My health has always been important to me, and I’ve used trackers in the past to help me make tweaks and improvements to my choices and routines.
After all, Peter Drucker says:
“What gets measured gets improved.”
A few months ago, my cousin told me about the WHOOP Strap. It’s a health and sleep tracker…one of the first things that drew me to the WHOOP band is that they said it tracks better than other devices.
To really get ahead in personal development, you have to track your progress. Trying WHOOP made sense to me because it tracks a variety of key metrics for your health and sleep, so you know where to make changes in your habits. I love the idea of just wearing a strap on your wrist and having all this useful data flowing into your phone.
I’ve had other trackers like Fitbit. It was definitely OK, but it didn’t track nearly as well. Also, it didn’t track as many metrics. The information I get from the WHOOP app has been really interesting, and I’ve made a lot of changes because of it.

WHOOP Strap 3.0 Review
Note: WHOOP requires a monthly subscription, but you can get the first month for free at this link (this saves you $30).
Here are the top reasons I like the WHOOP Strap:
1. You Don’t Have to Take it Off
One of the biggest draws for me is that you don’t have to take the strap off your wrist for any reason…not even to charge it. If you’ve ever worn a tracker before, you know how annoying it is to remember to charge it and put it back on. When you forget to put it on, you lose a lot of information.
These are the features that make it possible to keep the WHOOP Strap on at all times:
Waterproof
Not only can you wear it in the shower, but you can wear it in the pool or the ocean. It can handle chlorine in pools or salt water. Also, if you sweat a lot from working out or being out in the sun, it’s not going to ruin it.
Charging the Battery
The way you charge it is with a battery that slides over the tracker. You don’t have to take the strap off to put the battery pack in place. When it’s done charging, just take off the battery, and it’s good to go.
I usually charge it while I’m working at my desk. It’s hardly noticeable and doesn’t get in the way while I work.
The band has a pretty long battery life as it is. Normally, I only have to charge it every 3-4 days.
To me, the magic of this tracker is the convenience of never having to take it off. Thanks to the battery pack, it just sits on my wrist and gathers health data all of the time.

Different Bands Available
The band they give you is generic and comes free with the membership. But, they sell additional bands that can be used in many different settings. If you need a more professional-looking band or want something fun, you can find it.
Because of the variety of bands, you won’t be in a position where you have to take it off when you need to dress up or look professional.
2. The App is Really Useful
The app is super impressive. The WHOOP Strap pulls in a variety of your health metrics and feeds it into the app with trends, charts, weekly and monthly recaps, and more.
My one problem with the WHOOP app is that it’s a resource hog. It drains the battery on my phone and takes up a lot of storage space. It could be that I just need to upgrade my phone, lol.
3. Measures Strain, Not Steps
What’s really interesting about WHOOP is how it tracks exercise. Many health trackers just do your steps. The problem with this is that walking under one set of conditions versus another puts a different strain on your body, so you’re not measuring the full picture.
The WHOOP band doesn’t look at your steps at all. To give you a strain score, it looks at the amount of strain you put on your body during the day. Strain can be built via exercise, stress, or anything that raises your heart rate.
4. It Learns You
For the first 30 days that you wear it, it gets a baseline of your personal health. All of us have different fitness levels, so having it understood is really important.
A big bonus about this fitness tracker is that it learns you. If you get your heart pumping, it can tell. I have a higher strain if I run or ride the Peloton versus walking. You want to have a higher strain because it increases your fitness.
It’s smart. Usually, when I walk around my neighborhood, my strain isn’t that high. But, when we went to Disney, my strain was off the charts. It was 90 degrees there, and I was in the sun. Between the weather and the stress of being at a busy theme park, my strain was much higher than when I normally walk.
A regular step counter won’t take into account the outside factors or internal factors that increase the strain (and thus fitness gains) on your body.
Also, the WHOOP tracker will learn your activities after a while. You can tell it when you are doing a certain type of activity like boxing or cycling. Then, it will figure it out after a few times, and you won’t have to select that anymore.
4. Metrics it Tracks
I’ve been really impressed with the metrics that it tracks and found them very helpful. Here is a look at what it monitors:
Sleep
The WHOOP app will show you how many hours of sleep you got the night before and gives you a score when you wake up.
It will show you how many hours it thinks you need to sleep to be fully recovered in the morning based on the strain from the day. You’ll get sleep data such as:
- How much time you were in the bed versus how much time you were actually asleep
- Respiratory rate
- How many times you woke up or got disturbed
- Cycles of sleep and how much time you spent in each one
This app feels like you have a sleep coach working with you. What’s helpful about this sleep tracker is it shows you exactly what kind of habits lead to you feeling awful in the morning.
Recovery
WHOOP measures your recovery – meaning how well rested and recouped you are from the previous day. It calculates your score on a range from 0-100 and assigns a different color for each score.
- Red means you aren’t recovered from the previous days. You’ll feel like crap when you get up.
- Yellow is moderately recovered – pretty much average or normal.
- Green means you are fully recovered and good to go. Your body is at the peak for heavy strain.
It’s pretty accurate with the scores it gives. On the days I get up and see that my score is in the red, I always feel like crap. But on the days it’s green, I feel ready to take on the world.
One thing that the recovery score has shown me is the impact habits have on your recovery score, good and bad. For example, if you eat junk before before bed, have high caffeine and alcohol consumption, don’t get enough sleep, or a combo of these 3, you’re going to wake up in the red, and you’ll feel the difference
Recovery is a very important part of increasing your health. Pushing your body when it’s not fully recovered can actually keep you from reaching your health goals.
On the days when you are fully recovered, you can tackle harder workouts. But on the days when you are not fully recovered, you need to slow down and let your body restore itself.
WHOOP measures your recovery based on 4 things:
- Resting heart rate while you are sleeping
- How much sleep you got
- Your respiratory rate while you slept
- Your heart rate variability (HRV)
For these metrics, they give you daily, weekly, and monthly updates to show you if you’re trending in the right direction.
Changes I’ve Made Since I Started Using WHOOP
This fitness tracker has really shown me places where I can improve. I used to do more walking, but I find that I’m not getting my strain up enough doing that. Now, I do a lot more running, boxing, and riding the Peloton.
Also, it’s influenced how much sleep I’m getting. For example, I’m going to sleep earlier than I used to. I’m aware of my sleep patterns, both good and bad. If I wake up and my recovery is awful, I know I need to get more sleep that night.
The WHOOP strap 3.0 has been holding me accountable to reach my goals because I see how my decisions are affecting my health. It’s given me real data to help me reach those goals and made it easier for me to see how my decisions affect my progress.
There is also a feature I haven’t started using yet, but I will. It allows you to set up questions to hold yourself accountable, and the app will ask you these questions every day. For example, you could program it to ask if you went to bed on time or if you worked out.
Also, there’s a community you can join that is full of other WHOOP users. This is a great place to ask other people how they are using the band.
WHOOP 3.0 Pricing
They give you the WHOOP strap 3.0 for free as part of the membership. It comes with a basic black band that dries easily. It’s not going to last forever, but it will get you started.
You have the option of paying a monthly fee with a 6-month commitment. Or you can pay for 12 or 18 months upfront and receive a discount.
The price is very reasonable and is a minimal investment for better health:

I hope that my WHOOP strap review will give you the information you need to make a good decision on this product. I’m so impressed with the battery pack, the strap, and the metrics it measures that I tell everyone about it…and I’ve mentioned it on my podcast several times. It’s been a catalyst for making improvements in my health and fitness goals, and I want other people to experience that as well.
Get the 1st month of your WHOOP strap for free using this link.