Kristen Holmes: Improving Circadian Behaviors, Tracking, and Leveraging Wearable Data
Jan 25, 2024
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Kristen Holmes, VP of Performance Science at Whoop, discusses the use of wearable technology in improving athletic performance and overall health. Topics include the benefits of wearables for teams, tracking various aspects of health and stress, the importance of salt intake for endurance activities, strategies for improving circadian behaviors, and the negative impact of eating late at night. The discussion also covers the benefits and limitations of using wearable devices to track and improve circadian behaviors.
Wearables provide valuable data on health behaviors to inform training volume and intensity decisions.
Heart rate variability (HRV) tracking through wearables helps athletes understand the impact of training, recovery, and lifestyle behaviors on performance.
Wearable data allows athletes and coaches to optimize training and recovery strategies by managing sleep debt and aligning behaviors with circadian rhythms.
Deep dives
The Impact of Wearables on Athletes' Performance
Wearables collect valuable data on athletes' health behaviors, providing insights on important health metrics like sleep, recovery, and load. They help athletes understand the impact of non-training factors on performance and overall wellness, such as sleep, hydration, and nutrition. By incorporating wearable data, coaches can make informed decisions on training volume and intensity, taking into account an athlete's adaptive capacity. Wearables also enable the monitoring of acute changes and long-term trends, helping athletes and coaches optimize training and recovery strategies for improved performance.
The Role of Wearables in Measuring Heart Rate Variability
Wearables can track heart rate variability (HRV), which is a marker of an individual's ability to adapt to stress. HRV measures the responsiveness of the heart to signals from the autonomic nervous system. Wearables with HRV tracking capabilities can provide insights into an individual's mental and physical health resilience. HRV is influenced by various factors, including genetics, lifestyle choices, exercise, sleep, and stress. By monitoring HRV, athletes and coaches can understand the impact of training, recovery, and lifestyle behaviors on physiological adaptation and performance.
Using Wearable Data to Improve Performance: Trends and Thresholds
Wearable technology, such as Woop and Catapult, allows for the assessment of strain-load ratios and informs decisions on training and recovery optimization. By analyzing weekly trends and average metrics, coaches can evaluate the overall adaptation of athletes. These insights can guide training adjustments at the team level, focusing on key metrics like sleep wake variability and sleep debt. Managing sleep debt, keeping sleep wake schedules aligned with circadian rhythms, and consolidating feeding windows can positively impact performance and overall well-being. Wearable data provides valuable information for both athletes and coaches to make data-driven decisions and optimize performance.
Understanding the Impact of Alcohol on Heart Rate Variability
Alcohol consumption has a profound impact on heart rate variability (HRV) in athletes. Through wearable technology like Whoop, athletes can observe the relationship between their alcohol intake and HRV, leading to a reduction in alcohol consumption. This realization has resulted in many athletes quitting drinking during their training seasons and significantly reducing their alcohol intake in the off-season. The ability to track HRV in relation to alcohol consumption has become a valuable tool for athletes' overall health and performance.
The Importance of Circadian Rhythm and Sleep for Health and Performance
Circadian rhythms play a significant role in sleep quality and overall health. Aligning daily behaviors with the natural light-dark cycle is crucial for maintaining a healthy circadian rhythm. This means waking up at the same time every day, getting ample bright light exposure throughout the day, limiting exposure to artificial light in the evening, and creating a cool, dark, and quiet sleep environment. By prioritizing and optimizing sleep, individuals can improve their heart rate variability, which is closely linked to overall readiness, recovery, and metabolic function.
As Vice President of Performance Science and Principal Scientist at Whoop, Kristen Holmes blends her academic and applied background in athletics, coaching, performance technology, psychology, and exercise physiology to drive research, education, partnership, and product development initiatives to strengthen WHOOP as a leader in Human Performance. Kristen's research is focused on understanding the effect of sleep, circadian, recovery, and load behaviors on our physical, mental, and emotional resilience.
Kristen was a 3x All American, 2x Big 10 Athlete of the year at the University of Iowa, competing in both Field Hockey and Basketball, and a 2021 University of Iowa Hall of Fame Inductee. 7-year member of the U.S. National Field Hockey Team and one of the most successful coaches in Ivy League history, having won 12 league titles in 13 seasons and a National Championship at Princeton University.
We love having the ability to track our data with wearable technology, but often wonder how the large amount of data being collected can be used to help the general population. Kristen's background in sport and coaching gives her a unique perspective while running performance science at Whoop and we really enjoyed understanding how we can all use data to track and improve the behaviors that will serve our health and fitness goals.
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