WHOOP Podcast - Elite Recovery & Resilience: Lucy Davis on Training, HRV, and Mental Strength

Episode Date: July 30, 2025

On this week’s episode of the WHOOP Podcast, WHOOP Global Head of Human Performance, Principal Scientist Dr. Kristen Holmes sits down with Lucy Davis, HYROX athlete, ultra-marathon runner, and content creator. Lucy shares the fitness, wellness, and recovery strategies that power her elite performance, including how she maintains a high HRV, rebounds from intense strain, and keeps her WHOOP Age under 18. Lucy opens up about her training strategy, mental health journey, and mission to empower women through sport. Whether you're new to fitness or chasing the podium, this episode offers valuable insights to help you build strength, resilience, and recovery.  (00:21) How Lucy Davis Rebounds From High Strain(05:29) WHOOP Podcast Rapid Fire Q’s(08:48) Lucy’s RHR, HRV, And Recovery Recommendations(11:42) Mastering Fitness as a Hybrid Athlete(14:14) Training Harder to Improve Hyrox Times(14:57) Lucy’s Longevity Secrets and WHOOP Age(19:48) Lucy’s Relationship with Strength Training(22:00) Staying Grounded While Travelling and Training(31:16) Mastering Mindset Entering Competition(33:33) Hyrox, World Records, and Going For More(37:10) Body Image, Health, and Mentality(39:17) Empowering Women Through Sport and Fitness(42:11) Inspiring Athletes and Promoting Participation in SportLucy Davis:InstagramYouTubeTikTokSupport the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

I started posting on socials because I didn't have anyone's look up to. I didn't expect this to happen. I want women to know that they're capable of more and it looks different for everyone. It could be starting running or it could be running 100 miles. Getting into high rock to all the gym, I don't care what it is. You can be strong and still feminine. Lucy! I'm so excited.

I'm actually so excited to be here. Well, I'm so excited. So excited to talk to you. I think it's very rare to have. someone who really practices what they preach. And it sounds so cliche, but the whole kind of recovery lifestyle has literally been a feature of your entire life. Honestly, I want to speak about it so much and it's very difficult to depict it all on social media in a singular post. That's why I love podcast so much. And I definitely seem to have a very rapid recovery.

And having senior data, the amount of strain you put on your body, I mean, you're averaging 18 strain in a day. And your ability to recover and rebound from that is, so when you think about the load that you put on your body, okay, over the course of a day, you're training sometimes four hours a day. So in order to rebound in the way that you are, your other 20 hours of the day literally have to be perfection. From an exercise science perspective. And I think that's what I find so crazy because I'll get into that. But I've always been a sporty kid. Like in high school, in primary school, university, I was the sporty kid.

So I used to swim from a really young age. We kind of did all the sports, me and my sister, and we chose swimming. But it was competitive. So nine times a week, four or five hours a day, in the pool, land work, all of that. I did that to us about 18. So for a really long period of my life growing up, I was very much into fitness, health and fitness. So low resting heart rate, I understood it from a young age. We were very clued up.

I never, this wasn't the plan. I love what I do now, but it was never. I'd never thought, oh, this is going to be what I want to do. So now my life's more shared on social media. People are like, oh, how do you recover so fast from three weeks ago, I ran 106.9 miles and on Saturday I did Hirox Worlds. And I have never really understood the ins and outs properly of how I can recover so fast, but I know genetically there is something there from when I've been three or four years old

where I have been able to recover, but I'm also, I'm obsessed with stats. I love the data, but I actually use it. I think there's a slight difference with sometimes you can kind of look at it, but then not use it. I actually use it. So, yeah, the sleep and what I can work on, stress levels. But that's the only thing, like, interestingly, what you said before. Like, yeah, four hours of training a day.

I'm actually stressed a lot of the time. which is crazy to me, like I can kind of feel it or I think I'm stressed, but I'm actually probably not. I deal with things relatively well, really good with time management, everything like that. And I think that's just how I'm, how I'm recovering and I'm just like very happy. And I think that that's one of the things, like I'm very happy, I'm very positive. So even though I'm training so hard and I can feel it. It's like, oh, but no, no, I'm good. Like, I'm okay. We have some interesting data around that, actually. So, So you might actually just be, while you're stressed, and stress monitor might indicate that

your stress and your strain is high, you're viewing what you're doing as a challenge. So it has a very different kind of physiological impact than if you're in a state of threat. So we see that in the data. So I think you're probably in a state of challenge, you know, where you're excited about things that you're doing. And I do, and I can recognize maybe the difference between challenge and, and natural stress like when there's stresses with the businesses or work I can internally feel it sometimes like I used to have quite bad anxiety like growing up and I could feel the heart palpitations

like I get like the physical effects so I kind of recognize those now and I know the difference between no this is manageable stress and this something I can deal with and I can calm myself down and there's a difference to how it used to feel but I think that is it it's like oh it's a challenge and I get my teeth stuck into that and that's what I enjoy that's why I enjoy that's That's that my favorite thing to do. Do you feel like it's, you know, when you're a kid, is it more of, like, you know what, you just weren't able to control it? So it felt so then that anxiety would creep in?

I didn't, I didn't understand what it was. I, with swimming, there was a lot of pressure on, like, young athletes and I hadn't eaten disorder after I started swimming. And there was a lot that went on. I didn't understand the feelings of anxiety. You, we didn't, you don't learn about that. we're going back, I don't know, 14 years ago, you don't really learn about mental health. So I was like, why do I feel this way?

Whereas now there's so much more information and we can understand it better. And I know how to control it. Like I've had therapy in the past and you learn to understand how it affects your body in different ways. So that is a huge difference. And I think that's why even talking about things like this in a podcast, it's like, it's really helpful for people to be like, you can control it and you can learn it and understand it and why you feel the way you do and sit with it and move past it in different ways. I love that. We have a lot of data. I know your data girl. So we're going to do a quick

rapid fire where I'm going to ask you five questions. It's going to be either a yes or no or true or false. Okay. Your average day strain is nearly 40% higher than the average 28 year old woman on whoop. True? True. Yes. It's me. Okay. Yep. This is fun because I don't know what you're about to say. I know. So our average is 9.9 for some on your age. Yours is 14.8. Love that for me. I can feel that. Yeah. Yeah. That's a high strain. Okay. This is yes or no. Do you get more sleep than the average female whoop user? I'm going to say no. Correct. Yeah. Lucy's sleep 6.9 hours and peer average is 7.3. That's not a bad thing, though, necessarily. It's been bad recently. It's been really bad. recently. Bad in that you don't feel as good and that your recovery is not as

as good? Just, I think the past month, like I had, my training was so intense for the 100 miler, didn't sleep the whole way through that and then went into high rock twirls. It's just my sleep has just been, but I'm really aware of it and I've been trying to make it better. So I kind of would guess that's not as well, you know what's interesting. I don't know if it's a bad thing. I mean, if you feel like your training isn't as good or you're not, You don't feel as good. Objectively, your sleep efficiency is good. All of your data is trending in a better direction.

And your sleep consistency is above the average, which drives the quality. So while you're sleeping slightly less, your sleep is really efficient. Yeah. And looks like it's good sleep. I do feel that I'm getting into it more. But like last night, I had the best night's sleep. And everything was kind of back where it's supposed to be like HRV. 120, resting heart rate 308. And I woke up and I thought I'm back. Like, I just, they're my

stats that I know I'm really optimal and that's good for me. And I slept about seven and a half hours. Okay. So that's probably your sweet spot. Yeah, mine's seven hours and 24 minutes. To be exact. I know. I used to be seven hours and 42 minutes for a long time. And then I get more efficient. Whenever my sleep consistency increases, like I, my sleep duration decreases just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. All right, back on it. Okay, true or false. You woke up with 93% recovery on the first day of your March high rocks competition in Washington, D.C. False?

True. Was it? Yes. Oh, look at me. Yep. Brilliant. I know. And that was verified on 329.

I love that. Okay. Okay. Yes or no. Have you logged more than one workout per day on average since February? Oh, yes. Yes. One point five a day, actually. Oh, goodness me. Yeah, that's like, that's so legit. Yeah, that's amazing. True or false. Your VO2 max of 58 puts you in the top 1% of your age and gender group. True. Yes. 99th percentile for women aged 28. That's a really good VO2 max. Have you

done a VOTMX test? I have. All right. So let's talk a little. little bit about your resting heart rate and HRV. You are able to maintain those numbers and you obviously have a really intense training load. You know, the volume and intense that you're putting your body is like pretty, is consistently pretty high. So what are the some of the things that you do to kind of keep your HRV and resting heart rate kind of going in the same direction? Because, I mean, a lot of folks training in the way that you would, I think would get overloaded. How do you manage that? It's really interesting. And I honestly get asked it. all the time. I do think so my mom, dad and my sister, we all have a group together. My dad's

wrestling heart rate is 36. My sister's is 39. My mom's is 40. Mine's like 38. I think we're a very fit family. I do think genetically there's something there and the fact I've been in sport my whole life. And I'm a pretty good, I am a pretty good sleeper. Like the efficiency as you said, it is there. And there's loads of things that I do. to make sure I have good sleep. So, you know, no phone before bed. I read. I get off my phone. I put candles on. Like, there's things that are specific to me because I know my resting heart rate will go through the roof. If I don't get a good sleep where I'm up in the night, if I'm too hot, for example, there's small things that you can do that'll help that for me to sleep and just be

really restful. But then also my general fitness level, I don't just do anaerobic work. I don't just do aerobic work. I'm in zone one to zone five. Pretty much every day there's a variety and because I do train twice a day a lot of the time. Zone two run in the morning, intense high rock session at night. Same with HRV. I don't just sit in one category. I make sure I'm across the board aerobically. I think that's one of the biggest things that has helped and I can see the data and the trends from my whoop from doing that. When I just used to focus on, I kind of did a little bit of bodybuilding for a while really poor like it just what my hivv was I think it was like 50 50 56 this morning it's 120 I train a lot of different variables and I know a lot of people do but I do it consistently

and we can see that from feb there's like 1.5 workout stay or something so I think the fact that I'm doing so much but my body's become very adaptable to that that's my new norm yeah that's lucy davis's baseline. So I don't feel like I'm overreaching all the time. Some people would look at that and be like, oh God, that's a lot of training. It's why I say don't compare to other people online. It's like really important. I've been in sports since I was about three years old. And I just think my body, as I've started running more, as I've started doing high rocks and all these things, it adapts every single week to what I'm doing. But there's so much variety in my training. I can kind of understand why it's doing that.

When you want to get fitter, how do you change up your training? Because there we'd expect to see a suppression in your HRV and a little bit of increasing your resting heart rate as you're really pushing, you know, the, you know, your thresholds. So interestingly for me, I have to add in more zone two, zone one, like bike work, like aerobic, just build, build, build, and then the spikes of really intense, fast engine, sprint, work completely getting the difference as in like polar opposites yeah my running heart rate is very very low it just naturally is so i have to put myself into a really uncomfortable position to spike my heart rate anaerobically but then also jump on the bike when my heart rate is literally 80 and it's

getting those differences but i was sitting on the bike for two hours and then the sprints could be 20 minutes so it's completely different styles of training but that's what we've realized over the past couple months that is how I'm getting fitter and it's just consistently doing it it's not just doing it for a month I have to add it in and be consistent with it in order to see the improvements to see the improvements and also taking rest it used to not be very good at actually taking rest I used to really struggle with it I think that's quite normal for a female athlete you know there's a lot of your body dysmorphias and things like that and it's it's quite difficult I know when my body needs to rest like I just took the whole weekend off and it was glorious just walked around

because I needed it after high rocks I could have jumped back in for sure but I've just ran 100 miles I was like I need to not do that loosely and it's learning yourself I know it was awful it's learning yourself and your body how is that broken up the 100 miles

so it was 4.2 miles every hour on the hour you just keep going until you can't go anymore so I did 106.9 yeah three weeks ago but then I trained three days later and I don't know how I actually don't know how, but it was incredible.

What's up, folks, if you are enjoying this podcast, or if you care about health, performance, fitness, you may really enjoy getting a whoop. That's right. You can check out whoop at whoop.com. It measures everything around sleep, recovery, strain, and you can now sign up for free for 30 days. So you'll literally get the high performance wearable in the mail for free. You get to try it for 30 days, see whether you want to be a member. And that is just at whoop.com. Back to the guests.

So is your training typically harder than racing? Because some of your data would suggest that that's the case. For sure. And that's purposeful. We make the high rock sessions, like with my coach, horrific, awful. Like sometimes you just can't fathom it, same as the running. Things that are so uncomfortable, I think is important. So when you do get to competition, it's not a complete shock.

Still really hard and tough, but it's not a complete shock. My body's been there. My heart rate's been there. I know how the lactate feels. So it's putting myself into an uncomfortable environment. That's kind of like the number one principle when you think about like you want to overload your training session so the game feels easier, you know. Yeah.

Love it. Your whoop age is you're like less than like you're 18, I think, right? So less than that. Probably, yeah. I'm 28, so I thought, I really wanted it to be. I love that feature. I think that's just so fun. It's so fun, right?

I'm quite competitive. Yeah, yeah. And I think I was speaking to Sam and he was like, I think you're at the lowest. And I was like, if I wasn't, I would have absolutely put myself in that position. Yeah, below 18. Yeah, that's crazy. And just for folks listening, our personalized metric that reflects basically Lucy's body's physiological age based on her kind of sleep and activity and fitness.

this data. So it's really impressive. And your pace of aging, as you can imagine, is, yeah, 0.5 times slower. I was so happy on average. Yeah. I was like, thank goodness. Yeah. And that's a dynamic measure indicating how your who apes is obviously changing over time. So it gives you kind of a nice little trend. It is a really nice metric. Yeah. Yeah. It's super fun. In terms of other data, your six months average for sleep consistency is 71 percent, which is better. I know we do a lot of research my team does a lot of research and and what we see is a soup consistency is one of the biggest predictors of both physiological and psychological functioning or in resilience um yours is 71 percent our average member i think is 65 percent okay see i really didn't think i'd be above

the average it used to be it's a hard one especially travel time i think the travel like going back and forth and jet lag and you know just being generally a busy person i sometimes find it hard to switch off. And then I'm led in bed and it's just my brain's working. I actually had to like recently put a journal by my bed and just like scribble. And it's really helped me sleep. So I didn't go back on my phone and get the light in my face. I put a journal next to my bed because I was like,

your brain is working overtime. You can't relax. Journal, get it all out. And I started sleeping a little bit better. So I think it used to be 85. It was, my sleep was incredible. and then I went through quite a lot last year and my head just fell off

and I'm getting back. I just had so much going on like so much change back and forth travel, travel, which usually I'm okay with but it is it's jet lag back and forth racing. I've done back to back races since November just so much going on.

Yeah, there's a lot of good evidence just like this concept called scheduling your worries And you just a couple hours before bed, an hour before bed, you just write down all your worries. That's what it is. And then you can just like dream and just sleep. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's slight smart. Getting into that restful state. I mean, it's one thing to be like, I want to improve my sleep consistency is another thing actually falling asleep. It's sometimes not easy, but it sounds like you're doing everything that you can. Steps per day. I mean, this is insane. Your six month

average is 18,708 steps. I'll tell you. Yeah. This is wild. My daughter was at, It's crazy. Camp last week is a summer leadership experience at West Point. And they just, it's like a high rocks like for, you know, seven days where they're, you know, just like so much training. Yeah. And in short, her average steps were 22,000. Oh my goodness. Just like last week.

Yeah. Which is crazy. But 18,000 steps like your six months average. That is kind of mind blowing to me. That actually is to me as well. Because I don't always look at steps. I kind of focus on like the performance of the training. But I'm always on my feet.

Yeah. Always. Like I'm just always moving around, doing different things, whether it is travel or training or. I'm impressed by that. Yeah, I didn't even. Your heart rate in heart rate zones, you talk that you spend kind of time in all of the zones. Your six months average is 513 minutes. And this is reducing your whoop age by 2.9 years. So that's like a pretty, that's a big one.

I'm going to live forever. You're literally going to live forever. I know. And time in zones four to five, your 30 day average is about 18 minutes. That's a lot. It's hard for me to get into like those upper zones. I can get in zone four, but it's hard to get in zone five. I do struggle actually to get into zone five, as in that's, I could be there for maybe 30 seconds.

I know it does improve my fitness. But pushing to that, like I have to be on the track or short interval, short sprints. I cannot get there on a bike. Yeah. Can you get there on a bike? Oh, okay. I can barely get out of zone two on a bike. All right, that makes me feel better.

I have to like run. Yeah. Okay. You have to be doing something really intense. Like super intense. Yeah. Yeah. I've been doing like the 20 seconds on, 10 seconds on.

off and just repeating that for as many times as I can. And that will get me into zone five. Yeah, for like the first. Yeah, for 10 seconds. 12 reps. Yeah. But it, you know, it kind of adds up, but it's probably not enough. But that's, yeah, it's an ongoing challenge for me. It's like, it's super annoying. I'm like, ah, strength training time. You're logging some serious minutes and it's decreasing your age by 1.6 years. Talk to me about strength training. What's your relationship with it? So the strength training one, I used to very much just strength train. Like solely just went to the gym. When I quit swimming, it was just gym, like bodyboarding style, like arm day, leg day.

Yeah. I was like that kind of person. Were you competing as a bodybuilder? No. And just, yeah. Yeah, it's not something that interests me too much. I kind of think, I think it's great if people do it. But I think when people step on stage, they look incredible, but they're their least healthiest.

So I've never, not that I don't agree with it, it's just something I wouldn't. I don't think psychologically, I think that would be the best for me. Because you have to really cut. You have to eat nothing. Yeah. And I kind of promote the opposite for women. Yeah. You know, hormonally, how you feel, how you perform, you're fueling for performance.

Yeah. So I did train the train for a while. I got very strong, loved it. And then it was during COVID that I actually started running more. I was like, oh, I like this running thing. This is great. and then I founded high rocks. So they're the very like hybrid approach to how I train.

I love to do an Iron Man because I have a swimming background and all these different modalities. It's like my favourite thing to do. So the strength train that I do now is very much based to facilitate the high rocks training. So I'll do heavy squats for the sled or I'll do specific, I don't know, push press for warbles. Yep.

So it always has like a purpose around it. Okay. But it's very much split running high rocks, kind of like probably 60, 70% running. running and then the rest is high rocks training, which is still strength in a way, but it's more functional fitness. Hyricks, I think, would be a good fit for me. Oh, it's fantastic.

I'm definitely like a runner. Yeah. I just love running so much. Yeah. You love it so much. I think that's why I do enjoy it. It has the running element. It's the same format so you can improve on it.

I enjoy that. It's like doing a 10K. You can improve on your 10K time because it's the distance is what it is. So it doesn't change. The course changes a little bit. So sometimes, like, the runs are shorter or longer, but the stations are the same and it's, you know, consistent throughout, which I love. So we talked a little bit about your recovery being just really stable. And I think we were maybe chatting kind of off-camera about just your recovery modalities, you know, and kind of how you think about your downtime.

It's really, you know, you have a lot of people who follow you who look up to you, who aspire to be like you. and it's just very clear that you're kind of living and breathing the things that you are appreciating. I find that really refreshing. And it's really clear in your data. One of the things that you talk about a lot is journaling, you know, what other type of kind of recovery modalities like really ground you and bring you peace and allow you to rebound in the way that you do from your training? I think that's also really important to even like talk about because it isn't always like just sleep or nutrition or sauna, cold plunges. Like there's things that I do like as an athlete that aren't always accessible to everyone. I had realized that as well.

I pick up on a few things. One of the things that it definitely helped me, like I recently went through like having like loads of therapy and it was incredible. It just made me feel so relaxed and so calm. And that's where I started journaling more. Like I've tried meditation. It wasn't the best for me. Like I'm quite busy and I just couldn't, I just personally just couldn't grasp it. So journaling, writing things down. Every single morning, I'd love to know how long I've done it for, like the weep journal when it pops up every morning. I've probably done that since like, like, three years. And it's, I love doing that.

It's, it's the trends. It's the consistency. I, one of the things that I do that isn't necessarily, I think it does help me recover because it lowers my stress. Like, FaceTiming my mum, FaceTiming my sister, speaking to my friends, going out on a little walk, listening to a podcast, listening to my favourite songs,

dancing around as I'm getting ready. I'm a very, very smiley person. and I just even think sometimes just like smiling and I don't let myself have like bad days. I recognise when I have like a bad moment and it could be really horrific and there's loads going on and I really recognise it now and I'm like, okay, we're just going to feel that out, you know, 10 minutes, 20, 30 minutes, sit with it, understand it and move past it Lucy and I have a lot of downward gratitude. I could be very happy just sitting there with a coffee and I think about, other things that have happened or experiences and I just, it really grounds me. So my stress just

drops because then when you think about the bigger picture, you're like, well, the worst case scenario is even that bad. You're going to be absolutely fine. So it is, it's the sleep and everything and so many different things. But for me, it's yeah, it's being happy, being optimistic, being smiley, therapy, journaling, the things that just work really well for me. And it's, you just got take a bit of time to find those. Like I have an album my phone called the like the happy album. Sometimes I just go on that, scroll through it and I'm like, wow. Like in it could just be like me and my sister or me and my mates or a picture of, I don't know, like this morning I was running around Boston. I was like, oh my goodness, it's so nice. And it just, it grounds me. And I think

I need that as like quite a busy, I'm like organized chaos in all the best ways. So it helps. I love that. Yeah. I think there's actually data that when you hear. hear your mother's voice, it lowers cortisol. So there's something really true. Honestly, I feel that. I know. I know. I, you know, some folks might not have great relations with their mom and it might do the opposite. But I think for a lot of folks, yeah, hearing mom's voice is going to reduce stress. Or just find in that person. Yeah, I feel it could be a friend, it could be anyone. Yeah. Some of my best friends, I speak to them and it's like, oh, gosh. And like me being here in America on my own, it's important that I am doing that.

Yeah. Because sometimes I get homesick and it's like, oh, I'll feel. FaceTime someone and it's nice. Yeah, yeah. It feels good. You can regain that connection. You mentioned journaling too. I'm the same. I do think for athletes, for high-end elite athletes, yeah, meditation can be, it can be hard to kind of drop into a state where you feel like you're really getting something out of meditation.

Yeah. I hear that a lot. Yeah. And I did, I really tried with it. I was like, I'm just going to try something else because I do five minutes and my brain would just go into overdrive. And I tried and try and I thought, you know what, I'll just journal instead. And that works a treat. Yeah.

So it's like I may as well do what works rather than trying to force something that's clearly just not. Yeah. I'm just not as suited to that style. I'm the same. Journaling is magical for me. It's magic. Yeah. I get some of my best ideas.

I think too like, I don't love like sitting. Yeah. You know, so I do a lot of mindful walking. Yeah. Which has been. It's been really good. It's great. You're so creative, like the optic flow when you're walking.

Yeah. Just the landscape and the panoramic vision, you know, lowers cortisol and, you know, especially if like you can be out in nature, even just in the, you know, along the Charles, you know, in Boston. Yeah, that's great. I love it. You talked about gratitude as well. That's another, I think, big one. And you said downward gratitude.

I love that. Yeah. So more of just like being present. And can you say a bit more about that? Yeah. I say downward gratitude, I, two years ago, I did Everest Space Camp, so I took a trip to the Himalayas. It was the people that I met on that. track, like the women and the children, the happiest people ever met my life, and they don't

have a lot. And I got like the one of the mountains tattooed here, so I do remember every day, of like, they're so happy and they're so grateful for what they have and meeting. I mean, my sister went and we give all the kids like pencils and sweets. So if I'm back home and the Wi-Fi's not working or I'm stressed, I'm like, whoa, Lucy, stop immediately. And it's, I caught like down with gratitude because I am, I'm grateful for everyone. everything that I have. And I do think about that trip all the time. I'm like, no, no, let's not. I'm not complaining. Like, whatever you're going through, you'll get through it. Like, those people that I met were so happy. And that's why I'm always based I'm very happy because I just

I have a way now. He's taken ages to kind of get to this like stage. But like pulling myself to, oh, you're good. Like, just remember other things. Like pull it back. So yeah, I call it like down with gratitude. I love it. I think you're anchoring, you know, your to in like actions that you do you know like it is easy for I think for all of us to like you know feel bad for ourselves for you know or like kind of wallow and self-pity and I love what you said that you let yourself go there for a second yeah and then you kind of pull yourself back and you also said you get curious and that's another I think amazing strategy for it that is really helps with positive psychological functioning you know is getting curious about how you're

feeling you know good or bad or indifferent like being less judgmental just get curious, try to understand it, get inside the journal a little bit. And then end with gratitude. And that's what it is. It's not, I am sad and I get upset and I get frustrated and I don't ignore the feelings. I let them in. I cry, whatever. I sit with them. I let the stress in. But I now understand it. And I don't just push it aside. I really try and understand and feel the way that I do. And it's helped, like massively. But again, I'm saying all this. It's like, I'm probably like, the best mentally I've been in a really long time.

So this is like a perfect like podcasting. Like I can really reflect. Yeah. On that. So when I'm speaking, I'm like, oh, I've actually come pretty far. So that's nice. Amazing. You spoke a little bit about therapy.

You know, was, was it more on kind of the performance side or just, you know, just generally? Just generally with life. I, people always joke and they say, oh, you're the busiest person we've ever met. And I'm like, yeah, I have. Like I've got like businesses all around and I'm a full-time athlete now and a content creator and I prioritise friends and family so much and I am busy. So it was mostly speaking to like a third party person where I can just, I'm very like protective of like my friends and family and I want to be strong all the time.

And I got to the stage where I was like, oh, I need to just be a bit vulnerable with someone else who doesn't necessarily know me and I feel like I can do that so I can be there for the people and it was just, it's great I think it's been fantastic for me I love that I think a lot of folks are hesitant

you know to seek therapy but I think that's a great framework that might resonate with folks because I think sometimes yeah like feeling like you're burdening you know a loved one or you're kind of going back to them with the same problem over and over again

you know just having someone neutral It is. It was that. It has been powerful for me. Well, thanks for sharing that. You're invited to join the wait list for WOOP Advanced Labs. Advanced Labs delivers clinician reviewed lab results right into your WOOP app for the most complete view of your biomarkers and biometrics and the most comprehensive understanding of your health. Unlike other tests, WOOP integrates your lab results with your Woop data. See how your habits and behaviors influence your biomarkers and get clear guidance on what to do. change to improve your results. To join the wait list, visit our website or the health tab in the Woop app. Talking a little bit about, you know, from a psychological standpoint, like, how do you think about, like, you're going into the competition? And, you know, these are really grueling events physically, mentally, emotionally, you know. How do you kind of think about preparing for that? Like, do you have something? Obviously, there's the training, right? But there's also the

the psychological piece too. I can pitch myself doing the race. And it's not only I pitch myself doing it, I picture myself finishing always. And I do it like a week out. And it's something that I did when I swam. Even last man standing, it had no end point.

But I still envisioned myself going over the line at whatever mileage I'd hit. High rocks. I really didn't think I'd even get to compete in Chicago because I thought I'd be so banged up after the ultra and as soon as I knew I was like no no you're fit enough to compete I just I didn't picture the just the race it was finishing so it's like I already know I'm going to finish and it doesn't always look that clear but I know I'm going to finish and it relaxes me I'm like so you don't

care about the details not massively that's great I just I know I'm going to finish these things like I'm very much if I've said I'm going to do it I'm going to do it like I just I don't quit I think it's I I try not to anywhere, and it's like very, it sits within me. So when I'm almost like envisioning these races, I don't know how the race is actually going to go. I've trained for it. I'm going to perform. You have confidence in your training.

I've got confidence in my training. It's knowing that I'm going to go over the line. Like, and every time I envision it, I'm always smiling. And it's like my favorite thing. So I think it just calms me down before I compete. It gives me a bit of like a bit of confidence boost for going into it. And I think that's why I use, like, I wake up pretty recovered. I sleep okay before events.

It's great. Yeah, which is pretty, yeah, pretty unusual. It is, yeah. Most elite athletes really struggle, you know, the day or two even before a competition, you know, with anxiety and performance anxiety. But, yeah, it sounds like, I mean, clearly I think this is one of the reasons why you can repeat events with such limited time in between. Yeah, I think so. Between competitive events because you're managing, again, you know, these other. Yeah, yeah, it's wonderful.

What would you say? Like when you when you kind of zoom out, how many high rocks competitions have you done so far? Do you know? Funnily enough, not like loads and loads and loads. I've done five solos. Okay. And maybe about six or seven doubles with my sister. But I did my first solos last November.

Okay. Just really wanted to give it a go. Got a world record, which was so rogue. That is wild. It was actually, it was actually hell out. We were all laughing so much. And it got broken since. but yeah my first solace I got a world record

and then it was my fourth one just gone can you walk through what the events were in that in the one that you got the world record yeah so high rocks I did the open weight I now do pro but the first one I was like I'm just going to give it a go it's going to be exciting

okay same like format you have 1K runs between eight different stations so you've got skierg sled push sled pull burpee broad jumps row, farmers, sandbag lunges, warballs. So they're your stations with a K run in between. Sandbag over the shoulders?

Over the shoulders. Okay, rested on the shoulders. Yeah, rest on the shoulders. How much weight is that? 20KG. I don't know what is in pounds. I need to, yeah, but same format. So you know what you're going into.

So that's a slight difference with, I guess, like CrossFit, which changes up all the time. Hierox is very specific. So you can kind of train your weaknesses as well as your strengths, which I love. I love that. Yeah, it's humbling. It's high rocks.

What has been your favorite event so far and why? I think that first race. That first one, that was pretty epic. It was so epic. It was hilarious. It was my first one. I just got back from Texas. It was also on my birthday.

Oh, that's fun. So I competed on my birthday. What's your birthday? At 10th November. Oh, okay. So you're a Scorpio? Yeah, Scrofian. I have all my best friends.

I have all my best friends are a Scorpio's. Yeah, it's like I am a Scorpio as well. Like I can feel it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was my favorite. And because it was in Manchester, it was like home crowd for me. So, like, my parents were there. My sister was there.

Pretty special. Very cool. And people descend from all over the world. Yeah. Yeah, it's a complete world-wide. How many people are in these events? So that Manchester one had 12,000. It was so busy.

Yeah. That's unreal. It's kind of exploded. But it's like just exploding in the States. I mean, that's, that must have been. Yeah. Amazing. Incredible.

It's, it's the best. I feel like people listening will have definitely either competed or want to compete. But it's like gold was trying to even get tickets now. It's just, which is why they're doing more events because it's so chaotic. It's crazy to see. It's like the search, Google search, I think it's increased like over six months, like 287%. Like the growth for high rocks is just like. What is high rocks?

How do I do you want? Yeah, yeah. Exactly. No, I mean, I have myself, like, looked into it. I was, like, thinking about doing the one in Houston and, like, in March, but I couldn't do it because of my travel schedule. That's to mention, I had not, you know, I had, I mean, I, I train and, you know, but I, it would have been a disaster. So, thankfully, there were no spots. So, you'll definitely do one.

You'll get the bug for it. You do one. Yeah. It's, like, it's great. I think it's, you've got, like, the elites of the elites. Then you've got complete beginners. It's so wonderful that there's an hour sport. That's, like, completely inclusive.

Yeah. Like I could do one with like my dad if I wanted to and that's so special or I could go for elite 15s with Jake and it's the difference is it's great. And I think that's why they're also doing so well. I love that so much. Lucy, you are super passionate about women's health. You know, when you think about your own, you know, kind of body awareness and body image issues that you might have had in the past, like you mentioned you had an eating disorder and just talk about how your life has. has kind of set you up to have the platform that you have today. Okay, the way to describe myself as a person is what you see is what you get. I'm very authentically me and I think I always have been. So I started posting on socials because I had the eating disorder. I didn't share, but it was almost recovery for myself. Like I'd prop up my phone and I'd look at I putting weight back on. And I was bulimic for about six years after I quit swimming.

Very common with female athletes, you come out of something so. intense where you're weighed and you're penalised and you're judged and my body fats were done happens it really happens to a lot of athletes and I kind of started posting on socials because I didn't have anyone's look up to. I didn't expect this to happen but I think I'm very passionate about I want women to know that they're capable of more and it looks different for everyone it could be starting running or it could be running 100 miles or getting into high rocks or the gym. I don't care what it is. I just want to support them in a way that you can be strong and still feminine. Like I have all, like, there's been loads of people like, oh, you're very

freakish, you look this. I'm like, yeah, I'm okay about it. And I want to support other girls to feel the way that I do because training and performance and getting over and eating disorder and having a better relationship with food, change my life. So if I can change other people's and hopefully be that role model now, I'm so passionate. It's something I think about every day. I'm like, okay, what can I do today to like help women, you know, give the correct information, educate them, but do it in a way that's like positive and smiley and be vulnerable. And that's just, honestly, it's like innately just who I am. And like I just found, I found that calling. I think the other question I wanted to ask you, like, just thinking about like, you know,

we talked a little bit about hormonal shifts and like, um, you know, bodybuilding, for example, like how, you know, you'll often lose your period, right? How do you, you know, with all the training that you're doing, you know, you are maintaining a healthy cycle. Like, that is not easy, right? You know, just talk a little bit how you think about your, you know, what you eat during a day. And like, you know, you're obviously, you know, balancing your training really effectively and you're getting your sleep. And we talked about the recovery modalities, you know, maybe talk a little bit about your fueling strategies because that's got to play a huge role. It's absolutely huge for females, like hormonally, like,

your fats, your carbs, your proteins, like making sure you're getting a very broad diet and a variety. And I know when I do fuel correctly, I do perform better. And that's how I associated now because I struggled for so long with food. And it was a real, I don't want to eat that because I feel like a certain way. And I couldn't perform. And my period was completely messed up. It was really inconsistent. Whereas now I have a really regular cycle. It's actually one thing love about the new whoop is I generally like the cycle track. I say to everyone, you should be tracking because you perform differently when you're on your period, when you're not on things like that. I eat a lot. Like I do have over like 3,000 calories a day and it's just because of how

much I'm training. And I know what makes me feel good. So like nutritionally dense food makes me feel good. And it's not that I don't have like chocolate and ice cream and things like that or like red wine or I do. It's just in moderation. I don't have that every single day, but it doesn't make me feel great. Right. And I can't perform the best of it. Interestingly, with my cycle, this is the first time this has happened. So I did Last Man Standing and I came my period like a week later because I think

my body was really like really bad after Last Man Standing. Yeah. And then I was off for two weeks and I came on the morning of High Rocks Worlds. So I had like three periods within like a month. Wow. Or like in within five weeks. Wow. Doesn't usually happen.

Yeah. But that was my body telling me. That's a signal. Yeah. Slow down a bit Lucy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

When I woke up the morning of high rocks worlds and I came on, I thought, that's not. I should, it was, I was just, it's annoying. It was a bit annoying. Um, but I'm very in tune with my cycle. I know the phases. I know how I feel. And that is very, very helpful for girls to know. I think you should.

I think you absolutely should know how you feel. because if I'm in PMS, I'm moody. And I need to know that. So I'm not taking out. And everyone else will say, you want to, I'm in PMS. Don't be offended by what I say. And I know I'm more hungry, so I'll eat more. Yeah.

And I respect my body for what it wants. And I think girls definitely need, like, that sort of education with their cycles, for sure. That's amazing. What kind of, I guess, feedback and, you know, what are some of the direct messages you get from women who follow you? there's there's something recently that's really like blown up as like a viral like trend um and there's like two different things it says lucy davis wouldn't quit and the lucy davis effect and it is it's blown up it's gone viral those people at high rocks a girl got lucy davis wouldn't quit tattooed on her and i was like wow that is wow that's intense that's intense i was like oh my goodness it's just a lot of people

just say like the inspiration i and the meshing the way that i approach things is just just it's very authentic. I'm not lying to anyone. It's I am who I am and I show you can go through really tough times and you can come out the other side or you can challenge yourself as a woman and you can be strong and like I'm very pro men and pro women like I'm completely both of them but it is proving to girls that you know you can be tough and vulnerable at the same time and you can care and you can do this. They're the kind of meshes that I get and like the inspiration like it is it yeah it's still shocks me you need WWLD bracelets what would Lucy do but that's the thing people have like um you get them like printed on you can put them on

weeps and things like that loose Davis wouldn't quit like shop started selling them and I was like this is blowing my like it makes I still can't like on my run this morning there's like three girls who came up to me and I was like it just it yeah it means a lot I'm still not used to it I don't think you ever get used to that. But just knowing that you're, like, impacting people, you know? I mean, that's, like, that's so special. I know at Woop, we're really honored to have you be a part of our family. It is.

It's incredible. Yeah. We're very lucky. Oh, thank you. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode of the Woop Podcast, please leave a rating or review. Check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. If you have a question what's answered on the podcast, email us, podcast at Woop.com.

call us 508-443-49-2. For anything about joining Whoop, you can visit Whoop.com, sign up for a free 30-day trial membership. New members can use the code Will, W-I-L-L, to get a $60 credit on Whoop accessories when you enter the code at checkout. That's a wrap, folks. Thank you all for listening. We'll catch you next week on the Whoop podcast. As always, stay healthy and stay in the green. We need to be able to be able to be happy.

I'm happy to help me. I'm happy. I'm happy. Yeah. I'm happy. You know. You don't know what you're going to want to get it. Oh, girl, it's nothing.

Who we need to get it. Thank you.