WHOOP Podcast - Listener Q&A: Tackling the Top Summer Fitness Trends and More

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

On this week’s episode WHOOP SVP of Research, Algorithms, and Data, Emily Capodilupo, is back to answer questions from you, our listeners. Our listeners reached out via social media, email, voicemail, and more. Emily joins us to answer questions about how to define and calculate VO2 Max (2:13), how to improve VO2 Max (8:00), how to hydrate and train in the heat (11:40), hydrogen water bottles (17:35), using WHOOP to monitor pregnancy (27:19), and how bulking and high caloric intake impacts HRV (31:30).Follow WHOOPwww.whoop.comTrial WHOOP for FreeInstagramXFacebookLinkedInFollow Will AhmedInstagramXLinkedInSupport 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

What's up, folks? Welcome back to the Whoop Podcast, where we're on a mission to unlock human performance. I'm your host, Will Amit, founder and CEO of Whoop. With Father's Day coming up, give your father the wearable that tracks, sleep, strain, stress, and more. For a limited time, gift to whoop, and get $50 off, select accessories. And by the way, it's a good time for that because we just launched the Sport Flex. That's right. It's our newest band. It is stainproof, waterproof, dirt proof, everything proof. You're going to like it a lot. If you're thinking about joining Whoop,

you can go to Whoop.com, sign up for a free 30-day trial. You can literally try Whoop for free for 30 days. Okay, this week's episode, R-SvP of research algorithms and data. The Fearless Emily Capital Lupo is back to answer questions. from you. That's right. You are listeners. These are the questions that you've called in. You've written in and now we're answering them. A reminder, if you want to ask us questions for a future podcast, it's podcast at boop.com or call us 508-443-49-5-2. Today, Emily answers questions about VO2 Max. She touches on what it is, how to calculate it, and how to improve it. Hydration, training for long races during the hot summer months.

Pregnancy, members have been loving the updated pregnancy feature on whoop. So Emily goes deep on that. HRV, how it impacts everyone by bulking, consuming large amounts of calories, and a bunch more. So here is Emily Capitaluppo answering your questions. Hey, everybody. This is Emily Capitalupo, Woop Senior Vice President of Research data and algorithms. And I am here with you today for a fun episode answering questions that you, our listeners, wrote in. So we're going to hit on a number of different topics,

really excited to talk about the things that you all are most interested in. So let's get started. Our first question comes from Stephen. He's asking about Zone 2 and V-O-2 Max training. He says, I feel like last year the big thing was Zone 2 training. And now it feels like my friends keep talking about VO2 Max and I felt a bit lost. What exactly is VO2 Max and what does it mean for your fitness level and how can someone calculate them? Great question. So first off, zone two training was the big thing last year for a reason. It's not just hype. It's still really important. So I wouldn't say like zone two training is over onto VO2 Max training. These things are very different. They're both very important. Let's try and make space for both. But let's talk about the basis.

So what's V-O-2 max? So V-O-2-max stands for, the V is for volume, O2 is oxygen, and then max is just max. So put it all together, and it's the maximum amount of oxygen that your body is capable of using during intense exercise. So why does that matter? Oxygen is fuel or power. So you want to think about your V-O-2 max is almost like the size of your engine. And so a higher VO2 max means that you can put more fuel, more power, more energy behind whatever it is you're trying to do. And so there is a very, very strong correlation between like people who can run faster, longer, are tend to have higher VO2 max.

The better athletes tend to have higher VO2 max. Even if you're not an athlete, it's super important to your health because in the event that your body gets stressed, you want to be able to like reach those higher fuel levels or fuel. levels in order to rise to the challenge of that stress and not just succumb to the stress. A really practical way to think about it is just think about typical life challenges. So, for example, if your V-O-2 max is below 20, you're going to get out of breath going upstairs. Walking upstairs is a bit more energetically demanding than sort of, you know, the baseline of your day, which might be like standing or sitting. but most of us, healthy young people, can walk upstairs without losing their breath.

They can continue to maintain a conversation while climbing those stairs. And if your V-O-2 max gets too low, gets below 20, all of a sudden you can't do that. And then there are different, you know, more demanding levels of activity at which, like, raise your V-O-2 max a little bit higher than 20, and all of a sudden you can walk upstairs and carry on a conversation, you'll still make those false sentences, raise it a little bit more. All of a sudden, you can walk up. the stairs while carrying heavy groceries, something that, you know, for a lot of people is important or walk up the stairs while carrying your toddler, right? And then at some point,

you can even, you know, jog at a, you know, 12, 10 minute mile pace and still carry on a conversation, still, you know, comfortably be breathing. And so the higher your VO2 max is, just the more you can do comfortably. And so the less these like changes and demands throughout your day, whether it's exercising or just kind of the normal stuff, like carrying your groceries, walking upstairs, the less that's going to fatigue and stress you out. Really, really important to increase that capacity. It's a great marker of just cardiovascular health broadly. So I want to talk briefly about how to calculate it.

So there are a number of different ways to estimate your VO2 max. And the one that you're going to choose depends a little bit on how important precision is to you. So the gold standard for calculating your VO2 max requires that you wear an oxygen mask, You use very specialized equipment. You have somebody who is certified and how to conduct and then read these tests. And so typically you're going to some kind of specialized facility. You're paying $2 to $300, depending on where you are in the world that's obviously going to vary. But you're spending a decent amount of money.

It's very physically challenging to do these tests. They're completely exhausting. But they're extremely accurate. And so then you'll get your VO2 max. And, you know, it's great to do this periodically if you're a serious. endurance runner because it's one of the best markers of improvement and fitness. If you're not inclined to spend $200 to $300, you know, maybe it's just not that important to you to know exactly what your VO2 max is. There are other ways you can estimate it. There are different formulas

where you can do things like you get on a treadmill and you slowly increase the pace that you're running at. There are little formulas you can find online that as you keep increasing the pace towards failure, you can then look at your results of those tests, plug them into an online calculator, and they'll give you a pretty decent estimate of your VO2 max. And then if you don't want to exercise at all, there are also kind of like questionnaires and stuff that ask you, like I was hinting at earlier, you know, can you climb the stairs without losing your breath? And, you know, based on your answers to some basic questions, they can say, oh, your VO2 max is probably in this range. So, you know, depending on how much you care, in terms of how much effort and money you want

to put behind testing, there's a number of different options available to you. But I think one of the most useful, most practical ways is, you know, if you're an endurance athlete or even if you just sort of enjoy any endurance activity, it's paying attention to when I walk up a hill, can I still carry on a conversation in full sentences without it feeling strained? When I carry my groceries, you know, do I feel like I'm breathing heavily? And if those activities start to feel like, oh, I noticed that, you know, after working out for a couple months, like, it's more comfortable to breathe while I do these things, then that's a great sign that your VO2 Max has improved, even though it's a noisy method to say, like, oh, it went from this specific number to that

specific number, but it would let you know pretty confidently that it's improved because that would be a sign that you can now more comfortably do those same activities. So our next question comes from Katie, who also asks about VO2 Max. she wants to know how to improve her VO2 max and if there are any exercises or training techniques that are particularly well suited for improving VO2 max. So in order to answer this question, it very much ties into Stevens' question too. It's important to understand this concept of hormesis, which is this basic idea that we improve in pretty much every physical way of improving, right?

We build muscle, we build grit, we build speed, we improve our V-O-2 max by pushing our limits in that area. And what's sort of interesting is that the sort of fundamental thing about Hormesis is that like sometimes doing a little bit of something can be really good for you, even if you did like too much of that thing, it would be bad for you. It's like you take, you stress yourself just a little bit not to do any real damage, but enough to send the signal to your body that's essentially saying, hmm, the demands of my life are greater than what's comfortable for me. Therefore, I should, you know, make this system stronger. And so we stress our bones, for example, by jumping up and down, like loaded body weight exercises. And then our body goes, hmm, we put a lot of demands on our bones. Let's go make them stronger. And so we see that like people who do jump training tend to have better bone mineral density. You know, we improve our like VO2 max when we really put.

those upper limits of, you know, endurance activity when it feels like we're running really, really hard and really pushing ourselves, our body says, hmm, life demands that I run fast. How do I go and strengthen that system? You know, we strengthen our biceps by trying to curl weights that are just a little bit heavier than what's comfortable. And when we push ourselves just a little bit beyond what's comfortable, we can do it in a way that's, you know, not too much of a stretch that we risk injury and do damage, but just enough to send that little to our body that we then respond to and get stronger. So that's this concept of hormesis.

So with VO2 max, the takeaway here is we need to tell our body that we need higher VO2 max because our body is this really cool system that wants to be just as strong as we tell it it needs to be and doesn't really try to do anything more. It's like this weird like over underachiever thing. One of the very best ways to improve VO2 max is to find these little micro doses of pushing the upper limit of your cardiovascular capacity. And so you might have already figured this out, but what I'm getting to is hit training. So anything where you're doing, you know, intense bursts, you know, those higher heart rate zones. And then, you know, because you can't just say do

20 minutes of zone five consecutively, that would be really, really challenging, if not impossible for most people, right? The best way to do that is a little bit of those higher zones, come back to a lower zone, a little bit of higher heart rate, come back to the lower heart rate. So you want this kind of very wavy up and down heart rate pattern. Any kind of cardiovascular training can help improve your VO2 max. And depending on where you're starting from, how cardiovascularly trained you already are, will also determine what the best next thing for you to do is. So for somebody whose VO2 max is, say, like 20 or below, something as simple as walking is, you know, is definitely going to improve their VO2 max. But for a more serious athlete, you're probably going to need to

spend time in those higher heart rates to really get meaningful improvement. So our next question comes from Isabella, who's training for her half marathon this summer and is concerned about taking long runs in the heat. She says, do you have any tips for staying hydrated on long runs outdoors? I live in Houston, and I'm running a half marathon in August. I've tried running with water bottles, and I find it uncomfortable to hold or wear them on this belt that I purchased. Should I be drinking a lot night before or right before the run? Are there alternatives that could help? What's the ideal amount of water for somebody to drink each day? And is it bad if I exceed it? If anybody's listening and you're not in the U.S., you're not familiar, Houston is very,

very hot in the summer. So, Isabella, I totally understand the challenge you are facing. I've trained for a marathon during the summer, too. It's challenging. So this is a great question. I'm sure there are lot of other people wondering similar things. I'm going to disappoint you a little bit, though, because depending on the actual heat humidity, depending on, you know, your level of fitness, depending on, you know, your body type and a number of other factors, all of those things are going to determine what the actual right number of ounces or, you know, how much water to drink. I can't say like, oh, this is the right amount. But it is possible, depending on how long you're running that you don't have to hydrate during a run. So it might not be necessary.

But if you do want the option to hydrate while you're running, there are a couple of different products that are worth trying before giving up. There are water bottles for running that almost look more like backpacks. There are also, you know, different kinds of belts. You know, there are things that strap around your wrist. So if your goal is to find a way to hydrate during a run, I wouldn't just give up based off of one product. It is worth kind of shopping. around a little bit. Depending on, you know, your neighborhood and where you're running, it might also be possible to plan your route around places that have public water fountains. A lot of public parks have them, different things like that. And so even if you don't want to carry it, you can intentionally

plan your route around places where you can stop and get water. And those places also tend to be places that have a lot of people around, which might also make them safer places to be running anyway. Let's say that public parks aren't an option, you know, too far away from your house or anything like that. And you are trying to figure out, like, can I just not deal with mid-run hydration at all? There's a couple of good indicators that you're doing okay. So one is thirst. So keep in mind that thirst is a lagging sign. And that means that by the time you're thirsty, you're actually like meaningfully less hydrated than you should be. So we should be drinking during the day to stay ahead of thirst. And it's a good sign if you're often find yourself, whether you're running or,

you know, just going about your normal life, if you're often getting thirsty, it's a good sign that you should be increasing your hydration. And so if you're really, really thirsty for a lot of the run, don't just say like, oh, it's because it's hot out. It's a good sign that you're not getting enough water. And so you should think about how to either get the water, you know, during your run or keep the run shorter so that you don't get to that point, especially in the heat, you can dehydrate really, really quickly. Another sign, and this is less useful mid-run, but you want to pay attention to things like the color and frequency that you're urinating. And, you know, it's a great indicator of hydration. It sounds gross. It's not. But you should be looking at your pee every time you pee.

There's a lot of important health information there. And you also want to be paying attention if you haven't urinated at all in a long time as that can also be a sign of dehydration. And so you want to be in this sweet spot where definitely don't want it to be too dark or too infrequent. And you also don't want it to be always perfectly, perfectly clear and much, much more frequent than what you're used to because that can be a sign of being overhydrated, especially if it's paired with things like headaches, nausea, fatigue, which can be a sign of hyponaturemia that's often called overhydration. but it's not exactly. It's under-sulting. That's what it literally means. And because what happens is if we have too much water, it flushes out the minerals and then we end up with not enough salt in our system and that can create really, really dangerous health situations really quickly. So if you're urinating a lot, it's crystal clear and that's mixed with headaches, nausea fatigue. That could be a sign that you're

overhydrating. And then the other thing to keep in mind with fear of overhydrating is that healthy kidneys can process about one liter of fluid per hour. So you never want to be drinking more than that because you're putting a lot of strain on your kidneys if you do that. So my somewhat disappointing answer or my non-answer is that the amount of water that you need is super personalized, but pay attention to your urine, pay attention to how often you're feeling thirsty. And if you're worried that either of those things are off, I also want to remind everybody that I'm not a medical doctor and you should definitely talk about these things with your doctor because hydration is so important for our health and we don't want to be getting

you wrong. 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. Staying on the topic of hydration, we have a really interesting question from Gabby, who is interested in the impact of hydrogenated water and looking for more information. She wrote, a fitness influencer I follow recently posted about her new hydrogen water bottle.

Do these things really improve hydration levels? Have you seen any data around better performance or recovery? after using them, trying to decide if I should get one for myself. So I really loved this question because every so often, we get a question when we put out these requests for listener questions for our podcasts, and people super surprise me. And this was one of them. And I find it fun because I get to go and learn something new. I had never heard about hydrogenated water or these fancy water bottles.

And so what I'm going to do with this question is something a little bit unusual. I will answer Gabby's question, and I'll tell you what I think about hydrogen water bottles, but I'm also going to tell you how I, as a scientist, went through figuring out if this was just Instagram influencer hype, or, you know, should I go and buy one of these things because it's the greatest new health discovery? And so how did I go and figure that out? I'll walk you through it, and in a couple minutes you will get my answer as to whether or not you should go and buy one of these things. And I should start with, so I Google these things,

they're like $200. These are like very, very expensive water bottles. So this is not a just like, eh, let's go and try it kind of thing. You know, if I'm going to spend $200 on a water bottle, it better make me glow. So let's jump in. So the basic premise of hydrogen water or ionized water, as it's also called, is that they infuse water, which has the, molecular compound of H2O with hydrogen, which is H2. And H2, the hydrogen, is a super powerful antioxidant that can neutralize harmful free radicals in our bodies. And they claim, and I went on several different websites of different companies selling

these hydrogen water bottles, and they all have very similar claims that are essentially along the lines of drinking hydrogen-rich water has been shown to have numerous potential health benefits, such as reducing inflammation, improving athletic performance, and promoting skin health. Okay, so this sounds like really too good to be true. So I started to dig in, and all of these websites are also linking to peer-reviewed publications. And that's actually a great sign. So I was like kind of excited. I was like, oh, there's science behind this. Let me go see what's in this science. And so I started reading these studies, and one particularly good one came from 2019. And it was published in the Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, which is a good journal. So I was like, okay, this might be legit. They did double-blind study, which is one of the best kind of study designs that there are. So lots and lots of points here. I'm kind of getting excited. And the study's results were actually strong. They showed that endurance and fatigue were significantly improved in the group that drank this like H-2 infused water, the hydrogenated water, as compared to the control.

group that just drank normal water. And when you're reading a study like this, there's a couple of things you want to look for. You want to look for, you know, is it published in a reputable journal? This one is. You know, obviously like what were the results? In this case, they were significant. So that was kind of exciting. Was the study sample size a decent size? It was about 159 people, which is actually a really good size study. So that's starting to look good. Do the people in the study, are they relevant to me? So you want to look like, are these? athletes, you know, sometimes people will do study, well, a lot of studies are done in mice, right? And then they'll create products for humans because of something done in mice. So this

one was done in humans, so that's exciting. And then sometimes they do things like the foundational study that everybody got so excited about the keto diet for was done in obese people preparing for bariatric surgery. So, you know, everybody and their mother started flooding to all these like keto diets for weight loss, but, you know, sometimes it's like you have to stop and ask, you know, just because this worked in, you know, morbidly obese individuals preparing for surgery, so highly motivated and highly supported, you know, is this necessarily that's going to work for me when I'm like generally at a good weight and trying to lose just like five pounds or something. So, you know, the applicability or the transferability of the

results from the actual study population to you, you want to say, go look at what the recruiting criteria were, and does that as much as possible, kind of sort of look like a group that you are a part of or similar to. So, you know, these were young healthy athletes, so that was another great sign. So I'm reading the study and starting to think, okay, maybe there's something here. But here's the catch in this part is important. The next thing you need to look into is, okay, here's the science that all of these water bottle companies are pointing to. But is the thing that they're selling me actually the thing that the study used? So, like, does their water bottle, you know, create the same amount and the same purity of hydrogenated water as what these subjects were given?

And then there's sort of a sub question in all of that, which is, okay, these are all the benefits, but, you know, are there any downsides to be aware of? So I want to talk about those two things separately. So the first is, you know, does this apply? Does this research actually transfer to the product I'm being sold? Or, you know, are these things like loosely correlated and they're just trying to piggyback on this science? And the more I dug into this, the more, you know, my excitement started to get tempered because there's just no proof that any of these water bottles are actually giving you hydrogenated water. Because if you look at the methodology of how they hydrogenated the water in these studies, the equipment that they're using, it's not clear. In fact, there's no proof that that's equivalent to what these, you know, highly miniaturized water bottles are providing. The other concern around safety is that the way that they hydrogenate the water, so like I said, the chemical structure of water is H2, and hydrogen is H2. So what they're basically doing is they're applying a current to fill up your water bottle with water, any old water that you have, tap water.

or bottled water, whatever, and then they apply an electrical current to it, and they basically break apart the H2O into H2s and O's. The oxygen, which is the O part, just evaporates as oxygen gas, you know, oxygen all around us, and then the H2 is supposed to like stay in the water as hydrogen, and then that's what you drank. But in the study that was published in this peer-reviewed journal, they're using very heavy equipment in order to electrify and then hydrogenate this water. And from everything I can tell, that's just not what is being offered in these water bottles. So the amount of hydrogen that you

are probably getting is much, much lower and might actually be completely negligible. And then the other concern is that this technique of, you know, just adding this current in order to split the molecule is somewhat indiscriminate. So it's going to split. any molecule that is in your water. And unless you're buying distilled water, which humans should not be drinking, it's got other salts and minerals in it. If there's things like salt, so not to get too much into a chemistry lesson, you know, there's NACL, which is like table salt in your water. You can actually create chlorine. You can create ozone, both of which are very unhealthy for humans to be consuming. So there's sort of this like either they're not hydrogenating the water,

in any amount to be meaningful, or if they are, they're also creating other compounds that are potentially bad for you. And so, you know, unfortunately, I think, like, I would consider these products to be completely not validated and not health tested. And I would be very weary of the way they're trying to piggyback on what is good science and what is kind of exciting. And then to say that, and we've, you know, recreated this same technology, but smaller in order to give you this very, very expensive water bottle. So, you know, I think that sometimes there's, there's no way around good old-fashioned training. And I would not, at this point, based on what we actually know, as in like what has been published in peer-reviewed literature, I would not recommend these

products. I don't think that we know enough about them. But, you know, this study and, you know, there are a couple more like it, potentially suggests that there is something interesting here. And it's possible that one day somebody does figure out how to, you know, miniaturize it in a way that is both safe and effective. But I think that if any of these water bottle companies had actually achieved that, they would have shown a validation study or any kind of validation data using their actual product, not using much more expensive and larger equipment that is not possible yet to miniaturize and so not actually reasonable to call equivalent. Switching gears, our next question comes from Kendall, who has been a Woot member for a few

years now and recently had a baby. Congratulations to Kendall. She saw our updated pregnancy feature and wants to learn more about it. She says, I was so excited to see the pregnancy update, but I would love to hear more about how it's going to help women throughout their pregnancies. I also was curious if you had any information on why my strain has been higher postpartum versus pre-pregnancy, would that be because of breastfeeding? And any other information about postpartum trends would be great. So Kendall, I breastfed my baby for over a year. I can attest from both personal experience and from all the research I've done on our whoop data, that that is a tremendous amount of work. So props to you.

Metabolically, a day of breastfeeding, you know, especially for younger babies who are exclusively breastfeeding and not also consuming solids, requires about the same amount of energy as running eight miles. So anybody who is listening who has a breastfeeding person in their lives, please be nice to them. They are tired. This is to say that your strain is up because the metabolic demands on your body are very up. And if you continue to breastfeed, you will actually adapt to this new level of demand.

This kind of goes back to what I was talking about a couple of minutes ago in response to Katie's question about hormesis. So your body will adapt to this new level of demand and your strain will come. down as you adapt to that. And so it does get a lot easier, but it is very real for now. And so make sure you're being nice to yourself. Make sure you are hydrating well and eating good nourishing food. And I hated when people told me to rest when I was really postpartum because it's not up to me, but it is good advice. I'm not going to say it because it's annoying, but it is good advice. And, you know, just know that that's real and that you will adapt. to it and it'll get easier over time. Okay, you had a couple of good questions. I want to make sure I

hit all of them. So you asked about how does this feature help? It does a couple of things. One is that, and the most important is that it helps to normalize and contextualize your experience. So, you know, when I first got pregnant, I was seeing, and I now know that many, many thousands of Woot members have seen your heart rate variability plummets really quickly and it's like almost feels like it's in free fall for months. Your arresting heart rate starts to go up. It hits these numbers that you've never seen before. And that can be scary, especially in a time when you care so much about your health. And if you were a neurotic pregnant person like me, you know, you're sort of, you know, nervous about wanting to be as healthy as you possibly can, you know, for a baby. And we wanted

to help people understand first and foremost that these changes in your vital signs that look like they're getting worse are just in response to how hard your body is working. It doesn't mean that your health is failing or anything like that. And so just showing you your data overlaid on what Woot members typically experience by, you know, which day you're in in your pregnancy. Just we found in the feedback that we've gotten really helps people just calm down and de-stress. And this is a period in life where it's particularly beneficial to de-stress and where stress might otherwise be elevated. And so that was a huge thing, was just helping people understand that their data is going to do something very different from what they're used to it doing and to understand

that that's normal. And so that was the biggest thing that we wanted to do. And we were more to come in that space. But we're really excited to see the tremendous amount of positive feedback that we've already gotten from our pregnant members using this feature. Our last question is from Jacob, who wants to know how bulking and consuming large amounts of calories could impact his HRV. He says he's been consuming around 3,400 to 3,800 calories per day and getting pretty good sleep every night, but his recovery has been low despite hydrating well, avoiding alcohol, and not eating within three hours at bedtime.

He asks, are all the calories putting too much stress on my body? And is that causing the low recovery and low HRV? Should I be limiting the number of days each week consuming these high calories? So this is a really interesting question. And I don't know Jacob, so I don't know how elevated 34 to 3,800 calories per day is compared to what he was doing. but if we sort of assume that you're kind of typical, healthy, active man, you know, that could be a thousand extra calories a day, which is not nothing for sure. And so that very much could be putting stress on your body because, you know,

not only are you asking your body to process all of this extra food, which does warm us up, there's this phenomenon called TEF, which is like thermic effect of food, where basically in the process of digesting food, that releases heat, so then we warm up, and then we have to actively activate all these thermal regulation pathways in order to cool us down. And so that requires a lot of work. We burn a lot of calories in just digesting our food. And so he is putting significant additional strain on his body, and that could show up as reducing his HRV and therefore reducing his recovery scores. The question here is if that's a bad thing, right? Like, he's in a bulking state.

So it could also be that he is eating the appropriate amount to fuel this elevated level of activity. And they'll reduce HRV or reduced recovery scores is just in response to how hard he's training. So I wouldn't just look at this and say, oh, it's the calories. Oh, he should pull back. And I think, you know, without looking at his training and how acutely different this is from what he had been doing, what I would say to Jacob is you really want to pay attention not to so much to what happens to your body when you have an intense pushing moment, you know, high training load, but what happens when you back off a little bit? So if you do take a rest day, if you can get back to green when you pull back, then what you're doing is fine. Where you want to start to be nervous is if you pull back, you have that rest day and you can't get back to those.

higher HRVs, higher recovery scores, because that starts to tell you whether or not this training is adaptive or maladaptive. So in adaptive training, and we've been talking a lot this episode about this concept of hormesis, right, you stress your body, you do something hard, you send this message of, hey, body, my life demands more from me, and your body responds with, I got you, now your muscles are bigger. You're stronger, right? You can process more food. It's like increased capacity of all the systems that you're telling it need to be increased. That's great. But if you train maladaptively, you say, hey, body, you know, I need more, but you just keep bombarding it with more, more, more, more, and you don't give it the chance to, like, back off and have that response moment where it says,

okay, let me go rebuild, which happens not while you're working out, not while you're stressing your body, but in the aftermath, right, that happens. We actually build muscle, build fitness while we sleep after we worked out. You know, we build the muscle while we're resting. We create the signal to build the muscle while we work out, but we actually get weaker, not stronger while working out. And so if you just keep working out, working out, working out, and you don't have that back-off moment that allows your body to respond to it, all of a sudden it just gets like overloaded with these requests to level up to be better. And it almost just crashes, you know, because it gets overwhelmed. And so that becomes maladaptive. And so in those situations where maladaptive

stimulus has occurred, you'll see that when you do eventually take that rest day, you don't get that green recovery score. You don't get that bounce back that you're expecting. And so if you're in this intense moment, the yellow scores, the slightly reduced HRV, all those things are not in themselves a concern. But it is important when you're stressing yourself to make sure that there's a healthy balance between push and rest, push and rest, because it's in that rest where you get all the benefits. And so it's a train smarter, not harder moment where you don't want to just overload your system and eat all these crazy calories and all these things without making sure that your body has a chance to turn all your hard work into progress towards your goals.

Those were all the questions that we have time to get to today. Thank you so much. to everybody who wrote in. If you have other questions that you'd like for us to answer on a future whoop listener questions podcast, please reach out. These are some of my favorite episodes to do. I love to know what you all are thinking about. It helps us think about what we should be building in our product. So thank you, thank you for all of your feedback, all of your questions,

and for listening to the loop podcast. Thanks so much. Thank you to Emily Capulupo. And thank you our listeners for sending in your questions. going to do more of these. So don't forget, you can email us, podcast to whoop.com, call us 508 443-4952, and we will answer your questions on future episodes. A reminder with Father's Day coming up, gift whoop, get $50 off, select accessories, get a free month yourself. If you enjoyed this episode of the Whoop podcast, please leave a rating or review. Please subscribe to the Whoop podcast.

Check us out on social at Whoop at Will Ahmed. If you're thinking about joining Whoop, go to Whoop.com. You can literally sign up for free for 30 days. You get the full experience for free for 30 days. And new members can use the code will, W-I-L, to get a $60 credit on W-W-A-W-Accessaries. That's a wrap, folks. Thank you all for listening. We'll catch you next week on the WOOP podcast. As always, stay healthy and stay in the green.