Whoop, More Than a Tracker

What once began as a tool to measure athletic performance is evolving at breakneck speed into something far greater. With features that dive ever deeper into users' health, WHOOP is showing how the line between fitness and medical technology is slowly blurring.

When Will Ahmed started building WHOOP in 2012, he had a relatively simple mission: understand why athletes sometimes become overtrained for no apparent reason. Fourteen years later, his company, now valued at over 10 billion dollars, is facing a much bigger question. Not how people can train better, but how technology can help them live healthier lives.

That is a subtle but important distinction.

Where the first generation of wearables revolved around steps, calories and kilometres covered, WHOOP is increasingly focused on what happens under the hood. Sleep quality, heart rate variability, recovery capacity and stress levels have formed the core of the platform for years. Now, features are being added that, just a few years ago, would have seemed more at home in a medical setting than in a fitness app.

The shift toward health

The launch of WHOOP 5.0 and WHOOP MG marked a new chapter for the company. Users gained access to features such as ECG measurements, blood pressure insights and WHOOP Age, a score that uses physiological data and lifestyle information to estimate biological age.

For many users, that last feature proves particularly compelling. A personal record in a workout is motivating, but knowing that your body is functioning biologically younger than your passport suggests appeals to a much broader audience.

It illustrates a wider shift within the fitness world. Performance and health are no longer seen as separate domains. The modern athlete does not only want to become faster, stronger or fitter, but also wants to stay healthy for longer.

An uncomfortable boundary

That is precisely where tension arises.

As wearables collect and interpret more health information, the question emerges of when a wellness product becomes a medical device. That debate came sharply into focus after the US Food and Drug Administration raised questions in 2025 about WHOOP's Blood Pressure Insights feature.

According to the regulator, the functionality appeared to potentially fall under medical regulations. WHOOP countered that it was a wellness feature, not a diagnostic tool.

The debate cuts to the heart of today's wearable market. Consumers want ever greater insight into their health, while companies must remain cautious about claims that carry medical implications.

What does this mean for athletes?

For CrossFitters, Hyrox athletes and other dedicated sports enthusiasts, the value lies not so much in an extra data point, but in the bigger picture.

For years, progress was measured almost exclusively by performance: a heavier squat, a faster Fran or a better Hyrox time. Today, there is growing awareness that performance is merely the end result of a complex system in which sleep, recovery, stress and overall health are at least equally important.

An athlete who consistently sleeps poorly will eventually hit a ceiling, regardless of how well-designed the training schedule is. In that respect, platforms like WHOOP represent a fundamentally different way of thinking. The question shifts from how hard can I train today? to how well is my body functioning today?

The next phase of wearables

The wearable sector finds itself at an interesting crossroads. On one hand, devices remain a tool for athletes looking to improve their performance. On the other, they are increasingly developing into personal health platforms that give users daily insights into their physical condition.

Anyone following WHOOP's development can see a company slowly moving away from the classic image of a fitness tracker. The ambition appears greater: to provide a continuous window into the user's health.

Whether that future will remain entirely within the boundaries of fitness is still an open question.

What is clear is this: the next generation of wearables will likely be less about how much you moved today, and more about how well your body will function tomorrow. That is a far more ambitious promise, and perhaps a far more important one.