I’m new to the Whoop world and just got the Whoop MG that I’ve been wearing on my right bicep for the last few weeks. I’ve had some form of GPS Apple watch on my wrist for the last 7-8 years so am very familiar with that platform and workout tracking. When I go for a run or bike ride outside, I’ve always just started a workout on Strava on the Apple watch, then that syncs with Apple health, etc. What I love about this is I don’t need to take my phone with me since my Apple Watch is the GPS version.
Now with the Whoop, it says to calculate my VO2 max I need to go on a 15+ min run tracked with the Whoop. This brings up a few questions:
-There is no Whoop app for just the Apple Watch I could use like my Strava app, correct? I need my phone with the app to start an activity?
-On my phone in the Whoop app integrations, I have connected the Whoop to share data with Apple Health and Strava, so I was hoping that I could still go for a run with just my watch and have all the workout data be shared across platforms. But if I go for a run without my phone and just start the activity on my Apple watch with Strava (while also wearing the Whoop MG on my right bicep), the tracked run doesn’t carry over to the Whoop activity. All the other data of heart rate, calories, etc does, but not the tracked route which seems to be the important part for the Whoop calculating the VO2 max. Am I not syncing them together correctly?
In an ideal world, I would go for a run or bike ride without my phone in my pocket, and track the activity through my GPS Apple watch with Strava (or another app or directly through a Whoop app on the watch but I don’t think that exists?), and have that fully sync to the Whoop app as if I recorded it with the Whoop app on my phone. Is this a possibility at all?
Yes, I think you’re correct on all fronts. I would also like to see them making a Strava backwards integration. Because Whoop can already sync to Strava, just not the other way around. Ideally with the option to pick either strava heartrate or whoop.
Hey @Reiland! Sam here from WHOOP. Welcome to the WHOOP community and thanks for the thoughtful question!
Great news: If you’ve already enabled the WHOOP integration with Apple Health (AH), you can go for a run or ride using your GPS-enabled Apple Watch without needing your phone, and WHOOP will still pick up that workout data afterward. No need to double-track with the WHOOP app.
Here’s how it works:
WHOOP reads GPS workouts from Apple Health. If your Apple Watch logs a GPS-tracked run or ride and writes it to Apple Health (which it does by default), WHOOP will automatically import that into your WHOOP activity log.
We’ll use the GPS data, start/end times, and activity type from Apple Health, and then layer in your WHOOP-collected heart rate to give you a complete WHOOP activity.
So yes, just wear your WHOOP MG, start the activity on your Apple Watch, and you’re good to go!
Quick note on VO2 Max:
You don’t need a GPS-tracked workout for us to estimate your VO2 Max, but it does help us provide a more accurate estimate. So, your flow (Apple Watch > Apple Health > WHOOP) works perfectly, no phone required. Just make sure you don’t start a separate activity in the WHOOP app at the same time, or the import might be skipped due to overlapping activities.
Hope that clears things up! Let me know if anything still feels unclear – happy to help you get the most out of your WHOOP.
Does this only work with logging activities with certain apps on the apple watch? I went for a run yesterday with my GPS Apple Watch and left my phone at home, and recorded the run with the Strava app. Now in Strava, it shows the GPS tracked run and gives the data. It did get automatically brought into Whoop, but the tracked run part isn’t in there. So maybe that data doesn’t get brought over from Strava and I need to log the run with the Apple Workout app instead? Not a huge deal and it’s great most of the data got pulled over, I just want to make sure I’m getting the most of the Whoop since I’m new to it.
I believe the GPS tracking will only work if the activity is recorded on Apple Watch using the “native “ Watch workout, but interested in knowing if you have had success using the AW Strava app to record a run with GPS data that is then used by Whoop via Apple Health import.
Tonight I went for a run using the AW Workout app to track it, and all the data including the tracked GPS route went over to Whoop, and to Strava, so it looks like that’s the move for all the data to be captured on all platforms.
@redjack63 is spot on – Strava’s app and presumably their Apple Watch app do not reliably write GPS data to Apple Health (I recall either the lat/long or timestamps were faulty), why is why we recommend using the native Apple Watch workout app to record GPS activities. It writes cleanly to Apple Health, ensuring a smooth sync into both WHOOP and Strava.