Musical Performance tracking steps when drumming

Product Feedback
1

Hi! Super happy with my Whoop, but I play drums and log that as Musical Performance activity.

Every time I do this it racks up thousands of steps.

I can be at the house all day doing a couple of sessions and not moving or doing anything that day, and then ending up with 10-20k steps.

If any calculation uses steps, it must def get messed up.

Would be nice to opt specific activities out of steps or something, especially Musical Performance (unless in a marching band I suppose lol)

Thanks for reading!

1 Like
2

Thanks for this note @coolmandude.

Thanks so much for your feedback and for sharing your experience! You’re absolutely right—when playing drums or logging Musical Performance, step counts can get artificially inflated due to rapid arm and wrist movement, even when you’re not actually taking steps.

Here’s what you should know:

  • WHOOP uses accelerometer and motion data to estimate steps. For activities like drumming, this can result in unusually high step counts, even though you’re mostly stationary.
  • Steps currently do not affect your Strain or Recovery scores, so those key health insights remain accurate.
  • WHOOP is aware of this issue and, for some activities (like cycling or certain workouts), automatically scrubs steps from the daily total; however, this isn’t yet specifically supported for Musical Performance activities.

Your suggestion to exclude certain activities from steps—especially ones like drumming—is great feedback. I’ll pass your idea along directly to the product team.

1 Like
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Hi,

I racked up impressive heart rates when strumming fast or using tremolo picking on my guitar. I switched Whoop to my fretting hand. I also bought the arm band as my HIIT sessions on my rebounder gave me crazy heart rates.

I also play djembe … now that may be a way to increase my steps :rofl:

Have you tried an arm band or other body location - via their clothing - to get around this?

Cheers, Darelle