WHOOP Podcast - WNBA Star Lexie Hull on Obsession, Effort, and Her Commitment to Health & High Performance

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

On this week’s episode, WHOOP VP of Performance Science, Principal Scientist, Kristen Holmes is joined by WNBA star Lexie Hull. Before Lexie was selected 6th overall in the WNBA draft by the Indiana Fever, she was a collegiate standout and 2021 National Champion at Stanford. During her collegiate career, she was a three-time All Pac-12 selection, and most recently, Lexie was named Defensive Player of the Year for Athletes Unlimited’s 2023 Basketball season. Kristen and Lexie will discuss Athletes Unlimited and what it means for women’s sports (3:15), Lexie’s collegiate career at Stanford (5:20), her mindset as an elite defender (7:20), going from a student-athlete to a professional (8:47), growing up competing with her twin sister Lacie (12:55), dealing with mental health (15:38), building a brand without creating distractions (17:55), how Lexie thinks about her performance data (22:00), her routine on game day (25:30), tracking her menstrual cycle on WHOOP (31:00), Lexie’s sleep tricks and habits (34:15), and her perspective on the current and future landscape of women’s sports (38:35).Support 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

Hello folks, welcome back to the WOOP podcast, where we sit down with the best of the best. I'm your host, Will Amit, founder and CEO of WOOP, and we're on a mission to unlock human performance. On this week's episode, WOOP VP of Performance Science, our principal scientist, Kristen Holmes, is joined by WNBA star Lexi Hull. Before Lexi was selected sixth overall in the WMBA draft by her Indiana fever, She was a collegiate standout and a 2021 national champion at Stanford. During her collegiate career, she was a three-time all-Pact-12 selection, a two-time PAC-12 all-defensive team recipient, and a two-time NCAA tournament regional all-tournament team honoree.

She's represented USA basketball at the international level as well. That's when she was selected for both the 2022 FIBA and the 2022 America Cup teams. Most recently, Lexi was named Defensive Player of the Year for Athletes Unlimited. Kristen and Lexi will discuss Lexi's collegiate career at Stanford. She talks about winning the national championship and some of the biggest differences between being a student athlete and a professional athlete. Lexi's commitment to sleep and recovery, they get into her bedtime routine, naps, a bunch of things related to optimizing your bedroom,

how Lexi manages her mental health, her game day routine and new nutritional habits, how she uses whooped to train and track her menstrual cycle, and the current landscape of women's sports. Quick product plug, the new dad jeans, super knit. Brings together two icons, dads and denim. It makes a great Father's Day gift. Scoop it up for yourself. That's at shop.wop.com.

If you're new to whoop, you can use the code Will, that's W-I-L-L, at checkout getting a new membership. and you'll get a $60 credit on apparel and accessories. Include a band, a battery pack, or Whoop body apparel in your cart, and you will get $60 off. If you have a question, you want to see answered on the podcast. Email us, podcast at Whoop.com. Call us 508-443-4952, and we'll answer your question on a future episode. Without further ado, here are Kristen Holmes and Lexie. Lexi, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, well, we're super pumped, and just congratulations on I guess you guys start the season is underway. Tell us a little bit about the first, I guess you, let's see six or seven games in now. Yeah, I mean, a new team, new coach, new year. So we're just super excited that it's finally started going. And we're now the season's in full swing. So we play multiple games a week, traveling all over the place. But we're happy to be here in the middle of it. I love it. Well, we're going to step back and talk a little bit about your kind of

early basketball journey, but just real quick, maybe before we start, I'd love to know just tell us just the difference between Athletes Unlimited and the WMBA and kind of why Athletes Unlimited kind of came into the picture and how that's kind of helping, I think, women's sports in particular. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I love the opportunity to play in it this year in Dallas. For WMBA players, a big part of it, a big part of their careers is going and playing overseas. So that's during the off season with the WMBA seasons. People will leave a week, a month after, and over there for the entire time until

training camp starts up again back in April. But for me, I kind of knew that I wanted to stay in the States, especially coming off of my senior year at Stanford, not having more than a week off before starting training camp here in Indiana. So my body needed a break. My mind needed a break. So I knew I needed to keep playing basketball. basketball obviously. So that's where A.U kind of came into play and being able to play

against other WMBA players against other really good players about a month before training camp was really beneficial and just getting back into game shape, getting more experience under my belt. That's awesome. And how many games did you play during that season? We played three games a week for five weeks, so 15 games. Nice. That's like just the perfect to mount. You know, it's funny, I've interviewed some basketball players in the past and just the, and I've seen some data of some of the women who are competing overseas and then we're coming back for the NBA season. I mean, the toll on the body is just, it's not easy, that lifestyle. Yeah, not at all. Yeah, so I feel like this is like an exceptional kind of alternative in a lot

ways. You had just an insane NC2A career. Maybe talk about, you know, that moment you decided to go to Stanford and, you know, just give us some highlights of those of those four years. Obviously, you won a national championship as a junior. Winning national championships is not easy. I can attest to that having coached in four final fours, I think played in three. And I did come away with one national championship, but I know it's very, very hard. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But But tell us a little bit about your four years and, yeah, what are some of the highlights? During the recruiting process, a big part of it was I knew I wanted to play somewhere with my sister. And luckily for the two of us, pretty much every school that recruited me,

recruited her, recruited both of us. So that was never really an issue. And then deciding to go to Stanford was an easy choice for us as soon as they pretty much offered us. We were like, yes. We didn't say yes right away, but we knew in the back of our minds that's where we wanted to go. and little did we know that our best friends for life would be our teammates there and so getting to spend not only four years seeing and playing with my sister every single day but making some really really special friendships and relationships that will last forever. I think that's really

what I'm going to take away the most and especially my relationship with the coaches. My coaches still text me to this day. Still keeping up on me. So those relationships are super special and I hold those really close to my heart. But basketball-wise, also the best four years. COVID was my junior year. So we had to play that COVID season. My sophomore season got cut short. I'm in the Pact 12th tournament. So that was really hard, really hard for those seniors that year to have them end on that unfortunate note. But we kind of knew going into that COVID year that we were really excited and really amped up and felt like we had a real good chance at bringing home a national championship. So, I mean, at the end of that season, after that entire year, pretty much being

on the road, getting tested twice a day, that took a toll on all of us. But we really stayed close together. And that last game was really, really special. I love that. You obviously value defense, which is a very important piece of the game, clearly. So just talk a little bit about your mindset when you're defending. And, you know, you obviously in order to be a defensive player of the year, like you have to have a very specific way that you think about your role as a defender. And, you know, tell us a little bit about that, about that mindset. I think, I mean, for me, there's always something that you can control. And I think that's your effort. And I never want to be a person or a player that doesn't try hard or doesn't give everything I have. And I think

going into every game, I know that I can contribute something positive on the defense event, diving for loose balls, trying to take that extra charge, rotating that extra, you know, that extra effort is really important. And I think I love taking up a challenge of guarding a really good player, especially in the W. You have 144 players who were the best offensive players on their teams in college over a course of the past 10, 15 years. So I mean, everyone's really good at offense. Then what it comes down to is, who can defend those people. And so I really look forward to that challenge every day, every game.

And I just know that that's something that you can work for. You can work towards. And if the ball's not going in the hole some days, then you can get it back on the defense event. So any way I can to try to impact the game in a positive way, that's something that I try to focus on. I love that. How did your routines change from college and then kind of going into the pros?

Did you have to adjust things in significant ways? ways or were you just kind of like rinse and repeat for obviously you don't have the academic kind of workload that you have to um that clearly was probably super challenging at at Stanford um so you had all sorts probably all sorts of time once you turn professional yeah it is interesting you know going from basically basketball being a part-time job because then basketball being a full-time job and and your actual career it definitely takes a change mentally um because you're not everything you do is part of your success. So that's taking care of your body, eating right. I know in college at Stanford, pretty much eat on campus in the dining halls every meal.

And some nights, that's, I didn't like the food. So sometimes I didn't eat well. I can't afford to do that anymore. And so it's really just a higher degree of focus on taking care of my body and making sure that my body is ready to perform. Yeah. Any, any, so nutrition obviously plays a huge role. And I know you use whoop. So obviously, your sleep stats are impressive. You're above 85% on average pretty much all the time. So you're clearly prioritized sleep. So how just managing the demands, number one, you know, being a student athlete and we've got a lot of student athletes on our platform who are going to be super interested, lots of basketball teams on our platform at the collegiate level. They're going to be really interested in, you know, how does Lexi Hull, you know, how did she do it as, you know,

balancing academics and athletics at one of the most competitive universities in the country for both basketball and, and academically, you know, what were, you know, how did you, how did you think about that the balance and how did you get the sleep that you needed, you know, how did you, you know, how did you basically maintain these, these routines? Obviously, you have COVID that you had to deal with, but, you know, how did you, how were you able to maintain these routines that kind of kept you really healthy and basically injury free for your entire career. I mean, that's so impressive. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I definitely think it came down to finding any time I can to sleep. I was a big napper in college. I would bike back to my room for 20 minutes if I had

time to, and I could fall asleep in that 20 minutes. I would get those extra those extra minutes in if I could and trying to get in to bed as early as I could. And for me, I'm not necessarily a morning person. So I would sleep in as long as I could before, whether that was weights or my first class of the day. So I think it's just figuring out what your schedule is. And if you can, finding time to get maps in. That saved me in college, I think. I would find any minute I could to take a nap. I was trying to Google real quick.

Sherry Ma, she's a famous sleep researcher. And she did this really kind of historic study with Stanford basketball. all, but it might have been before your time on sleep extension. And basically, if you can, you know, kind of bank sleep and extend sleep, you can basically mitigate some of the deleterious physical and cognitive declines that come when you are in moments where you are not getting sufficient amount of sleep. So this concept of sleep banking, sleep extension was, yeah, just was kind of born, that research was born out of Stanford. I wasn't sure. I think, I think you're, year two, I think it was before your time, but, but anyway, yes, napping is an amazing strategy

for all human beings, especially student athletes, who are generally not getting enough time in bed usually. So, so naps can be a huge, great strategy to kind of minimize and manage sleep depth, you know, that invariably comes, especially with travel. And you, you know, for a PAC 12, I'm trying to think, like, you guys, did you have to cross time zones a ton? Like, I feel like you probably play a bulk of your games on the West Coast and then it's just tournament is when you really kind of wanted to travel like to South Carolina for example. Yeah. And we had a few preseason games, whether that was in Tennessee or other places that we would have a different time zone. But that was pretty rare in terms of our entire season. So yeah, travel, travel wasn't too

bad. Yeah. So you have some like fun early influences, right? Your dad was pretty active coaching you. And And obviously your sister Lacey, were you guys super competitive growing up? Like, what was that relationship like? Oh, my gosh. We were, I think, competitive to a fault at times. I can only imagine. My mom likes to tell the story. And I remember very vividly, too, we'd play one-on-one a bunch in our driveway.

We had a basketball hoop. And one day, I think we played a few games. And Lacey had beaten me every single game. And my mom's yelling, guys, come in. We have dinner. We have dinner. And I was like, I don't want. come in until I win and so Lacey I would make Lacey stay out there and she's like no I'm going

to eat like food's hot and I sat in the grass and did not come in because I hadn't won yet and I think that just kind of that that happened both directions you know we were so competitive with each other and even like if it's not playing against each other if one of us was doing ball handling you could hear that sitting on the TV I'd hear the balls out in the driveway or in the garage and I'd like oh I guess I got to go now too like I can't be one sitting here. She's getting better. I can't let her get better than me. So we definitely push each other our entire childhood. But I think it also came down for my parents. They're two very competitive people from board games to card games to whatever. I mean, we're a very competitive

household. So definitely part of a reason of why I am so competitive today. That sounds like my family. Yeah. Most games are like knocked down, drag out at this point. And my son literally, we started playing chess like over the holidays and then um like and i would beat him like in like six moves and like you know 12 minutes and he secretly was like like like accumulating like a literally like a ranking like a world ranking like he played he was playing like 15 games a day like and then over easter he's like hey do you want to play chess like just casually i'm like yeah sure he literally beat me in six minutes like three moves he's so good now he's so he's like ridiculous yeah he's got like a ranking is over 1,000 or something. I don't know. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. I know. I know. He's like

legit player now. But yeah, I can definitely appreciate the the family competition. It's, yeah, it runs really hot in my household. Yes. I love that. I'd love to talk a little bit about, so this is, I guess, a segue, but just would love to hear your perspective on just mental health and just, you know, how you keep it all together. I think that there are just a lot of competing demands when you're playing professionally there's a lot of pressure i'm sure and yeah and just curious kind of what strategies do deploy like what are some things that you've had to deal with in the past that um that you that you've learned from just curious how you how you keep it together so well lexie no well thanks um i you know there's some some days are harder than others i think playing a sport

that is getting more and more publicized there's more and more people who have opinions um and for me trying not to see those or look at those helps me. So I hardly go on Twitter during the season. You know, there's things people say that one person says something that that ruins my day, even though 10 other people back me up. And so that part's really hard at times. And someone told me recently, don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from.

And I think that's something that has really helped me in just staying grounded and and listening to the people that love me and the people that have my best interest at heart. And that helps me keep my mental good, you know, just making sure that I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. I earned it. I worked for this. And some days I might not perform at my best. And knowing that, you know, I put the work in to get here that that day is going to happen,

but tomorrow will be better. Just trying to keep a positive outlook on life and positive outlook on the season. Seasons can be long. Seasons goes in waves, games go in waves. And just knowing that it's a process and every day you're just inching forward and trying to make an improvement 1% better every day. I think that's something that I try to focus on. But yeah, it can be challenging and just keeping a close circle has helped me.

Yeah, that's amazing. And I would imagine, like, just that helps you minimize distractions and just helps you keep focused and censoring on things that, you know, matter to most. And yeah, it's such a double-edged. sword, you know, because you kind of, I wonder how an athlete like yourself, like, deals with us and just any professional athlete really, you've got incredible opportunities, right, to kind of showcase yourself. I mean, you're your own brand. You know, how do you kind of manage, how do you manage that side of it, you know, just having to manage your own brand and kind of

be out there on social media and Twitter, but also protect yourself from the glare, you know, and just all of these opinions that really don't matter, you know. But yeah, I guess I wonder how you engage, how you can kind of stay engaged and out there, but also protect yourself at the same time. Yeah, I definitely think, you know, social media is just such a big part of our lives now and a big part of how we make money essentially. And I think especially, you know, you see NIL taking off in the college space. And I had briefly a year of that, but it's bigger and bigger as time goes on.

that you have to focus on it and you have to spend some time on it. And I think it's important to not let that distract you from really what's important. If you're not performing or if you're not playing at your best, regardless of how you're doing on social media, regardless of how many likes or followers you have, that's not going to get you any farther in making a WMBA team or getting any more minutes in a game. So I think, you know, depending on what your desires are,

And for me, that's being, being a way, for me, that's making a positive impact in the game. It doesn't matter how I'm doing on social media. So that's kind of the second thought, focusing on, you know, sports, focusing on getting better every day, focusing on being a better teammate, doing whatever I can for my team. That's number one priority. And then second, you know, comes social media. Yeah, amazing. That's an awesome framework.

Do you have folks that kind of help you with all that? Yeah, yeah, my agency, you know, they'll, they'll find me things that I can post, find me deals I can make. So they do some of that for me, which is super helpful, less thought and less work for me for sure. Yeah. I would imagine though it does come down like you have to still put some time into it. But now, I don't know how student athletes do it. I can't imagine. You said you had one year as a student athlete. What are, you know, do you have some advice for, you know, for athletes who are navigating the NIL process? I mean, I think you're going to get out what you put into it.

So depending on how much you want to put into it, how much time you can have, how much time you have to put into it, do what you can. In college, I was a big planner girl, so I would plan out my day hour by hour. That's how I'd fit in my 20-minute naps. But if I, you know, don't have, if I only have one class on a Wednesday,

day, then maybe I can spend 30, 45 minutes trying to post something on Instagram or post something on TikTok, whatever that is. You know, finding time that it doesn't take away from other parts of your career and other parts of your life. I think that would help in navigating the NIL for sure. And especially even now for me and in my stage of life, just setting time aside to focus on that is helpful. Yeah, it seems like you just have to be like ruthless with your schedule.

almost to like fit everything in yeah because it takes like huge amounts of time to like put together i know more than you think yeah no it's like crazy i you know like yeah i mean i do a little bit of science education and um yeah i mean it's like it's kind of wild like how i go dark for like five days and then like i'll pop up on the weekend and something but like i can't i can't do it in the work it's it amazes me the i'm not on ticot maybe like a few videos but the people that post twice a day or more. I'm like, how do you edit this and then post it? It's amazing. It blows my mind too, Lexi. I haven't even, I don't even have a TikTok account. I can't even get on TikTok. So I don't even know what that landscape looks like, but I don't, apparently it's a whole thing.

Yep. All right. So I'm super excited to talk about your data a little bit. So you've been using WOOP for a few years now, right? So I'd love to know, you know, how do you think about, how do you think about your data, you know, over the course, like in the season and during off season, like, what kind of part, what kind of role does it play in your life and in your training and in your performance generally? Yeah. I think for me, you know, during season, it's my schedule in terms of workouts and stuff is pretty much set. I reach good enough strain in practice.

So, I mean, in terms of getting working and working out during the season, my decisions around that don't really change. But my sleep in season, my sleep does. So I really do. I love looking at how many hours of sleep does whoop suggest I get to peak for tomorrow. And so I'll try to, you know, get to bed by. I'll set whatever, there's something in the app where you can set what time you have to wake up. And the sleep coach, I think, is what it's called.

So, yeah, that's right. I need to wake up at 7.30. Okay, I need 10 hours of sleep. And I guess I need to get to bed by this time, whatever it is. So I like using that one. And, you know, some days I can't reach that, but that's okay. At least I'm trying. You know, I'm looking at it, hoping that I can get better.

But I think I use it a lot during the off season. Just my workouts, being able to track how much I worked out. how much strain I reach for my basketball workout then oh maybe I should do you know maybe go on a little run going to do yoga do something to kind of reach try to hit my my target strain um I like I like that because especially for me during the off season being in the states being by myself a lot of the time help me stay accountable to um hit a hit a certain part to keep gaining yeah and just knowing what your capacity is you know any of a day I think is a pretty you know it's a great source of insight so a really fun fact you would not know this um but

you're actually in the top 87th percentile for day strain nice for other female members born in 1999 for the last 90 days cool yeah so that's that's kind of yeah so you're you're hitting really high strains um and i would say you know you can't play defensive way that you play with and not hit these kind of strain so i think if anyone is wondering whether or not lexie Hall works hard. I think we can say that you're putting in a lot of work. And that's why I think probably during the season, you know, you just need to spend more time in bed. At a season, you know, your strain is, is, you know, understandably lower, right, when you're not competing and traveling and doing all that when you have some, a tiny bit of downtime. Your strain is

lower and you need to spend less time in bed. But it looks like you're actually a very, very efficient sleeper. Generally, like, you, you average about almost eight hours in bed, which means that you're probably a really efficient sleeper, which is super cool to see. And a lot of that comes with how you manage stress during the day. So maybe let's talk a little bit about some of the specifics on, you know, you know that, let's say you have, it's a game day. And let's say your game is at what are typical games like four o'clock seven o'clock yeah four seven yeah four and seven okay so let's say you've got a seven o'clock game uh in your home time zone how do you think about just the day just kind of walk us through like the lead up the competition how do you maybe

think about strain how do you do you use stress monitor curious um we can kind of talk about maybe how you potentially could use that um to kind of manage you know how much gas you have in the tank kind of going into that seven o'clock game yeah just curious how you think about it Yeah, so I haven't really used the stress monitor yet. So I'm curious what do you have to say about that. So we'll normally have a shoot-around in the morning. So I'll wake up, eat something, and then head to the gym to shoot-around, which is about an hour.

And that's pretty light. For whatever reason, my strain is always still around like 10-11 for that. I'm like, why am I? I wish I had it when I was an athlete because I would like come out of like shoot-arounds and I'd be just like drenched. I mean, you know, because I'd be running the other teams. I feel like he was my primary sport in college. So basketball, I was always, you know, running the other team's offense.

You're still running around. And I was trying to, like, you know, win a spot. So I was just like working so hard. But I would, yeah, I can't even imagine what my strain would have been during these stupid shoot-arounds. Yeah, so I'll do that. Shower, eat something again, and then come back to my apartment and just kind of chill, hang out, watch TV, read. Depending on how I'm feeling, I'll try to take a nap.

Sometimes, you know, I'll just lay in bed on my phone. But if I need a nap, I feel like I need an nap. I didn't get good sleep. If we traveled the day before, I'll probably take a nap before the game. And then eat something little again for pre-game meal and then head to the gym. And when we get there, our time is pretty much booked. We'll do treatment, get taped, roll out. stretch, warm up, do some shooting, and then game time. So the day is pretty much scheduled out

every single day. What's your, do you know your average? I'm trying to see it. I don't see it in your data. What your, what you log, what your shoot rounds log, how much strain you log and shoot arounds? It's normally around like 10 or 11. Dang. Yeah. And then your game strain's like 14. Yeah. So yesterday, so I just got this sports bra. So I just got this sports bra. So I, I hadn't been able to think, because I couldn't wear it on my wrist. Yeah, in practices I can, but in games, I can't. So I just, for the last two games, was able to wear it in the sports broth. Nice.

And I think yesterday I had two, it broke up into two different ones, first half and second half, and it was like 13 and 14 or something. So yesterday it was like a 10 for shoot around, 13, 14, so it was a packed day. But it was cool to see because I had been pretty curious about that. Yeah. Do you do any specific recovery modalities? So do you engage in like a sauna and cold or any of those kind of stick out for you? Yeah.

So I'll ice bath after every practice. After games is tough because I typically just want to get out of there, get them to eat. And I'll ice, but like I won't get in the ice tub. But I'll norm a tech every day. I get, I'll get massages. That's pretty much it. Interesting. Do you get like a kind of a dopamine hit from the ice bath? Do you get like a kind of surge of energy?

Maybe, maybe because I know practice is over. I get to go home and. Yeah, yeah. Like, so happy. Yeah. Do you guys use it as part of a strategy to reduce muscle soreness is that that's that's pretty much that's what i use that's yeah okay got you yeah yeah there's some good evidence for that yeah i kind of um we uh some of the ice hockey the professional

ice hockey guys have been you doing the um 30 second cold shower before they actually get on the ice just kind of get the dopamine the alertness going and yeah just kind of like revs the system wake up like shocks the system yeah so um i know that that has been an effective strategy just in case you want to, yeah, build another protocol in. Yeah, and then sauna before bed can, or a nice hot shower before bed can always be good, too, to help you fall asleep a little faster. How do you manage your nutrition on kind of game day versus an off day versus a practice? Do you have, is it different or is it pretty much, are you pretty much eating the same every day?

I would say pretty much eating the same every day. I'll, you know, have a pretty good-sized breakfast, then lunch after practice, because we normally in practice around 12 or 1, and then a good-sized dinner. But I think I'm eating a little bit more during game days, just getting extra carbs in, like, right before the game, because I'll eat normally a few hours before, so I need something quick, like an apple sauce, a fruit snack, or something like that. So just a little bit more, but normally following every workout with a protein shake, too. So I feel like I get in a lot of, a lot of food, but it all goes away.

I just working too much. I know. I just wonder, I'm like, with this kind of like strain, I mean, you're burning, you're burning, you're burning huge amounts of calories. Lexi, curious, do you track your menstrual cycle on WOOP? I do, yeah, I do. Nice. Have you seen any relationships between kind of different phases of your menstrual cycle? and kind of how you're training, like, are you using those data to just kind of help you strategize

around different times of the month? You know, I haven't used it to really change anything that I've done, but I definitely there are days where I feel like lower energy around certain parts of that. But, yeah, I have, I've seen videos and stuff of people really saying, like, this day of your mental strike, well, you should do this type of workout because it'll help you do this, this and this. And I haven't, I haven't tried that. But, yeah, I mean, I think that with elite athletes, like that, I don't know that that really holds true, to be honest, like, I think it's more about, yeah, I mean, there's definitely

going to be during the Ludio phase, kind of leading into, into, into mencies. Yeah, you might experience a little bit more fatigue, but it's easily, you know, you can easily overcome that with a tiny bit of sleep extension and, you know, prioritizing electrolytes. I don't think egregious changes are required, but yeah, I was just curious if you kind of noticed anything with your own cycle. I did notice in the off season, because I was doing, I was pretty much lifting every single day, which I hadn't done prior, just because now I had the time. And definitely during my cycle, there were days where I was like, I cannot even get close to lifting the amount that I did last week. Or some days I was like, oh my gosh, I just like,

I lifted so much more. So it definitely, it was interesting because it altered my ability to lift certain amounts, which I wish I would have tracked more. I was kind of just more like a mental note. But yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we definitely, we do see, you know, again, I think there's more research that needs to be done. But in general, you know, during mencies and during ovulation, And typically we see higher heart rate variability, lower resting heart rate, you know, which means you're probably a little bit more prime to kind of take on heavier loads, more volume, more intensity. And then once you kind of get in the ludial phase where your body's kind of working pretty

hard to prepare for mencies, you can feel a little bit lower energy. And that's where you just might want to, you know, decrease some of the volume and intensity. And I think maybe, you know, on game day, you know, you wouldn't modify your your shoot around, of course. But, you know, maybe you don't go to the grocery store in between or, you know, you just kind of prioritize. Sit on the couch. Yeah, sit on the couch a little bit. It's good excuse. And then I think to, you know, sleep extension kind of going into that week prior to Menzies can be good strategy as well. You know, so just just knowing that your sleep is going to be a little bit less quality and slightly more disrupted, not really probably in a meaningful level, but

I think some athletes can notice it a little bit more than others. So, you know, kind of that after ovulation week leading into the week prior to Menzies, yeah, sleep extension can be a really good strategy too. Sweet. What are you, so do you, yeah, so you're a great sleeper. So tell us a little bit about, you know, your sleep routines, kind of how do you, especially on a game day, or, you know, maybe a really hard practice or, you know, are there any strategies you deploy kind of leading into bed to kind of help you fall asleep or do you just fall asleep really fast regardless? So, yeah, I mean, I think in college I fell asleep really fast and I never had any issues going to bed. But now I noticed I was having, I felt like I was taking me some more time to fall asleep.

I think part of that I was on my phone for a good chunk of time in bed and it's hard. My boyfriend is in North Carolina. So I would FaceTime him and then being on my phone, I FaceTime him and I'm like, I want to hang up so I can be off my phone. So I try to hang up earlier so I can just lay there and try to go to bed. And sometimes that still wasn't working. I'd still just be laying there. My mind would be wandering.

But I found recently something that has really helped is I'll read. And reading for 15, sometimes 30 minutes really turns my mind off. And that's helped me go to bed a lot quicker. That's amazing. Yeah. I think a lot of people find that. Same. I love reading before bed. I need to pick what I read, though, because if I'm reading like some sort of journal or article or, yeah, I'll get all fired up. Yeah. I have to keep it. Yeah, I like to read poetry. David White is my go-to at the end of the day. Yeah. And then any tips on just kind of bedroom environment? Like, is there anything that you, you know, kind of swear by? And do you use blue light filters? I'm just curious.

I used to, but I haven't. I haven't recently. But I got blackout curtains, so I like my room really dark, really cold. Nice. Yeah, and I try not to spend a lot of time in my bed except for sleeping. And so I'll watch TV and stuff. I have a TV in my bedroom, but I typically won't watch it in there. I'll only watch in the family room on my couch,

just so I can try to keep that to sleeping and focus on not anything else other than sleeping. It's perfect. But, yeah, I think being really dark, really cold, and purely sleeping has helped. I love it. So you have a bit of a younger team, I think, right? Yep. You're in day. Okay.

Tell us a little bit about that dynamic. You know, where do you find yourself in kind of a leadership role? you know how what does that dynamic been like we are a really young team and you know like 75% of our team it's either their first or second year in the league and um last year we set a record for the most amount of rookies on a team ever so um definitely it's it's a different environment i think coming into the wmba with so many people who are the same grade same age going through the same things experiencing the same things for the first time and for me i loved it because it was like, it's kind of like college again because we're all freshmen and we're in this

big whole new world together. And it's interesting because all of the, all of the vets are like, oh my gosh, this feels like college again. Like the coaches have to teach us all these like these new things, how to be a pro, what to do. Like we don't get pregame meal. You figure out pregame meal on your own. Like that's all new to us.

So there's a lot of teaching happening. And it's great because for me and for the new people, you know, we all get to learn it together. So it's fun and exciting. And now as a second year player, it's great because now I'm on the older end of the team, which is crazy. And on any other team, that wouldn't be the case. But, I mean, it's so fun because we're all the same age and enjoy the same thing. So it's definitely exciting. and hopefully we can build something really special here.

I love it. Well, you just over the course of your collegiate career and now into your professional career, you've probably seen, I think, a huge uptick in just interest in women's sports and viewership is increasing. Tell me a little bit about just your perspective on just that landscape in general and, you know, where do you see it trending and what are you excited about? What do you feel like is still challenging? I'm curious to get your thoughts. I mean, it's definitely exciting to kind of be in the middle of it and see the improvement happening, see the viewership of March Madness, just skyrocket, you know, going to a restaurant or a bar and seeing women's basketball on TV.

Like, that's never been here before. So it's super exciting. And, you know, people, I'll meet someone in the last, what do you do? I say, I play basketball and they're like, oh, my gosh, did you watch da-da-da-da. Do you know Caitlin Clark? Did you see LSU? like people are talking about it now and that's that's something that we can be super proud of I think it also leaves a lot of room for growth and I think everybody knows that and

everyone sees that because it's definitely more of a conversation now but it's exciting and it's exciting that I get to be part of 144 players this year and and hoping to grow the WMBA hopefully adding new teams getting more viewers getting more fans it's just it's an exciting time for men's basketball and and i'm i'm really proud to be a part of it i was on a few weeks ago i was on i was on campus my alma mater uh we had an alumni event and kailin clark had like body guards and i mean it was like the whole nine years old my guards was like dang it's just and just you know autographs just lines of people like just you know just just wanted to get her autograph and and all the all the you know and i think at iowa too it's a special

place like they're you know the women's athletics is really revered there and lots of support but yeah it was just cool to see um it just see women's basketball in general just garner so much attention and i just feel like that's going to trickle down to a lot of other sports and for sure it's all it's all really exciting what would you you know for a business for example that's looking to invest in women's sports like what would what would you say to them i would say get in it now get in it while you can i think it's going to be harder, it's going to be more expensive, it's going to be more competitive as the years go on. And I think you just look at what college basketball players are doing right now. They're creating brands and they're creating names for themselves. And sooner or later,

you're not going to have the opportunity to get in. So, you know, I would just say get in now while you still can't. Yeah, I love that. That's good advice. And do you have any, you know, June kind of marks a passing of Title IX, the anniversary of Title IX, you know, what are just some of your reflections on just Title IX and generally, general, just kind of how far we've come and, but, but, you know, where are the gaps, you know, where do you, where do you, what do you think we still need to close in order to kind of really get to that next level? You know, I think there's a lot of, a lot of things that the WMBA and, and, and, you know, Title IX has pushed forward women's sports, but there's clearly a large area of a large room for growth. I mean, a big conversation right now is travel for WBA players, and they've taken a step forward, but it's still, there's going to be, there's still room for growth, and there's

still room for growth in a lot of areas. I mean, players, in my opinion, shouldn't have to go overseas to supplement their incomes and creating more opportunities. You have data that shows how tough that is on the body. Yeah, yeah. So protect our bodies and create more opportunities for us to stay here. And I think, you know, for my experience, Athletes Limited is one step and trying to bring that, trying to make that better.

But I think between those two things, between pay and travel, I think those are two things that are definitely tangible things that we can work on. But in general, like we've kind of mentioned, I just feel like women's basketball, women's sports is going like this, and just to try to keep it moving in that trajectory is super important. I love that. What would you say just with regards to travel? I do a lot of my research is around circadian things.

So just kind of curious, what is it about the travel? Is it just kind of getting better flights? hotels like what would you say is the problem i think the problem is the flights um we stay at great hotels but when we play i mean our schedule this week is we played yesterday then we play in what we played in chicago yesterday we play in minnesota on friday we play back in indiana on sunday so we're traveling pretty much every off day um which is really hard especially when we're sitting in an airport for hours or we flew you know we flew to connecticut and we had to go to Atlanta to fly to Connecticut.

So we're just sitting in airport, sitting in planes. We're all six foot or taller. So our knees are hitting the seats. You know, it's just, it's not ideal. There's no time for the recovery piece. So just trying to figure out either that's the schedule, give us more days in between or making the travel more accommodating for us in terms of the flights. I think those are a couple of things.

Well, if they want a circadian physiologist to help with the travel schedule, I raise my hand. I'll let them know. Yeah, I definitely have worked with a lot of baseball teams and over the years, professional baseball teams, kind of help think about their travel and, you know, how to how to think about sleep, how to think about caffeine, how to think about meal times and how to restrict light and, you know, and bolster light at different times to kind of try to minimize the amount of desecuritization that's happening. with regard to circadian rhythms, because that's really in the end of the day, at the end of the day, that is a huge competitive advantage, you know, and certainly, more importantly, if you think about the health of the entire league, you want to try to limit that desynchronization. That's kind of root cause in terms of, you know,

paying down illness and injury burden for sure. And there's also a strong link to mental health as well. So I think there is a really good case for dialing that in and getting that as tight as as possible to minimize the mental, physical, emotional emotional toll that that travel can take on league athletes. So I'm ready to come in. So when it comes to your health and wellness journey, what would one thing be, what would be the one thing that folks would be really surprised to know about your health and wellness journey? I, huh, I would say growing up,

I did not eat, eat well. I loved McDonald's. Even now, even now, I didn't imagine that. I love McDonald's. I love Taco Bell. I love, like, I would love to eat that every day, but I know that's not going to help me in the long run. But I will say I have learned how to basically, I will eat those things still, but it's a matter of, you know, not eating it every day, figuring out how to fit it in. I love, I'm the biggest sweet tooth you'll meet. I have,

like, ice cream. I have candy in my fridge. I, but it's figuring out how to ration it. And so every day I'll have dessert, even that's a bowl of cereal or ice cream, but it's a smaller bowl of cereal, a smaller bowl of ice cream, one piece of candy instead of the whole candy bag. Just limiting it as I've gotten older, that's, that's been my journey. amazing I was trying not to like I didn't want to like I'm like putting myself on mute because I didn't want to like laugh over like that it was absolutely amazing I'm just like picturing like just like the big bowl of ice cream and the cereal like you know just like trying to figure out all right how do I not eat this entire bag of candy right now yeah my sister

and I, growing up, we would, at McDonald's, we had a plan when we'd go. One of us would get the two cheeseburger meal. One of us would get the 10 chicken nugget meal and we'd split it. So we got one cheeseburger and five chicken nuggets and it was perfect. But not anymore. I get, it's so hard too, like when you have like someone like that where it's like you can just talk each other into like that being a really good idea, like so easily. Oh, man, that's amazing. All right. When it comes to training, what are the three things that you care about most?

Preparing, I think, is my number one thing. Preparing for games, preparing for practice. I think it all starts with that, whether that's watching film, watching the scout, watching myself, figuring out how I can be better. Number two is just effort. I think that's kind of like my go-to word in everything I do. I'm just wanting to give it my full effort. If I'm going to go to the gym on a Saturday in the morning,

I'm not just going to go to the gym on a Saturday. Like, I want to get something out of it. So working as hard as I can for however long that is. And then recovering. So sleeping, taking care of my body after the fact to prepare for that next day because, you know, for me it's every day of the week. I'm doing something for my body, doing something for my profession. And just making sure that I'm ready to tackle that next day.

I love it. Well, you don't half-ass anything. Like, you're so inspiring. It's been amazing, like, watching your career. I'm just a super fan. And, yeah, and it's just really fun to be able to talk to you today. And, you know, I think what you're doing for the game and is incredible. And you're such a phenomenal example for all folks out there, you know, who are looking to bring their best every day. So, yeah, thank you for being. inspiration and for being a part of the WOOP family for so long. And we feel really grateful to have you on the platform and just to know that you use WOOP to kind of guide your decision making and yeah, and to kind of say healthy is

really cool. So thank you. Well, thank you for having me. Thank you to Lexi Hull for sharing her training regimen and her outlook on the women's sports community. 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, you want to see answered on the podcast, email us, podcast at whoop.com. Call us 508-443-4952. New members can use the code Will to get a $60 credit on WOOP accessories when you enter the code at checkout. And that's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. We'll catch you next week on the WOOP podcast. A big happy Father's Day to all our fathers out there.

As always, stay healthy and stay in the green. Thank you.