Kristen Holmes - Whoop 4.0 & The Future of Wearable Data Applications

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over three years and running. I am your host, Eric Melzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. There's one thing that fires me up. It's elevating the personal training and coaching industry. For that, the Workout app is an absolute game of changer. No more promoting top brands without competition or dealing with confusing social media lights. In just a few clicks, Workout's user-friendly app lets top trainers and coaches curate and share the world's most sought-after fitness brands like Hyperite, Vega, and more. Product lines covering everything from fitness equipment to supplements and apparel. Excuse your earnings with generous commissions and bonuses every time your client purchases the product you've already endorsed. Do not wait. That's like your income at Streamline Your Fitness store by Workout. Discover more at workout.com. That's w-r-a-o-ut-.com. Just 4-0, W-R-K-O-U-T. Go get it. All right, we are live. Kristen Holmes. Welcome to the Future of Fitness.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Well, you know, I'm I'm pretty, as I was telling you, I've been excited for this interview for uh week now since it's been on my schedule. And uh, you know, Woop is is really kind of the leading brand and name within wearables, of course. And uh my suspicion is I'm gonna walk away from this 45 minutes from now smarter than I am right now. So that's that's always exciting to me. And uh just really appreciate your time, Kristen, because I know you're really busy. So I mean let's just start with your background. I mean, you have um you know extensive background athletics and sports, and you've really I mean, just looking for you know a little bit of your resume on LinkedIn, like you've really devoted your life a lot to uh to performance and and human optimization. And I think you're getting your doctoral and and or maybe you have already in Circadian biology, like you're in this, right? You committed. Like that's that's a big deal. So give us a little bit of your background and then we'll we'll go from there.

Yeah, I mean, I suppose at a really young age I I've always been interested and fascinated by human performance just generally. And you know, I grew up in the times of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, and you know, just was always just mesmerized by the performance levels and how consistent they were. And I think, you know, for me, I I always had aspirations to play sports in college and you know, to represent the US on the national team. So, you know, I think for me, I I realized at a pretty young age that it was more than just you know being great at dribbling a basketball or you know, hitting a filaky shot or um, you know, tactically kind of understanding the game. It was there's a a very strong mental component. And so that really got me interested in kind of sports psychology and and just sports science in general. So really from the age of like 14, 15, you know, I've been reading books, you know, by by Jim, Dr. Jim Wire, who you probably are are aware of, L-O-E-H-R. He was one of my very early, early, even though he didn't know it, mentor. Um you know, I absorbed, I read every single book that he's ever written. I think he's written in 12. Um, and you know, Terry Orlick, um, also Pursuit of Excellence was just like my Bible. I carried that in my backpack for a decade. Um, so I've always been really interested in, you know, what are the factors that actually, you know, what are the conditions that we can create for ourselves that will enable consistent levels of performance, you know, and and I know folks define performance in lots of different ways, but for me it was just being able to show up and and be the best version of myself, you know, and and being able to have the mental, physical, and emotional arousal that I needed to do whatever is asked of me in that moment. And, you know, for me, my whole life's work, you know, whether it was being an athlete, a coach, and a scientist, has been, you know, really trying to understand, you know, what what are those influences? You know, what, what, how do we need to behave from a circadian perspective? How do we need to behave from a sleep perspective and recovery perspective? What do we need to put in our body? You know, how do we need to train? What is what does functional adaptation actually look like? Um, you know, how do I need to deal with the psychological elements? You know, what what are the the core factors that I need to be thinking about in order to, you know, basically consistently show up, you know, and so yeah, my life's work has just been around that and you know, and then technology, uh, you know, when I was, I guess, kind of in the you know, mid part of my coaching career, you know, this started technology started advancing, and there was lots of ways to quantify various aspects of performance. Um, so I was building those models when I was coaching at Princeton University and teaching there. Um, so I, you know, was able to create some pretty robust models, uh, you know, some predictive analytics around readiness. And um, so yeah, I kind of from a you know, I think from a human performance standpoint, I've I've been as deep in in this world as you can possibly imagine. Um and I and I think with the ultimate goal of just trying to um help folks optimize their potential, you know, as as a human being um and really flourish in all aspects of life and understanding how to apply your effort. You know, I think that at the end of the day, we just want to know what to do.

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's performance is such an interesting thing. I mean, I remember when I was young, my brother's seven years older than me, and he was uh an outstanding swimmer, full ride scholarship and um, but he he had performance anxiety in the sport, like you know, he can train really well, right? And you know, everything would would look like uh he was on a course to to a personal basketball that weekend, but something psychologically would trigger. And I remember like there was a sport psychologist would come to the house, and that's when I was like, like, what is going on? I was so young. I'm like, this doesn't make any sense. Just go out there and swim, bro. Like, what's going on? Yeah, don't worry about it, dude. You're good. You're really good. Uh and it's and then I started experiencing it myself too. Like when I was, you know, swimming, I would be prepared. I felt like I was in really good shape, I was ready for a great race. And then something would happen. Like, as soon as I got on the blocks, and you know, I would set, and then I would just feel all my energy drain out of me. It was so weird. It was like the psychological effect on like how is this happening? And hit the water, and I just felt slow. And and none of it made sense. And then so you start to see it right out of lethargy, uh, lethargy. And it was, it was so it's complex. And um, and I could see why you could easily I can unpack all that for you if you want.

Nothing.

Uh please, yeah. If you can figure me out, let me know. And uh so anyway, that it's I could see how you could easily devote a whole lifetime to that because it's it it's it's hard to see an athlete or someone who's you know really prepared themselves just at the last minute, kind of for no unseen reason to them, not hit the mark, right?

Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot of factors that to your point, you know, it is is it's multivariable and it and it can be complex complex, you know, and and I think it's uh but I I do think if we have a general framework that helps us, you know, kind of account for, you know, what is foundational in terms of being able to because what you're really getting at when we talk about anxiety, it's your appraisal of the task. You can think, you know, you can get on the blocks and it can mean the world to you, right? So it can be relevant because that's gonna put a ceiling on your motivation energy levels, and that's gonna move around your anxiety, right? If you appraise the task as not meaningful to you, then you're gonna have a ceiling on your on your energy level. But you can believe that that task is really important, right? Appraise it as very relevant and get the energy that you need, but then you can perceive the task as difficult. And that's what happens. You get on the block and you're like, I can't do this. You know, and your your perception of the task becomes really difficult. So what happens physiologically is you get heart rate through the roof. You get you, you know, you get all the responses that you're talking about in terms of that lethargy, the energy is draining out of your body, like you don't feel like you can control your body, right? So, and then you start thinking about your future self or your past self, you know, you don't have the capacity to be present in that moment because of all these things that are happening physiologically that are taking you out of that moment. So it's it's helping to, you know, and in in that can what can move that around is, you know, your, if you have dysregulated kind of sleep wake time, if you have, if you're underslept, if you're underfueled, if you're overfueled, if you're underhydrated, if you're overhydrated, if you're, you know, training is, you know, you're maybe overreaching and you know, you're you're just not appropriately resting relative to the amount of stress you're putting on your body. You can have relationship issues going on, you know, you can you can be struggling, you know, in some other aspect of your life. So there's a lot of factors that move it around. But I think what it comes down to when you get on that block, you want to, you know, perceive it as the task is important and you want to be able to get yourself in that challenging zone. Um, and when you're in that challenging zone, physiologically, everything that you need to perform is gonna be happening and responding accordingly. But I think what happens is we don't recognize that there's all these out external things that are gonna move around our appraisal and our perception. And the degree that we can control for those external things is really the path to being able to control, you know, for that the appraisal and the perception. So but it's but it's complex, you know. But I think it's that having that framework, I think really helps. And um, you know, and and making that a part of the daily conversation with athletes is is is a is is a big a big piece of that. Because once I get on the blocks, it's it's too late, right? I need to have already dealt with all that.

Yeah. Well, I can definitely see why you are the VP of performance science at Whoop, uh, just from our short conversation so far. And I would imagine that uh, you know, now the difference is between when you know I was competing in the late 1900s to where we're at now is like that sounds funny. Weird thing to say, right? I know, right? Uh is that we have all this data. You know, there's just a lot more research, a lot more data coming out. And I'm sure that excites you extensively. Yeah. So I guess give me, um, give us uh an understanding of like as the VP of Performance Science, like what is your roles and responsibilities with within Woop now?

Yeah. So I lead, you know, I kind of as principal scientists, I lead, you know, all of our external research efforts. So really, you know, a lot of it is related to, you know, what are the physiological and psychological determinants of human flourishing? You know, what really, what are the the, you know, we kind of try to think about, you know, when we think about physiology and psychology, a lot of it is bi-directional, right? Like trying to figure out causation can be tough. Um, but I think what my team is really investigating is really trying to understand, you know, how much do you does late, you know, eating a meal late, for example, how does that actually impact the metrics that we track, that metrics that we know kind of are predictive of our readiness, you know, how does that move around our sleep? Um, you know, the the timing of when we view light, um, the, you know, if we're not restricting light prior to bed, how does that move things around? So being able to isolate a lot of these effects is is some of the work that we do. So a lot of my work is perspective kind of research as opposed to retrospective where you kind of go back in and look at a huge data set. We're kind of we'll do that and we'll see trends, and then we'll set up prospective studies where we can start to control and isolate these effects. So that's a lot of the work that I do is kind of setting up designing and setting up these studies and getting you know external collaborators to to um to uh you know to help us so other subject matter experts to kind of fill the gaps where um we we might be deficient or just want to add more um more power, you know, to the work that we're doing. Um and then I also do a lot of public-facing education. So, you know, that would be podcasts such as this, and you know, I write a lot of blogs, I publish research and and then talk about it at conferences. And um, and then I suppose the the third bucket is interacting with you know customers and and members. So, you know, every now and again I'll have a coach, for example, come and be like, hey, I'm really nervous. It looks like my athlete's experiencing parasympathetic saturation, um, my meet's in 10 days. What's gonna happen? What do I do? And and so I'll kind of come in and help them think about that. And um, and then I do a lot of um, you know, talks, you know, to to organizations, to to sort of military and uh generally high stakes, kind of high stress kind of environments, um, help them think about these various frameworks to have more control over performance levels and and really how to leverage the data uh so they understand, you know, how to apply their efforts so they can get you know the the fastest path to uh you know to to kind of performance levels. Yeah.

Wow, that sounds like a lot of fun. Let's dig into the the product a little bit. And I know there's certain things you can share. I mean, we're uh in Q1 right now of 2023, uh Whoop 4.0. I I had the opportunity to use it um for weeks and I really enjoyed the data. And you know, I I I tend to test multiple things at different time at the same time, so I can see variance in data, and it was very consistent. Um so that that's big to me because you know accuracy is is a big one. And I know all the measurements are different, but as long as it's consistent, that's what I care about. So maybe give us a little bit of of insights as what you can of what's new with with the 4.0.

Yeah, so um we've got uh so a lot of well, there's been a lot of progress, um, I think since since Ford Auto. Um we have uh menstrual cycle coaching features. So I, you know, this has been an area where they're just we're so lagging in female physiology research, um, as as you know. Um so this is an area that we've kind of really taken under our wing and decided that we're gonna be a part of this change. Um and one of the complications, of course, and why women are left out is because they have periods and um these hormonal fluctuations change one's physiology. So um, you know, fortunately, the um there are a lot of policy changes that you have to include women now, and um for for all the reasons uh that are are probably obvious. But um, but I think the result of that is that we're kind of left not really understanding how women, how differently women might adapt to training and and what their needs are. And you know, we've done a lot of research in this area and we've come up with menstrual cycle coach. Um, and this was you know part of our our launch was around this. And what's really cool is we can see that in different phases of the cycle, women do indeed need different types of coaching. Um their sleep needs are going to change quite massively from one uh phase of the cycle to another phase. So in the follicular phase, you know, you're just sleeping much better. Um, you know, sleep isn't as fragmented. You get into deeper stages of sleep. As a result, you're recovering faster, recovering better. Um you're really primed to take on volume and intensity during that time frame. In the luteal phase, where your body is working very, very hard to prepare for menses, um, there's just, or or a baby, you know, depending on where you're at and what's happening, um, there's just a lot of things happening in your body. As a result, um, you're you're you don't recover quite as fast and you don't sleep quite as well. Um so we've really changed our coaching to fit that. Um we launched a pregnancy feature. So again, kind of really leaning into to the female thing. Um, we can you know basically predict when you're going to have your baby, which is really cool. Um, we're able to visualize that, you know, for for for to be to be uh parents and um and show just the various fluctuations um and also some just really you know light uh kind of positive coaching you know throughout you know each trimester. So um that's been really exciting. Um we have uh you know just revamped a lot of the uh screens, you know, to be more user user-friendly so you can kind of scroll and you know down and see more education. Um and that's really I think where we're going and what we've been trying to bake into the experience on an ongoing basis is more prescriptive type of messaging. So, you know, I think that's and that kind of goes back to a lot of the work that my team does is we we we should have a point of view, right? There's been a lot of external research in various areas about how to improve HRV, for example. Um so rather than just tell you what it is and why it matters, we need to also tell you how to manage it. Uh, and that's I think, you know, when you to if I were to kind of zoom out and talk at you know 30,000 feet, that is the difference maker. That will be the difference maker in the future, is how prescriptive can we actually get. Um, and and giving people real information based on their own physiology, right? Like, you know, how you are gonna respond, Eric, is gonna be very different than me, right? And that's the whole magic behind Whoop is that it's based on each individual's unique physiology. And I think we're really trying to, you know, our goal is to be a world-class coach. You know, we wanna, not that we're gonna completely replace the human, that's not the goal, but we wanna make the human's job easier, right? By empowering the individual with the right kind of information. So when they're away from the coach, you know, the other 20 to 23 hours a day and they're on their own, you know, how do they need to live in order to show up for that training and be the very best version of themselves or whatever it is that they're trying to be good at, you know, whatever their craft is, is whether they're a surgeon or a pilot or um a military operator, you know, you want to be able to show up and be able to execute your craft at the highest level. Well, that means you got to manage your life, right? And and Whoop is there to help you manage your life and give you the data that you need so you can make decisions and get to that, you know, where you want to be as fast as possible. Because no one has time, right?

I know. Well said. Yeah, and and I think where you're uh I think we're on the same page. I I describe that as the now what problem, right? And this segue is to really get into the meat of what uh I want to talk about with you is like you get all this data and you get reporting, and then yeah, most people are like, well, now what? Like maybe to to you, obviously you and maybe me. Like I can look at the data and be like I can interpret it in in a relative way that I can is actionable. But most people don't have time for it. They just have to do it.

Yeah, they're not physiologists, they're not scientists, they're not haven't been in this world their whole lives, you know, thinking about this stuff. So we can't assume anyone knows anything.

Yeah. And even when I was a gym owner, uh, you know, that was gosh, it's looking on seven years ago. People were just starting to get into wearables and starting to bring in their stuff, and like, well, what does this mean? And I'm like, I don't really know. Uh I know. I mean, I I could always say, well, sleep better, right? But what does that even mean? Uh so the here's a question. I mean, we look at like all this data that's being accumulated, right, through wearables and um various sources. I mean, my eight sleep mattress that I've been using has actually pretty good data. Uh I'm really surprised how that, you know, and it's so passive too. So anyway, data is being collected all over the place. When you look at like the the next generation of the application of the data, which you're you're uh actively working on right now, like what excites you the most? I mean, the the menstrual cycle stuff is very exciting, you're right, because I've had multiple people here talk about Femtech and how it's just it's it's uh absurd how little research has been done on the female physiology. So that's that's super exciting. Well what else are you seeing? What else gets you fired up?

Yeah, I I mean I get super fired up about uh zone training, you know, and kind of really understanding like how many minutes do I need to spend in zone two? How many minutes do I need to spend in zone five? Uh that gets me really excited, right? Like to get prescriptive, to know that, you know, we all have different, you know, genetic predispositions, right, around what we're kind of optimized for versus not. You know, so I might need more time in kind of a really slow and steady kind of aerobic state, whereas you might need to spend more time in uh in in kind of an anaerobic type of threshold for whatever reason, just based on your genetics. Uh, maybe we need to spend more time strength training, you know, and resistance training. Um, and I think that's what I'm really excited about. You know, as you you probably know, we acquired a company called Push. And um, you know, it's a velocity-based training, and we've been working really hard to incorporate that intelligence into our platform. So that's something that folks can get really excited about that's coming down the pipe. Um, is a is a is really an understanding of of what uh a strength workout, a resistance training workout did to your body. And then some real like uh clever kind of coaching uh around that. So we're super pumped to introduce that, super pumped to introduce you know, more um insights around what's happening in these various zones and how that might move around the metrics that we say are important to track. So your heart variability and your resting heart rate and your sleep. We expect these things to move it around depending on the dosage and the frequency, and we want to be able to give you intelligent feedback around that. I think another area that we're really excited about is stress. Um, we have a super cool feature around stress monitor that will uh that incorporates interventions. So, again, kind of going back to all right, tell me I'm stressed and then don't give me anything to do about it. That's not where we want to go. We want to tell you you're stressed and give you something to do about it. So um we have some interventions that are built into the outcome. That we're really excited about that are actually grounded in the research that my team and I collaborated with uh Dr. Andrew Huberman on at Stanford University. Uh so in his lab, just looking at really one of the questions that you know I had was and really the basis of all the research that I'm doing is what is the taxonomy, right? Like if I want to calm my nervous system down, I want to activate the parasentric branch of my nervous system. What breathing technique? Is it mindfulness? Is it meditation? Is it a breathing technique? You know, what is it that I need to do to calm my nervous system the most? And that was really the basis for this research was to create a taxonomy. We looked at mindfulness, you know, just popular things that people do that they think is reducing their stress. Well, we actually surfaced the most efficacious breathing protocol to calm your nervous system, to reduce anxiety in the moment. And then, you know, for periods of time after the session, people reported feeling less stressed. And also we saw the biggest improvements in sleep as well. So it's called the physiological psi. It's a double inhale with extended exhale, letting the breath fall out of your mouth. Um, you know, you do that five to 10, 15 cycles, and you are actively calming, you know, intentionally, deliberately calming your nervous system. So it's things like that, you know, that um to me, I get really, really excited about is being able to give you data, tell you what it is, why the heck it matters, and then, okay, here's how you manage it. I think for me, like that is the reason I wake up every day, and the reason why I'm excited about the future is that we're gonna get there.

Yeah. Yeah, that's really exciting. And uh I'd like to hear more about the stress monitor. Like you mentioned one intervention that you have, but give us some insights. Like, how does that play out for the consumer? Is it is like a alarm like things off, like, hey, you're stressed out.

Yeah, we just like so so there's intentional stress that you're kind of aware that you're actively putting on your body. Like I go into 30 degree water, like my body is gonna feel stressed for a period of time. Um, but Whoop knows that I'm moving. Um, it recognizes that I'm getting into cold water. Um, so it's machine learning, right? It's like learning my behaviors, right? If I'm sitting or I'm standing, you know, at my laptop and I'm giving a presentation, and you know, after this, the, you know, I think we give it uh, we're not gonna be pinging you during obviously your presentation, like, but we notice that you're not, you know, we notice that you're not moving, right? So we can tell that your your your heart rate has been elevated for an extended period of time. So you you are stressed. And it it's it might not be a bad thing. Like my after this, my stress monitor will go off and tell me that my heart rate was up. But you know, so I need to rest for that, from from that, right? So what we're trying to, the experience we're trying to create is make you more aware of different stressors, right? Because I think what people don't recognize is that cognitive stress manifests in some ways very similar to physical activity stress, right? So if I'm exercising but I'm and also giving a presentation, like my heart rate is gonna be up in both scenarios, right? But I think we think um, I think relatively proactively about how to rest from physical activity, but not from cognitive activity. So that's I think what stress monitor will really help surface is how can I actually how do I um how do I become more aware of these different forms of stress throughout the day and be proactive in managing them, right? Because what happens is if we don't proactively manage stress throughout the day, it accumulates in a negative fashion, even if it was good stress. And that manifests in not being able to fall asleep at night or just falling asleep because I'm so exhausted, but then having a fragmented sleep experience. You know, people that wake up at 2 a.m., it's usually negative stress accumulation. So what we're trying to prevent is negative stress accumulation, helping you be more aware of your body and of your heart rate, and then be able to give you um the ability to proactively manage it and then get a readout of what those you know uh recovery, like little moments of deactivation actually look like in the app. Um, we can give you, you know, a heart rate readout on what that breastwork session did for you and you know, kind of give you credit for it.

Yeah. Yeah, I love it. And uh I I laughed because I was like, I can imagine like doing a presentation and all of a sudden a little ping comes up and it says, Hey, you're gonna be able to do that. Yeah, no, no.

We're not like sitting in you.

No. Shit, I'm stressed. That just made me more stressed.

Uh, you get it afterwards, you know, and then you can do something about it if you want to. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think it's it's really about creating more interoception, right? Like we want to be able to understand our bodies. And I think that to me is the biggest competitive advantage that you can have as a human being is to actually understand your body and be really, really connected to your heart rate. And these are just mechanisms that help facilitate that, right? Um, it actually, and I I always say this with coaching, like in data, um, you know, they're like, oh, it takes away the from the human like connection. I'm like, no, it like helps you have a more human conversation. And I and I feel the same with stress monitor in in that it it helps you be more aware of, you know, unintentional versus intentional kind of stress and how that might manifest in a productive or unproductive way. It gives you the the keys to be able to manage it, um, which I think is really what we're all after, you know.

Yeah. And you know, it's something that's that I've just thinking about as we're as we're talking here, Kristen, is like, you know, typic typically the fitness industry has been uh known, I mean if we're honest, like as the fat loss industry, right? That was been the focus for so long as people just came to us to lose weight. And I'm guilty of running numerous six-week fat loss challenges and all that. Although I hated it during the time, right? But I I feel like now maybe from your perspective, you can glean some insights on this, but I do feel like it's it's fat loss is always going to be important for overall health, but it's just a component of health. And people are starting to become more interested in their overall health and performance. Is that would you say that's a true statement? What do you think about that transition?

Yeah, I mean, I think I think the messaging is really important. Um, it's not really about fat, it's it's a lack of muscle, right? So I I love how Dr. Gabrielle Lyon talks about this. You know, she kind of coined muscle-centric medicine. And I and I love kind of flipping that narrative and talking about, okay, how do I, how do I build more muscle? You know, how do I, you know, how do I get more protein in my diet? And as opposed to this like restriction kind of mentality, it's like, okay, what do I need to actually be doing more of and adding more of? And how do I change the proportions of of what I'm putting into my body so I can give my body the nutrients it needs to, you know, to build muscle. And it it's so it's, and I think, you know, obviously, if you're focused on building muscle, you're gonna change your body composition, you know, and and I think if you're focused on sleep, um, you're gonna change your body composition. If you're focused on your sleep timing, you're gonna change your body composition. So I think it's really about it's really getting people to focus on the foundational things that actually enable, you know, a healthier body composition. So I don't know that the industry has got there yet, but I think that part of like where I see the opportunity with technology like Whoop is helping people understand where to apply their effort. You know, so if you go into Whoop in the near future, you'll say, All right, I want to lose weight. We're gonna tell you that the first thing you need to do is stabilize your sleep wake time. Sleep wake irregularity is will reduce your melatonin production. And when you have reduced melatonin production, you have higher risk of adiposity and you have lower insulin, higher insulin uh resistance, right? And that which and all those things lead to uh you know metabolic dysfunction, right? So sleep wake regularity is kind of root cause. Like if you want to change your body composition, you start there. So I think if I think about the health industry, it's just very noisy and people don't know they're not starting at the right place, right? If I want to really change my body composition, I regulate my sweep wake time and then I time restrict my eating windows. I don't intermittent fast. That that can be a path for sure, but that leads to binging for people who have struggled with weight, right? There's lots of research on that. But actually restrict your eating window to eight to 10 hours and make sure that you're leaving two to three hours before you go to bed, and that's gonna get you 60% of the way to your weight loss body composition goals, right? So again, it's knowing, using the science to understand how in the heck to apply your effort and getting the health industry to have the same voice around that, you know, because it's a lot easier for me to time restrict my eating window and to stabilize my sleep wake time than to totally do a whole whole roof revamp of my nutrition, right? That's a easier path, right? And if I could just do those things, then all of a sudden my hunger hunger signaling next day improves. Oh, you know what? I have more energy next day, so I can maybe move a little bit more, right? So it's it's understanding like what are the biggest movers and starting there. And and that to me is the whole problem with the health industry and where I have like the biggest beef is the lack of like taxonomy.

Yeah, well said. Well, let's let's talk about, I mean, the healthcare industry. Uh, you know, you and I were chatting before the recording, and right now, uh and within the past few years, I've I've interviewed a lot of people in the wearable space. I've talked to medical professionals, um, medical fitness professionals is you know, I'm gonna be doing an interview on that shortly with Eric Durak. And uh but the big thing is like, when do you see the clinicians and the medical community starting to take wearable data seriously? Like and then incorporating it into the healthcare system. I mean, is that do you have hope for that? Do you think it's uh doable? Um, I mean, that's a big lift, right? The healthcare system is a slow-moving beast. And um so anyway, I I'll stop time. I want to get your perspective on that and what do you think it'll take and how long it may take.

I think we're pretty far from getting a a regular doctor, not functional medicine kind of doctor, to adopt wearable data in their practice. Um, just because I think it's it's not standardized. It's just a really big ask to, you know, for a doctor to go in and look at reliability and validation papers for Whoop, and then look at validation reliability papers for Apple and Fitbit to understand, you know, what are the how good is the heart rate actually, you know, and and a lot of these devices are horrible. Like you look at Apple and Aura and, you know, like their heart rate and HRV data is I wouldn't trust it if I were a doctor. You know, when you look at those, you know, there's some independent validations commissioned by the Australia Institute of Sport that were published in September of 2022. And I mean, you look at the, you look at those data and you know, the margin, I mean, it's it's it's not pretty, right? So I think that there needs to be a lot of work on the accuracy, frankly, and and the reliability of a lot of these wearable wearables. But a baseline's a baseline. And when there's a big deviation, um that might mean something, you know. So um, and and I think, you know, we're not far from detecting arrhythmia. Um, and Apple claims to be able to do it, and sleep apnea, like I think they're I think the detection piece um is is a huge opportunity. And if and if that and if we can validate that, um, then there might be some hope. But I think without FDA approval, I think it's gonna be tough. Um, I think for I think that that is probably the most important piece. Um, what I would like doctors to start doing is to ask about sleep and and the timing of certain behaviors. I think that would help a ton. Um and it's like, you know, what can we use almost like what can we actually use wearable data for? And and then having doctors be prepared to talk about those things. You know, like all the wearables are reasonably good at telling you when you go to bed and when when you wake up, you know, very accurate in that for the most part. So we can lean into that. Um, you know, most wearables are um, you know, pretty good at uh giving you, you know, a general readout of your activity level, you know, and how much you're moving, whether it's your cardiovascular load or your steps. Um, I think that can be useful, you know, for a doctor. So I think it's just uh, hey, what I think ignoring um or kind of gaslighting a patient when they come in and saying that their data doesn't matter isn't the right path. But I think having some talking points for doctors is is would would be really helpful. Um, and and understanding, hey, what can we trust here and what can't we trust and how do we incorporate those conversations with patients? Because there is a lot of valuable data there. Um especially around sleep, you know, like I think that that is knowing that that's root cause to you know kind of all mortality, I think, at this point. Uh there's another amount of evidence there. So yeah, we should we should be talking to our patients about that who for for folks who have wearables. So um yeah, I'm not super bullish though on that happening anytime soon.

Yeah, I mean it's gonna take a lot of peer-reviewed data and then like we and some standardization.

There needs to be standardization across these devices, I think, for um, I think that needs all to happen. Uh but yeah.

And and but also, you know, I think that the uh medical professionals are are they they have to pay attention more and more because I'm sure their patients are coming to them asking questions about their weirdo data. And that's the beauty of it's like some of those times this stuff just happens from the ground up, right? Yeah. The consumer or the patient is the one who's like forcing the issue.

For sure. Yeah. And and there's a behavioral effect too, you know, that is, you know, folks start drinking less. And, you know, so I think doctors kind of prescribing, you know, they prescribe all sorts of medications, but it'd be awesome for them to prescribe, you know, a whoop or prescribe an or, you know, prescribe some of these wearables to say, hey, like, hey, it's been shown to reduce alcohol consumption by 79%. Dang, like, you know, you mentioned that you're drinking three times a week. Like this might help you reduce that. Why don't you give it a try? I don't know. Uh to me, yeah, it seems like uh a no-brainer to kind of go in that direction. But I think, you know, we're realistically, we're pretty far off.

Yeah. I want to talk about HRV. I'm an HRV nerd, uh, as we kind of talked about before. Like when you talk about, and I've always it's been a bit of a mystery to how uh you guys at Woo measure the HRV. Is it at a set time? Is it, you know, yeah, give us some insights on on how that's read.

Yeah. So the algorithm's evolved a little bit over time. Um so we're looking at uh, you know, the duration of your sleep. Um so we used to look at the the final five minutes, but now we're looking at other time points throughout the night. Uh and then basically um uh you know incorporating that into our our algorithm um to to give you uh a readout of you know kind of that summary statistic of kind of your HRV and where we what we think you know what we think the average is over the course of that night.

Got it, got it. Uh yeah, I mean it's it's that's the thing. It is it's so varied. I mean, you know, I think Tanya, I got uh my Garmin watch, which I you know use for everything. It's just I'm used to the operating system along. Yeah. Uh I've got tested the Whoop. Um I haven't tested Nora, uh 8Sleep, uh, Fitbit, all these different ones, and it's there's always slight variances, and that's the standardization is a big deal. I mean for sure. Do you ever see a day when Whoop would be like the overall operating system taking in data from all these different and be more of a platform than an actual hardware and software company? I mean, is that is that ever doable? One one platform to rule them all, I guess you could say.

I think I don't know. I mean, that's a good that's a good question. Um, you know, I could see like CGM getting inserted, you know, continuous glucose bonder, for example, um, you know, other types of data points that could aggregate on our system that we can and we could then synthesize and coach around it. Um, I think in terms of like pulling in uh, you know, Apple, I mean, we integrate with Apple Health Kit, um, but I think, I think one of the things that makes Woop so darn special is just the accuracy of of what we're uh we're doing. You know, our hardware is so good um in in terms of what we built and the accuracy and reliability of that. And we actually did a a study with water polo players. Um, well, it wasn't the AIS commissioned this study, but it was it happened to be with water polo players because that is like they're trying to basically pick uh a wearable for the next couple Olympics. So they did they looked at you know, Sompet and Polar and Apple and um Aura and Whoop and did this huge comparison study and um they did a validation study, which you know, Whoop absolutely crushed everyone in heart rate and heart variability, literally not even close. Um and then the reliability study was actually with water pole players because it's and I know you played water polo error in in college, and it's just like the roughest, toughest sport. Um, but whoops reliability in that environment um from heart rate and heart rate variability perspective was near perfect. So, you know, I I guess I'm just saying like we've done like our signal processing, like we just have I think what we've built is so, so good in terms of validity and reliability that um yeah, I mean, I think if anything, other platforms should be pulling our data in and in using our kind of sleep and cardiovascular load and recovery on their platforms. But I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. And it's I always wonder like if it is water polar, are they wearing it during the game?

Because uh Yeah, so we have a sleeve. Oh yeah, so it's like a neoprene kind of you know, sleeve that you basically put the sensor in, which keeps it, you know, obviously tight to the skin. So if you're grabbing at it like you can't, you know, I wear BJJ and like you know, you it's it's pretty darn good.

Yeah, I was gonna say that's a good way to break some fingers. Yeah. Um, so I'm curious about your routine, right? Uh like whenever I talk to people who are deep into performance and you know, uh all of the fun stuff, right? Yeah, everybody kind of has their own thing. So, you know, how how do you start your days? How do you end your days? What do you do during the day to mitigate stress? Like what are some of the tips and tricks you've learned along the way?

Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm definitely very proud to say that I practice what I preach like 100%. Um, I would like never be able to, you know, uh do what I do, I think, without um like walk in the the talk and and I I think that that's really important. So yeah, I uh I wake up and maybe I'll start yeah. I wake up and I I uh I get outside and view the sunshine. So um yeah, within 20 minutes of waking up, generally I'm I'm outside. I have a lake nearby my house. So um I uh yeah, I kind of I grab some coffee and I go down there and uh and I sit outside for you know anywhere five to twenty minutes, sometimes a little bit longer. Um really peaceful. Um sun came up today around 6.22, so I was out there um this morning. It was beautiful, uh, beautiful sunshine, and uh as the sun's coming up and uh a little snow, so I love love nature. So I'm I I try to get out as much as possible. So I try to I try to you know view as much light um during the active phase of my circadian rhythm. So I think everything from circadian perspective, which won't surprise you given that a lot of my research is around circadian things, but um, but I spend uh you know I try to spend uh the the best I can as much as much time um in the natural light as possible, a lot of artificial light uh during the day. And that really sets your circadian rhythm. And that is basically what helps you fall asleep when you need to fall asleep. So that actually strengthens the um the melatonin production. So you kind of strengthen that signaling. So when I wake up in the morning, I, you know, and I'll sometimes I'll eat, um, I usually wait until probably 10 o'clock to eat. I'm usually not hungry, but I have some cream in my coffee. So there's some, you know, some calories and fat there that are good for kind of a lot of the cognitive work. So I do a lot of my kind of thinking and deep work, um, you know, from basically, you know, seven until 11 or so. Um, and then, you know, I kind of get some food in there, and then I'll usually work out around noon or one. Uh and that's when you kind of actually start to have a little bit of a debt a dip in your temperature level, and that's where people kind of feel a little sleepy. But I don't know why for me, like I love working out at that time. And um, and depending if I have any sleep debt from the previous night, which is basically what who says you need versus what you've got, um, after my workout, I'll you know, fit in a 15-minute yoga nidra or something, um, which is basically just a mind-body scan. It mimics sleep, but you're actually in a conscious state. So I kind of like that. Like, I don't really feel sleepy during the day, which is actually a great question to ask yourself in terms of whether or not you're getting the quality restorative sleep is do I feel sleepy during the day? Um, adults generally shouldn't really feel sleepy during the day. You're gonna have dips in energy levels, but for the most part, you sh if you're doing things right, you're you shouldn't feel sleepy. So um, but to mitigate stress, I'll uh do the yoga nidra just to kind of get my, you know, that if I think about my stress meter, you know, just to like fill the gas tank a little bit before I tackle my afternoon, which is usually really heavy with meetings. Um, and you know, I'm working, you know, I'm working on my dissertation here pretty soon. So um I've got a a lot of that kind of work as well. But um and then Once the sun goes down, um, and then I eat uh another kind of big meal around, you know, five-ish. And then once the sun goes down, I really don't eat. Um uh so I really restrict my time window. So lots of light, I restrict my time window. Um, do most of my rigorous activity during the again, the active phase of my circreating rhythm, which is essentially when the sun is up. And then once the sun goes down, that's all of my like quiet, you know, I read, I write. Um, you know, and and a lot of it will, you know, sometimes we'll be, you know, deep work, spend time with my family, uh, cook, you know, cook them dinner. Um, and then uh, you know, going into to bed, I'm usually in bed by like 8 15, 8 30. And I read, you know, for 45 minutes or so, and then um then I go to bed.

Yeah, wonderful. I love it. And it's not, you know, it's pretty darn simple.

I love a simple life. Yeah.

And that's the point is like there's no major tricks in there, right? No, it's just kind of no. You you've got some fundamental principles that you follow and you're consistent, and that's it. Like as long as you're consistent with it, then um then you can tweak along the way. I think it's awesome. Um I know we're we're starting to butt up on on time a little bit, Chris. And so one of the questions I always uh enjoy asking is, you know, in spirit of collaboration, like if people are listening, who who do you want to hear from out there? Like how how what do you need right now at this point uh at your career and Whoop or overall, and um how can we support you?

Yeah, I mean, I think people uh I guess anyone who's interested in um injury risk prediction, that's an area that I I want to kind of tackle next. And I think we've got some really interesting data sets, but if that resonates with anyone, any scientists out there who want to potentially collaborate, we're gonna I'm gonna pitch actually one of our partners, Wusai uh Human Performance Alliance out of Stanford. We're doing a lot of female physiology research and we work with ISSM, um Dr. Michael Ormsby down at uh Florida State University, and we've got some really cool internal, external load data sets and have seen some interesting preliminary findings around uh signatures that could potentially indicate um uh elevated injury risk. Um so I want to be able to investigate this further and want to do kind of a proper um analysis of a of a quite a large data set. So looking for a collaborator uh around that.

Got it. Got it. Well, I will certainly keep an eye out. I'm sure there's yeah, there's gonna be a lot of people who want to get involved in that. I think so, yeah.

It's a juicy, it's a juicy data set um with a lot of I think really important implications. Um so yeah, so just trying to uh potentially spin that up in the very near future.

If uh if people want to reach out to you, if there is anywhere specifically that you want people to go online, uh what would you like them to do?

Uh yeah, I mean, you know, the Whoop website is awesome. Um we've got uh you know Locker and podcasts, uh, which are I think really can be really helpful for folks. Um and then, you know, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn and Instagram kind of. I um I definitely, you know, if there's new research that we publish, like any insights, um, you know, Instagram, I just try to put, you know, I talk a lot about this taxonomy, right? Like frameworks on how to think about the physiological and psychological influences that move around our our mindset and our appraisal and our perception. And you know, so I really try to knit down, knit together kind of the the psychology and the physiology to to help people understand how to again apply their effort if they're interested in you know uh maximizing potential. Um so I I post a lot about you know just tips and tricks around there, I I suppose. Um so yeah, so I said Instagram and LinkedIn, it's just uh Instagram, I guess if you just put Kristen Holmes, uh, I think it's 2126, and then LinkedIn, Kristen Holmes Whoop should come up.

Yeah, yeah, I was easy. It was easy to find you. You're you're all even if you just Google your name, uh you're you're out there. I uh saw some good interviews of you this morning before this one. So uh not hard, not hard to find. And um, Kristen, it's been an absolute pleasure. I I would love, you know, for you to maybe come back on in a year and give us some updates on what's going on. Um, you know, really intriguing. And I I could ask you questions for at least another hour, but I know that's not uh that's not fair to your day. So thank you for coming on. Keep up all the great work. And ladies and gentlemen, Kristen Holmes.

Appreciate that so much. Thanks, Eric, for having me.

Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way with really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Chatbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable. Number three, but also talk about it to your friends, send it in a second, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because I put a lot of work into it and want to make sure that many people are getting value out of it. That's awesome. If you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me at the go to feature of finished.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I'd love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. That's a dare countdown and this is the feature of finished.