Compared to other sports, professional golf is a relative newcomer to the world of fitness innovation. That’s not to say that many of the greats weren’t strong and athletic—they were—but often their physical prowess came from backgrounds in other sports. The hulking Jack Nicklaus, a multi-sport athlete growing up, was perhaps the best example.
That changed, as did countless other areas of the game as we once knew it, with Tiger Woods. Practice has become mainstream among tour pros, although it has been a battle in some corners. Old habits die hard and many were not convinced that hitting the gym was beneficial to the game of professional golfers.
It is now beyond doubt, largely due to the conveyor belt of success stories. Now an industry whose athletes once lagged behind is coming to the fore. One of the key ways players do this is by tracking each element of their health data, in most cases using a WHOOP bar.
WHOOP is a wearable health tracking technology that monitors your activity, both day and night. Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas – both investors in the company – wear one each on their wrist and arm. World No. 2 Scotty Scheffler does too, along with countless other players. The more you look, the less you will be able to ignore it.
If you think about it, the broader trend of players tracking and quantifying data about their own bodies isn’t much different than what they do with other aspects of their golf games. Just as pros use launch monitors to keep a close eye on what’s going on with their swing, for many players WHOOP has become the pathway through which players observe what’s going on inside. It’s a language that modern tour players speak and are ready to understand. Instead of operating on guesswork, they can notice what’s happening in real time and adapt accordingly.
“Data has gotten to a place where it can be super accurate, but also super actionable,” says WHOOP CEO Will Ahmed. “It’s a great way to a/b test what the best diet is for you, for example. The reason there are a million diets out there is because it’s different for everyone. This allows players to try different things and see which foods help their recovery. the best.”
Needless to say, McIlroy is a believer.
“He tells you what you need. This is not a summary. It’s not like looking at the general population and just doing an average. Literally, it’s specific to you, which is very, very important,” he told Golf Digest. “When you talk to tour players and they’re trying to get stronger, faster, whatever, people don’t just make those decisions willy-nilly. There is a lot of analysis and data that goes into these decisions.”
To that end, McIlroy says there are a number of metrics he tracks daily that help him maintain peak performance…
1. HRV (heart rate variability)
The core of WHOOP’s technology is its ability to track the heart rate of its users. Simply put, your heart beats continuously throughout the day (hopefully). When you exercise or are nervous, it beats faster. When you rest, it beats more slowly. Your heart rate variability measures the fluctuations between the two.
Your body is primed for peak performance when your HRV is high—because that means you’re resting well and then stepping up efficiently when you need to. Various things can affect HRV, especially in your diet, as McIlroy has learned over the years.
“I’m enjoying a glass of wine. I’ve kind of learned through WHOOP that a glass of wine is perfectly fine for me, but if I go over one glass, that’s when I start to struggle. My heart rate goes up and my HRV starts to drop,” he says. “Some people say they don’t like to eat red meat because it affects their recovery, but I haven’t really found that. The only big thing for me is gluten. I wouldn’t say I’m gluten intolerant, but my stomach just doesn’t handle gluten well. So I try to avoid that.”
2. Sleep
Sleep is literally your body’s recovery time. How well you sleep has a direct effect on how well you’ve recovered from the stress of the previous day – and therefore how well you’ll be able to handle the next day’s activity.
The things you eat can affect the quality of your sleep, but there’s a huge amount that plays a key role as well. And once again, everyone is different.
“To be at peak performance, I need nine and a half hours of sleep. Life being what it is, it’s not going to happen every night,” says McIlroy. “There may be nights where you get eight and a half hours of sleep, which is a great night’s sleep. But it can be a quick turnaround so you only get six hours of sleep. I think the one thing I’ve learned is it’s very hard to have a perfect day, so you just have to take your wins where you can take them.”
3. Recovery
While you can’t always plan for a perfect night’s sleep — or give in to the temptation of food that won’t sit well with you — there are some things golfers like McIlroy have found they can do physically to help their recovery so or otherwise. After a physically demanding day, he’ll often rely on various muscle recovery products, McIlroy says, that will cool and massage key areas of his lower body and back. He will combine these with a program of Epsom salt baths and physiotherapy to keep his body buoyant during the grueling stretches of road.
“There’s a lot that goes into it. But again, while I get everything, I’m not really caught up in the whole timing and structure of things,” he says. “When I get my stuff and I’m happy with the quality of the work, not the quantity, that’s when I know it’s been a good day.”
The ultimate goal, McIlroy says, is not just to put his body in position to perform, but to give him a deeper understanding of how it got there. This, says WHOOP CEO Ahmed, is the future of the 21st century professional athlete.
“It will increase the length of players’ careers. Instead of having a career that’s 10 years, you can have a career that’s 15 years,” he says. “Imagine if you took every world-class athlete and you just extended their career by even just two or three years. It will change everything for players and fans.”