WHOOP was founded in 2012 by Will Ahmed, a former Harvard squash captain. At the time, Will felt that he and his teammates knew very little about how training was affecting their bodies. They were often overtraining, undertraining and misinterpreting fitness peaks. Will made it his mission to better understand the human body. During his research, he discovered that by monitoring key physiological markers 24 hours a day, we could unlock the secrets to optimizing human performance.
Will set out to find others who could help him create an integrated system to analyze Strain, Sleep and Recovery. He met a fellow Harvard student, John Capodilupo, a mathematician and son of an exercise physiologist. John immediately grasped what Will was aiming to build, and what it might take to build it. They then enlisted the aid of another Harvard classmate, mechanical engineer Aurelian Nicolae.
By 2014, the first WHOOP Straps were being worn and tested by company employees. World-class athletes started using WHOOP a year later. In the summer of 2016, many Olympians trained with WHOOP in preparation for the Rio games.
Last fall, the WHOOP Strap 2.0 went on sale to the general public with an app available for iphone users. Soon after, we announced the finding of the largest performance study in professional sports history, in conjunction with Major League Baseball.
We’ve made even greater strides in 2017.
WHOOP has been spotted everywhere, from the wrists of NBA players, to race cars in Daytona. We’ve been featured at tech conferences from coast to coast, and presented internationally to leading researchers from around the globe.
This spring, MLB approved the WHOOP Strap 2.0 for in-game use on the field this season. We also partnered with a local Boston sports legend. And when the NFL returns to action in September, WHOOP will be worn by players league-wide as the Official Recovery Wearable of the NFLPA.
Here at WHOOP, we have former athletes and coaches, leading sports scientists, and even scientists who are also athletes. In our quest to unlock peak performance, we’ve already learned so much and what we’ve discovered so far has amazed us. Among other things, no one has ever explored the benefits of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) on this magnitude before.
The data we’ve acquired to this point represents the single largest physiological study in human history–and it’s about to get much bigger.
The WHOOP Strap 2.0 is now available with Android compatibility.
According to recent numbers from Kantar Worldpanel, more than 60% of smartphones currently sold in the United States run on the Android operating system. Worldwide, the percentage is even higher. As we look to become an industry leader in the field of human performance, this is a major step forward.
