Just when you thought eating healthy and working out was enough, Boston based, Whoop (formally known as Bobo Analytics) is taking fitness and training to a whole new dimension.
The combined $22M funding of Two Sigma Ventures, Mousse Partners, Accomplice, Promus Ventures, Valley Oak Investments, and NextView Ventures are pursuing a beta phase in the new Whoop wristband. This tracking device goes beyond the “do’s and don’ts” of fitness, and brings big data and individualized analytics to the table.
Presenting real-time data 24/7, Whoop is able to measure three scores: Intensity, Recovery and Sleep Performance. Significant variables such as heart rate, body temperature measurements, sleep-cycle monitoring, skin conductivity, and specific recording of individual physical activity have provided professional coaches, athletic trainers, and even doctors with an abundance of data to build the perfect training programs, ultimately reaching peak performance.
Directly reporting the data to a “Coach’s Dashboard,” staff is able to immediately make an assessment of a player or athlete’s health. In competition with the popular Fitbit, Nike Fuel Band, Garmin, Polar, and fitness trackers alike – Whoop is already starting an explosion in the NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, Olympics, CrossFit and US Military, but why? Here is the catch, Whoop is not just another band – although asking price is ranging from $500-5,000, it is a game changer for premier athletes.
Correlating analytics in sports medicine to recovery times and syncing levels of physical stress to over/under training, coaches and athletes will be able to attack the controllable factors of competition preparation and minimize the margins between success and failure. Collecting over 150 megabytes of physiological data per day, athletes are able to calculate down to the minute, how much sleep he/she needs to fully recover from a day on the field.
Through a partnership with Whoop, a great study would be the tracking of team and individual performance before and after using the data over a period of time. At the end of the day, it is each individual athlete’s health and training that add up to the success of the team. If each athlete were at his or her true peak performance, the degree of success of the team and even the level of play in an entire league could be amplified beyond belief. Nevertheless on Whoops defense, what better way to show ROI than the transformation of a mediocre team to a dominating championship organization through strategic training?