinted up the stairs, but it wasn't sustained.  Maybe that's it.

Doesn't explain why you start at 4 though.

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, TN94z said:

It is odd that it seems to work any time outside of the morning.

On a side not, I did a little workout again last night and today my recovery is at 90%!. And my HRV is at 90, where it is usually mid 50s or so.  I'm going to keep an eye on this but it seems if I just sit at home and don't do much, the next day my recovery is lower. If I do a little workout of some sort, my recovery is higher the next day.  Does that make any sense?

Since "recovery" is so closely tied to HRV, maybe on days you work out your HRV is naturally elevated, and stays elevated through the night, so you get a higher recovery?

Just now, bweiss711 said:

Doesn't explain why you start at 4 though.

I don't "start" at 4, I probably pass the heart rate threshold early.

[TN94z]

9 minutes ago, iacas said:

Since "recovery" is so closely tied to HRV, maybe on days you work out your HRV is naturally elevated, and stays elevated through the night, so you get a higher recovery?

So my question is, should I do some sort of workout every night to keep my recovery number up? Or is the number a bit misleading BECAUSE I workout at night?  I'm confused now..lol

9 minutes ago, bweiss711 said:

yes, its processed my sleep and its running. Data is current in the app. I manually start and stop my sleep activity in the app.  

I found this help article:

Why is my Strain 0? – WHOOP

---

To start to accumulate Strain, you need to reach 30% of your Heart Rate Reserve. Your Heart Rate Reserve is the range from your resting HR to your max HR. For example, if your max is 200 and restin...

Seems to explain it.  If my calculations are correct, it won't calculate strain until I hit somewhere between 86-90 bpm heart rate.  My walk this morning topped out at 84.  I had a spike over 100 when i sprinted up the stairs, but it wasn't sustained.  Maybe that's it.

Doesn't explain why you start at 4 though.

That might be it. I probably get by that threshold quickly as well. Especially with the idiots I have to drive around on my commute to work.