I am using whoop 4 and like the features.
Aged 64,
However I cycle 10 to 15 hours per week at high intensity outdoors.
I have been using my polar h10 that is gold standard for HR.
The whoop is way off, like average on polar 110 and whoop 135. Max polar 150 yet whoop 195/210.
Then doing moderate DIY woodwork I get high stress and high HR that is totally not the case.
The band is tight in my wrist.
Given that the high HR nd stress factor sleep and etc…. I am currently not confident that the advise given is correct.
About to give up but asking here any advice, experience, etc…
Thank you
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I just got the Whoop MG and I also noticed this. My Garmin HR Strap shows 123avg, 146max, Whoop 128avg and 185max. Only ridden 4 times with the Whoop but the high HR seems early in the ride, like its struggling to capture properly at first. Same for you?
I am also in my 60’s and I haven’t seen anything over 170 for probably a decade 
Thanks. Well here are the readings from a ride I did 100km/30kmh average that a hard pace for me in my hilly region. Seems like it’s off for the entire ride. It does rise and go down somewhat in line with the polar. Not certain to keep the whoop as this kind of discrepancy will most certainly alter the strain level and therefore a big chunk of their logic goes down the drain,
Hi @timothyg and @AlanGooner, thanks for the posts.
To improve accuracy, I suggest you try the following below:
Wear and positioning
- Wear your WHOOP snugly: It should be secure but comfortable. If it slides on your wrist, it’s too loose.
- Position it properly: Place WHOOP about 1 inch (2 fingers) above your wrist bone.
- Thread your band correctly: Proper threading helps ensure a consistent fit during movement.
- Ensure full skin contact: For ECG-based measurements like HRV and respiratory rate, ensure full skin contact with the sensor.
- Consider alternate placements: For activities involving rapid wrist motion (like weightlifting or boxing), use WHOOP Body™ apparel to wear the device on your bicep, torso, or calf for improved accuracy.
Device care
- Keep sensors clean: Gently wipe the sensor area with a soft, damp cloth as needed, or clean with warm, soapy water.
- Check battery status: Ensure the battery pack is correctly attached during charging to avoid gaps in data collection.
- Update firmware regularly: WHOOP continuously improves algorithms and performance through software updates.
You can learn more about accuracy best practices and frequently asked questions here.
Separately, I wanted to share a few blog posts from our log The Locker as well that are about cycling that you might take interest in, being cyclists yourselfs.
Hope this is helpful. Thank you for being a member!
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I never get a good reading on my wrist no matter how i put it and play with it always get middle HR. Too high when i sit or lie to sleep and too low when high intensity so i only wear on bicep
sadly they never improved much there since was always liked that and my garmin watch is way better, not even close with accuracy so not sure how whoop cannot do it better
2 inches from wrist bones seems a lot. Between bottom of wrist bone and Whoop is one finger. Basically where a watch would sit. Moving it further is really uncomfortable. I would say the center of the Whoop is two fingers from the wrist bone where the sensor is. I also have it snug with no movement. My issue seems to be the first mile or so of a ride, it then sorts its self out. So the accuracy seems fine after than so do not think it’s the location. Perhaps more like I am at 60bpm’s and within a few minus I am at 120/130bpm. Seems to me it takes time to sort it self out.
Alan
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Hey everyone! As a cyclist myself and someone who works with the professional cycling teams here at WHOOP, I’d suggest using a bicep band for high-intensity exercise, especially if your body type skews toward a leaner physique where forearm muscles are well-defined.
We have athletes who get excellent data from the wrist, and others who report some variation between chest strap data and WHOOP HR. With the technology we use, PPG, any light that hits the sensor array can cause less accurate readings. If you have a solid placement on the wrist, high enough where you’re not seeing any green light, you should be good. But as you get out of the saddle and start throwing the bike left and right—climbing, for example—that movement can allow light to get under the sensor and make it harder for the device to capture data accurately.
You can imagine how different sleeping, jogging, walking your dog is compared to doing 300–400 watt intervals or 30/30s while throwing the bike side to side. I recommend trying a bicep band. Place the WHOOP in an area on the outside part of your bicep with a good skin fold to allow some “suspension” of the sensor to sit on. In my experience, the data becomes much closer to gold-standard with this method
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I am lean, and wear on my wrist and right now on my dominate hand. I have my Garmin watch on the left wrist but can’t see me switching though. Might consider biceps for my rides but that said my biceps ain’t all that either. What I have noticed is the issue for high HR seems to be the start of my ride, after that it seems good. What I do like is the ECG/EKG and BP are great on my right wrist. But thank you for the tips 
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I think Whoop needs to consider selecting HR from the activity and not the Whoop HR. It’s really over estimating my effort. Maybe a toggle button use Whoop HR or Activity HR. If it is always going to register high then the coach is going to get seriously annoyed with me. Plus I doubt I could hit 175bpm at my age even if I fell off a tall building. 
Agree fully, I don’t want to be asking myself all the time if it’s correct or not.
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I rode easy today because whoop said I needed a recovery ride. This was a low effort except for one KOM attempt where I did hit 150 and was flat out. Garmin has it correct whoop not and it’s fairly obvious when the attempt was on the Garmin chart. I just tightened the strap but right now it feels like it is cutting of circulation. Probably too tight now.
PS: I did get the KOM 
I wonder if rather than the community we should enter a support ticket. I am wearing as per what they request, snug and away from the wrist bones. Wonder if they have not accounted for constant hand movements, gear changes, grabbing the brakes, moving around the bars for comfort. I did read they said use your non dominant hand because more movement will affect data accuracy. Well when cycling both my hands are moving all over the place. During meditation it seems correct but then I am dead still. Can’t believe the Tour Pros are happy with the HR results, although I am sure they just wear it for sponsorship and not necessarily because they trust the data. I bought mine because the sponsorship on the Giro. 
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Mmmmm this is darn interesting. Mine exaggerates the high intensity zones. But I see that whoop setting my max HR way over what it should be. I am almost 64, 220 - 64 =156. Now I now that is the basic method of calculation but doing all the others it works out similar. Whoop has me at 176 max, no way in hell that is true. I set mine to 156 but with the over the top HR numbers it seems to think I am pushing super hard when I am not 
@TimothyG you and I are almost perfect overplays in age and cycling. My 4.0 and now my 5MG are similarly off when compared to my Polar H10, my Garmin watch and my home BP cuff (that I checked for accuracy when I went in to see my doctor last for a physical and compared it to their medical grade BP monitor). In general if you’re basically sitting around or doing incredibly low effort stuff like walking, cleaning up around the house, or sleeping the whoop seems pretty accurate but beyond that I’ll only use my H10 If I need precision. This also throws into question the caloric burn for my whole day because I don’t trust that whoop is calculating my energy consumption accurately either when athletic endeavors are part of my day. I DO trust Garmin, Polar, Strava and even Samsung health way more.
I was hoping that the 5MG would cure the inaccuracies during athletic effort so I could wear just one HRM device, but so far it hasn’t. I’ll try the bicep cuff per the whoop advisor @jpows (I wonder if putting a black wrist sweatband over the whoop during cycling might help since the loop advisors thinks that light penetration might be a concern ), but I’m not going to hold out any hope.
::: sigh :::
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Chest strap is the only thing I trust but the whoop strain is complaining I over did it today and I really didn’t. But since strain plays a big part in the overall well being I am concerned it will skew my overall stats. I am 7 days from finding out my whoop age, Garmin has me at 54 which I am happy with but whoop has a lot more data, I will be disappointed if Whoop decided my overreaching is not good for me. 
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Thanks for the contributions. A few more rides following the whoop recommandations and still not correct.
And so we have a the snowball effet on strain, sleep, etc….
I have decided to opt out.
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I have just started a Support ticket. My Garmin HR strap compared to Whoop band like night and day. I have had good rides where it was very close but today was a recovery ride and after about 6 miles it jumped to over 170bpm and stayed there until I got off my bike 10 miles later. Pretty sure my heart would have exploded at 170+ for that amount of time. Garmim had a max of 141 on a punchy hill but average 108. Whoop was 139 avg and Max 175 
I am not giving up just yet, I think it is a software issue and will be resolved.
Neither of the circles are correct
I think I see a pattern. At around 20 mins in I hit a punchy climb. Both Whoop and Garmin reported it bumping up to 144bpm. Garmin then went back to normal Whoop continued to climb and stay there.
2 rides seemed pretty good and then a stupidly high HR again today, higher than I can get to at my age. My strain is so messed up and no way to manually fix. Whoop needs to start using the HR in Health from the ride. All it seems to do it use Health to determine start and end times. Whoop HR seems ok for sleep and during normal daily activities. Just can not handle my bike rides. Out of the saddle climbing, shaking the tingles out of my fingers, whatever the reason they need to fix. Support do not seem interested but I will keep asking. I just wish they would acknowledge they have an issue.
Seems like it works for some and others not. I have better things to do than deal then worry if my whoop is doing a good job or not. I ride 10 to 15 hours a week so the strain is high, whoop works with that strain. So if HR is wring, ie too high, then strain is. The advice given is flawed. When whoop or any of their competitors get it right I’ll be back.
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I think I finally have a good cycling HR. I moved the strap up my arm a bit more and it seems to have stabilized. But I am starting to think it is also software related. It really shouldn’t need to calibrate HR readings since it should just count the beats. But I really think is doing some sort of calibration. My sleep and general activities during the day seem mostly fine, cycling I’d say close. But again a very strange spike cleaning my bike. Whoop is doing something strange. Worked harder cleaning than riding my bike
