I also have multiple friends with both AWs and whoop. Except for one, all of them have the exact same problem. And we all don’t know why it works for the one guy. But that one guy is also super tall, and has a pretty high baseline HR. Maybe that’s got to do with this.
Anyways, regarding the „tracking afterwards“ that’s basically the same as tracking during the workout. If the strength trainer knows the weights and reps it can include muscular strain and adjusts the total strain. That’s also why I must use the strength trainer, because otherwise whoop would calculate the strain for a really really heavy and intense workout over 90mins the same as a walk in the park because it never detects HR above 120. Maybe the walk in the park would be even more intense for whoop because without the spikes during a regular cardio session, it detects properly
Having the same problem. Today my strength trainer was stuck on 106 while my chest strap says I was at 154. Similar to you, it never seems to catch up to accurate heart rate until it comes back down. Has me rethinking renewing my subscription because there’s no way my data is accurate due to this.
Joining in on this..
A mate gifted me his old whoop 4.0 with a 2 month trial.
I’ve had it for almost two week.
I’ve been back and forth for three days with whoop having a similar issue to people in this thread.
The first week was fantastic, super accurate heart rate tracking through all workouts, the last three days however, it’s been reading up to 50bpm less than my true heart rate.
Response time from whoop is pretty slow, and despite doing all trouble shooting twice over, and whoop agreeing to replace the sensor if the problem persisted today, after showing then this morning that yet again it’s the same issue, they’re now saying it needs 2 more days to ‘calibrate’
As far as I’m aware, no wearable needs to ‘calibrate’ to your heart rate. Your heart beats, the sensor tracks it..
I was genuinely excited to use this device, but if it can’t even track a heart rate accurately, how accurate will the rest of the data truly be..?
Yeah I think this supports my assumption that theoretically the sensor should be able to read correctly and that it’s most likely a software thing.
So I still have a tiny bit of hope that this will get fixed if enough people complain. Even though whoop support says it’s a known issue of all wrist based optical sensors. But that’s just not true since every other device I’ve tried worked perfectly fine.
I tried my first strength trainer workout with a new whoop 5.0 to log my workout and my heartrate didn’t leave zone 1 while my Apple Watch was registering my actual effort(up to 148bpm). Left arm Apple Watch right arm whoop. What do you guys think about registering your weight lifting session as functional fitness instead of strength workout until it’s more reliable? Cuz if you look at my screen shot I was basically walking around the gym doing absolutely nothing but counting someone else’s reps and weight according to whoop.
Strength training - depending on the type of workout - doesn’t work good for me on the wrist, but it’s quite accurate with the biceps strap. So I always wear it and I get similar results regarding strain and muscular/cardio load distribution.
Totally agree with all of that. Tracking seems to be as accurate, if not more than Apple Watch outside of “strength trainer” for me. As a personal trainer, I monitor all the data pretty closely and it just doesn’t make sense that they can’t make strength trainer into a module that isn’t clunky with that. I also notice that sometimes my heart rate will stop reading mid workout and freeze on whatever HR reading was on there for the remainder of it. I have been using Whoop for over 2 years now and love it as an all encompassing wellness tool, especially with strength trainer. Just wish they could get that part straightened out with all the rest of the recent upgrades they’ve made.
I have the exact same experience. Both with the 4 and now the MG. It is extremely frustrating bc I feel like im being short changed and not accurately credited for my efforts.
I’ve had the exact same problem. Tried adjusting the band, switching wrists, shaving the area (though I’m not particularly hairy). Didn’t seem to make any difference. Whoop then calculates the number of calories you burned based on this incorrect data, and sends the “corrected” calorie value back to my Apple Watch–which I find annoying.
So, for example, my Apple Watch will have me at 200 calories at the beginning of a workout. Ill lift for an hour, and at the end the watch will say 600 calories. Whoop will then do some calculations based on my perceived Zone 1 heart rate and send info back to the Apple Watch will will suddenly show 400.
I’m experiencing a very similar issue with my WHOOP during strength training, especially when lifting near-maximal loads.
It feels like the WHOOP is filtering out too much of the short-term heart rate spikes that naturally occur during heavy lifting.
I’m wearing the WHOOP exactly in the biceps spot recommended by support.
Interestingly, after restarting the device recently, the heart rate spikes became even less noticeable. For example, during shoulder presses, my heart rate usually spikes to around 157 bpm for a few seconds (confirmed with my Apple Watch), but the WHOOP only shows 146 bpm before dropping back down. After the set, both devices sync up again and match.
When I do VO2 max training or cardio intervals, WHOOP does detect high heart rates correctly—but those spikes last longer, so I guess the algorithm handles them differently.
Since WHOOP samples at 52Hz, it should technically be able to capture short-term heart rate changes.
That’s why my assumption is: WHOOP is applying filtering that suppresses fast, brief HR peaks. And that’s exactly where the problem lies for strength training—we actually want to track these short, intense spikes.
I’ve noticed this filtering issue since I first received my WHOOP 5.0. To me, it even seems like the filtering has become more aggressive over time, especially during strength training.
I really appreciate WHOOP as a health and motivation tool—it’s excellent in so many areas. But this specific issue is frustrating because it makes part of the experience less meaningful for me.
I’d really appreciate support from WHOOP or insight on this!
I have the same issue with Whoop not detecting heart rate spikes during lifting. I have had since early days of 4.0 and now have a 5.0. Never paid too much attention to HR while lifting until the advent of the Strength Trainer. I have tried both wrists. Best performance (still bad at tracking spikes) seems to be on my wrist pushed up as far from wrist as the band will let me go (I have yet to try bicep band). That being said, I am also a victim of poor HR spike detection and the Whoop HR “catch-up.” It sounds like a HR software/algorithm issue that occurs during spikes because it seems to track fine, even at high HR during intense cardio sessions.
@chappystrengrh , Could you please weigh in if able? I read you post on a different thread related to a strength trainer issue and your history in the field and think that you could offer valuable insight.
My biggest frustration is that I updated to MG to be able to maximize the benefits/insights of the healthspan feature.
But if heart rate zones are not being captured correctly during logged strength training exercises, we are not getting accurate snapshots/feedback for/from the features that we are paying increased premiums to have access to.
Please help, or atleast provide insight to the process for improvement going forward.
@ChappyStrengrh today during my Strength Trainer workout my HR got stuck at 91 toward the end of my workout. It wouldn’t move at all. Once I finished and completed the workout, it looks like the Whoop did properly detect my HR. It appears that the UI during my workout just got stuck. This has happened a few times over the last few weeks.
Hello everyone.
Just got my Whoop MG a few days ago, and while I love the app and most of the metrics, I noticed that HR monitoring during motion (especially strength training) is all over the place. There are two points I want to go through after gathering some feedback from others:
#1: Optical sensor vs. chest strap
It’s easy to shrug and say “a chest strap will always be more accurate,” or “you should wear a bicep band,” etc.—but then why are all other optical sensors more accurate than Whoop’s during training? Apple Watch, Garmin, Fitbit, Oura Ring… they’re all significantly closer to chest strap readings (usually within a few BPM), while Whoop can be way off. I’ve seen 90 BPM at the end of a set when my heart is pushing 150. None of those other devices require an extra bicep band—and based on feedback here, even that doesn’t reliably solve the problem.
#2: Not being able to import workouts from Apple Health
This seems like it should be a quick, easy fix: just allow workout imports without overriding the HR data. That way, people can use their chest straps—which will always be more accurate than any optical sensor.
I’ve been enjoying pretty much everything else about Whoop, but this issue is incredibly frustrating. The fact that people have been raising it for over two years across multiple product versions makes me want to return it and just wait for this to actually get addressed—because honestly, it could take years.
HR tracking for cardio activities is a bit better, but still not great. It often underestimates both strain and time spent in higher HR zones—more zone 2 than there should be, less zone 3/4.
Honestly, I just wish I could import HR data from Apple Health. Having my HR underestimated by 40+ BPM during a workout isn’t what I expected from a product that wants to be the choice for pro athletes.
The Heart Rate problem of the WHOOP MG kills the trust and reputation of the otherwise brilliant device/company. I don’t understand why they ignore it.
Hey everyone,
So the data I’ve seen from our engineering team it has actually performed better than I expected in lab testing for weightlifting HR from the wrist. With that being said lab testing is controlled environment. Unfortunately I can’t share the internal data at this time. We are looking at potentially a deeper study for weightlifting and I am still doing more digging to see if its more than just the varied motion of weightlifting thats affecting signals.
From some of the feedback above and elsewhere it seems like some users are seeing HR issues in general? @tommydane@coyanis64 .
In the third party validations Whoop has outperformed competitors in HR measures previously. Given this i’m talking to different departments to try and understand if its something bigger than strength trainer HR based on some of the comments. I will respond again end of week and update everyone.
