Today I rode 100 miles, I was in the saddle for around 6 hours. I am not expecting whoop to count every pedal stroke as a step, technically it is just low impact but please give me some recognition that I worked hard today. Whoop steps 1400 but are they? Competitors use the data upload to determine that whilst I didn’t actually walk for 6 hours I did do some sort of stepping. Until Whoop sorts this out and at least give me some sort of movement credit I cannot see me renewing.
The problem here is that Whoop doesn’t reward cycling the way it rewards steps so there’s a want for recognition for a bike ride via a step metric.
There’s no reason that cycling should give step data, and in the examples you gave, the competitor’s data is incorrect in doing so.
I’m a vocal critic on how whoop records steps but I believe crediting bike rides with steps would only make it less accurate than it already is.
Whilst I agree that cycling should not count towards steps, the two metrics Whoop rely on are Steps and HR and neither seem to be great. But I still think that cycling could be converted to steps in someway to help with the algorithm. The example above is a 100 mile bike ride in 6 hours 14 mins. My average cadence was 81 per minute or 4860 per hour. For 6 hours this is 29160 pedal rotations. A pedal rotation is a stepping action just with less impact. I was up at 6am, out cycling at 7am for well over 6 hours elapsed time, was in bed by 7pm. I had around 5 hours left in the day to walk 13k steps to satisfy Whoop. Whoop knows when I went to bed.
The main point is whoop needs to consider cycling as important as steps. If they can’t change the algorithm then they need to find a way to fairly convert cycling into steps.
PS the competitor at 17k seems a reasonable calculation to me.
While I also agree that counting cycling as steps is technically inaccurate, I think cycling should positively contribute to some kind of measure of daily movement. Whoop says steps are a supposed to be a measure of daily movement but they only take into account one type of movement.
This is primarily a problem because it has a massive influence on healthspan! The healthspan white paper shows that the decision to have steps as a heavy influence on whoop age is grounded in data, which is great. (Also it’s probably safe to assume this data is based on people getting steps from devices that would have wildly different step counts from whoop, but that’s beside the point)
I would love to see Whoop take it a step further, moving away from steps and towards a more holistic measure of daily movement, which steps and other types of movement (like pedalling) influence. I believe Whoop originally stayed away from steps because of the lack of science, and I think including it in the healthspan calculation is progress now that the science is there, but I think the implementation is flawed. Alan here is obviously moving more than most people and deserves to be credited for that and have his whoop age reflect that, and whoop I think would be in a great position to research into and prove that a measure of daily movement is something that is of more value than counting steps alone. I love my whoop, and the healthspan feature is really growing on me, and I think this pain point could become a powerful point of differentiation for Whoop.
Unless of course the assumption is wrong and cycling shouldn’t be credited as movement which positively impacts healthspan, in which case please tell us!
Nicely put! How can 6+ hours of cycling in one day not really contribute to movement. I saw a fair few Tour De France riders with Whoop bands. Are Whoop telling them they do not move enough
It’s early days with the new Whoop and to be honest lots of early issues. Rush to public before ready possibly and lack of testing with updates.
But maybe we will see some metric changes and enhancements in the future. I am two months into my Whoop journey, in 10 months time I will decide whether to continue. I need to see some big improvements but I am willing to be patient for now.
Upvote this discussion; steps are only one measure of daily movement and those of us that move a lot but don’t walk (for whatever reason) should not be penalized for our lack of steps in the Healthspan calculation. Cyclist here but I can imagine that this would also be extremely applicable for swimmers.
Maybe an opt out of steps being included; or a labs research project; or some other mechanism that addresses @AlanGooner’s valid frustration?
Another group would probably benefit from this are Wheel Chair athletes, seems really harsh to punish someone who can’t walk with an unattainable steps calculation.
The steps thing is a dilemma in my eyes. For people who are not able to walk much for some reason - they’re being punished with a low step value. On the other hand I’m a triathlete and training for long distances and Whoop tells me I should up my game with steps. Hello??
Either way - dragging down Whoop age or showing low metrics in health span (considerably!) is a strange way of measurement of one’s health
