That involved paying attention to my recovery score – a percentage based figure that tells you how well your body has adapted to its previous strain. The scores are either:

Green: 67% recovery or above, meaning the body is primed to adapt to a larger training load
Amber: 34-66% recovered, meaning the body can take on load but may struggle to adapt as efficiently
Red: less than 34%, meaning you might want to take on less load

From these recovery scores, a ‘strain’ target is set – that’s a recommendation of how hard you should push your body. The less recovered you are, the less strain it recommends you take on.

Following my fitness tracker

In the first few days of my experiment, my recovery was in the amber range. As a perfectionist, I struggled with this. I wanted to be in the green, and saw chasing full recovery as a win. Despite scoring 100% for my sleep performance, my recovery was down because my respiratory rate was up (a trait associated with anxiety and illness). Clearly, Whoop knew I’d been under some stress. As someone who writes a lot about the impact of mental and emotional stress on exercise, seeing the impact of it tracked like this was a great reminder to dial back the physical stress and allow my body and mind to recover.

Whoop tracker: “How living by my fitness tracker for a week affected my health and energy”