Heart Rate VariabilityHeart rate variability is one of the core metrics used by Whoop to measure your recovery. Recovery is super important for power athletes, like us CrossFitters, because it can help guide out intensity and expectations at the gym. It also gives us insight into the impacts our lifestyle choices (nutrition, alcohol use, sleep, stress control) on our health. If your recovery is low, it's a wake up call to pay more attention to aspects of your lifestyle that you might be neglecting . When I first started wearing my Whoop in 2020 in new nothing about HRV. Now, I'm chasing it through my nutrition, hydration, sleep and everything else I mentioned above. Even if you're not using a Whoop to track your HRV many other biometric devices measure it. You can even use an app and the camera on your phone to track your HRV. If you want to take your performance to the next level, you need to take your recovery to the next level. The most effective way to do that is to improve your HRV. Todays' Whoop podcast will help you understand what HRV is and how you can work to improve it so you feel better. Click here or on the video below to listen to the podcast. If you are interested in joining the dozen TSCF members on our on a Whoop journey, use my link to get your first month free. If you're already a Whoop user, join our True Spirit Whoop Group with the team code: COMM-AD6416.
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Our Whoop Group has grown to 11 fantastic ladies! Who is gong to join us this week? I have explored how Whoop measures strain or workout intensity. This week I am exploring the Weekly Performance Assessment. After your first Monday - Sunday continual wear Whoop gives you a breakdown of your Training State, Sleep Status and Sleep Performance for the week. Sleep is such as essential part of our recovery that Whoop analysis both quantity and quality of your sleep. First, let's dive into the Training Status. According to Whoop, my training intensity was optimal and balanced with my recovery. As I explored last week, WHOOP measures strain based on cardiovascular output and time spent in various heart rate zones. The weekly assessment is not as valuable to me as my daily Strain score. I have calibrated my perceived rate of exertion to be about about 1.25 more than my strain score. I use the strain info as a guide to my own perceived rate of exertion rather than an absolute rate of exertion. If it tells me I can go hard, I will. If it tells me I need to back off, I will. Oftentimes our short and intense CrossFit workouts are not long enough for us to be above 70% of your max heart rate for Whoop to calculate a high strain score. A workout like Grace is a hair-on-fire redlined workout that lasts less than 5 mins. It might only register a 4 whereas you'll feel like a 15 when you're done. I like seeing the weekly breakdown of my activities. I'm very specific choosing my activity categories with the Whoop strain feature because I vale seeing which of my training activities have the highest strain. Sleep quantity is one of 2 sleep reports included in the weekly assessment. While I didn't start using Whoop for its sleep analytics, I'm finding it much more useful than the weekly training state information. My sleep for the week has been optimal. This is really great news and something I have been working very hard to improve since November 2019. I had insomnia so badly that I enrolled in a sleep therapy program through the VA. I spent 6 weeks breaking bad habits and forming new ones so that I could actually sleep through the night. I'm so grateful for that program and so happy the habits have stuck. Sleep is THE MOST IMPORTANT recovery tool we have. If your sleep is off everything is off. Once I got my sleep dialed in then so many other aspects of my life improved. Not the least of which is my hormone regulation and balance. Hormone regulation happens while we sleep which is why Whoop also analyzes sleep quality or performance. Whoop measures:
All of these sleep analytics are used to tell you how well you slept. You might not think these things are valuable to know. I can tell you from first hand experience that If you can improve just one aspect you will feel like a new human.
Since slow wave sleep is the time when muscles repair and grow I am doing my best to maximize my sleep quality. When I'm in bed I want to be sleeping, deeply, not tossing and turning and worrying about the future. This takes work. It takes constant and deliberate work, and it's worth the work. Getting your sleep dialed in is probably the single most important thing you can do for your heath. Even though the strain score is not as applicable for CrossFitters I am quite happy with the data and analytics I am getting from my Whoop. I am interested in maximize my health and Whoop is the perfect intersection of low price and high value. If you are interested in joining me on a Whoop journey, use my link to get your first month free. If you're already a Whoop user, join our True Spirit Whoop Group with the team code: COMM-AD6416. Usually on Thursdays I blog about mindset. This summer Thursdays are devoted to Homegrown Paleo so for today's Whoop! Wednesday I'm sharing a recent Whoop Podcast called the Masters of Mindset. I have featured a few of these great thinkers in other blogs. It's so fun to have them all wrapped up in one neat little package of mental toughness. Hope you enjoy! Click here to listen or press play on the player below. MINDFULNESS PODCAST EPISODE CHAPTERS:
2:35 – Andy Puddicombe, headspace co-founder, on the lifelong journey of mindfulness 4:38 – Dr. Jim Loehr, world-renowned sports psychologist, on performing under pressure 6:21 – Alex Honnold, Free Solo rock climber, on visualization and preparation 11:59 – Justin Thomas, 2-time PGA Champion, on harnessing nerves for good 14:13 – Michael Phelps, 28-time Olympic medalist, on calming your mind and improving your mental and emotional wellbeing 17:11 – Mark Divine, former Navy SEAL, on the power of meditation and zen practices 21:12 – Steve-O, star of Jackass, on the role meditation and gratitude play in success 24:37 – Andrew Huberman, Stanford Neuroscientist, on how stillness and mindfulness can chemically change your brain for the better Monday's Murph was a BIG physical endeavor and we are still recovering from it. Workout recovery is a set of specific actions that aid the body, mind and spirit in recuperating from current training and prepares us for our next training session. Many of us took a rest day yesterday, and it was much needed. However rest days are not the same as recovery days. A rest day is a day with intentional absence of effort, movement or exertion. One of the challenges many of us face is that our rest days often include practices that inhibit recovery, rather than aid it. One of these practices is the overconsumption of alcohol. Did you have a few beers after Murph? You might still be feeling the negative impacts. I have always known that my performance in the gym suffers if I have 2 or more drinks the night before. Since I've been wearing my Whoop I now have actual data based on my body on how alcohol impacts my recovery. To get a sense of what happens to me when I have more than 2 drinks I listened to the WHOOP podcast. I learned some very, very powerful things. First - Dose make the poison and all it takes is ONE drink for our body to have a decrease in heart rate variability, an increase in resting heart rate, an increase in disturbances, less time spent in the restorative stages of sleep. WOW! One drink does all that. Imagine what 2 drinks will do! Here are some of the negative impacts I learned from the WHOOP podcast.
I am very interested to see how I will rebound this week. I intensionally programmed this week as a recovery week from Murph and I plan to keep to my regular training schedule. The one thing I will be altering? I won't be drinking more than 2 drinks and I won't drink 6 hours before bed. What are you doing to intentionally recovery this week? Share with me your recovery practices in the comments. Click on the link below to listen to the entire WHOOP podcast on alcohol. It's just over 30 minutes and totally worth your time. We have a dozen folks at the gym who've joined me on a Whoop journey. If you would like to be in the cool kids group, use my link to get your first month free. If you're already a Whoop user, join our True Spirit Whoop Group with the team code: COMM-AD6416. Stay tuned for my next Whoop! Wednesday post as I explore the strain score and how it relates to CrossFit workouts.
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