CrossFitters love the latest gear and equipment. Over the years we have seen numerous functional fitness products rise to popularity and flood our social media feeds. So if you’ve been following some of the top CrossFit athletes on Instagram lately you are almost guaranteed to have seen WHOOP.
WHOOP is a sensor worn like a watch that measures an athlete’s heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), ambient temperature, motion and movement and skin response. The device captures this data more than 100 times per second and sends the information to an app on their iPhone (Android is coming soon) giving them data on strain and sleep performance, recovery and sleep.
WHOOP hit the market in the fall of 2015 and has been noticed by athletes in other sports, including the NFL and MLB. In March 2017, WHOOP was approved by Major League Baseball to be worn in games. One month later The NFL Players Assocation named WHOOP the official recovery wearable.
Around that same time several CrossFit athletes began sharing their use of WHOOP on social media.
And with the CrossFit Games just over a week away, WHOOP announced that it has at least 37 CrossFit Games athletes training with their product. Two teams, CrossFit Back Bay and CrossFit 417, have all team members on WHOOP. Oh, and these teams were in the top 5 of the Combined Regional Leaderboard.
“The sport of CrossFit is extremely demanding, and requires me and my teammates to understand what our bodies need and are capable of, not only at competitions and practice, but around the clock as well,” said Molly Abgarian, CrossFit Athlete, Team Back Bay. “WHOOP has been invaluable, teaching me to train smarter than ever, reducing my risk of injury and overtraining. By providing me with deeper insights on my Recovery and Strain not only before and after workouts, but throughout the rest of my day as well, WHOOP has helped me prioritize rest and recovery to achieve peak performance.”
WHOOP is also being used by 21 of the individual athletes competing at the 2017 Reebok CrossFit Games. Athletes like Brooke Wells, Chyna Cho, Alec Smith and Paul Castillo have all been training with it.
The WHOOP Strap 2.0 is $500 with no monthly cost or subscription fee. When paired with the app on your iPhone, you get real-time analysis of your strain, sleep and recovery. The wearable device is waterproof (good for all the sweat) and has a battery life of 44 hours.
One of the biggest users of WHOOP in the CrossFit space is Misfit Athletics. Many of Misfit’s top athletes use WHOOP and have utilized the WHOOP Elite functionality that allows the Misfit coaches to see their athletes’ metrics each day. Seth Page, one of the Coaches of Misfit Athletics said, “WHOOP removes the guess work, and allows us to find the patterns that lead to better recovery and optimal performance.”
So is WHOOP the next big thing in the sport of CrossFit? Only time will tell, but there is a high probability that one (or more) of the WHOOP athletes will be standing on the podium Sunday night in Madison.
