8 reasons to ask Santa for a Wearable

Need a last-minute gift for an endurance athlete, or a suggestion to a loved one for something to get for you for the holidays? A wearable like an Oura or a Whoop is a gift that will keep on giving (good data) all year long.

Here are 8 reasons to ask Santa for a wearable this season.

Related:

• Whoop vs Oura - We test both
• Garmin devices that record HRV and sleep - complete list
• Why we created Optimize

1. Get faster

Improving on the bike (or in your running, swimming, xc skiing) consists of two parts: training and recovery. The better you recover, the faster you can get from your training.

2. Quantify your recovery

How do you know if you're recovering better? The same way you know if you're getting faster or putting out power or losing weight — you measure it. A wearable that tracks your HRV and your sleep quantifies how well you are recovering.

3. Confirm or upend your assumptions

Think you know your body pretty well? Maybe you do; maybe you don't. In our experience, tracking HRV and sleep has been eye-opening. Turns out, assumptions and data-informed facts are not necessarily one and the same.  

4. Learn how much you really sleep

Speaking of assumptions, many of us at FasCat thought we knew how much we were sleeping until we started actually measuring it. (Spoiler alert: we were sleeping less than we thought, and you probably are, too.)

5. Learn how much alcohol affects your recovery

Another spoiler alert: alcohol is not good for your sleep or your recovery. Using a wearable will show you the exact differences between going to sleep with and without drinking.

6. Learn how much stress affects your recovery

Training and recovery are the two key components of athletic improvement. But recover isn't just a smoothie after a hard workout and a good night's sleep; total life stress can take a toll, too. If work is a grind or family life is taking energy, that's okay! But knowing that you need to back off your athletic training can be helpful.

7. Unlock the full potential of Optimize

So you get a wearable and now you have a bunch of math homework to sort out what ride to do on the weekend? No! With your feedback, we created Optimize to balance your training stress with your recovery data so you know how to train - just check your Optimized needle and follow the plan.

8. Establish good habits

We're not trying to complicate your life. Endurance sports can and should be fun! Just like a bathroom scale or a gas tank indicator, a wearable can be a handy, at-a-glance tool to keep you on track. Only here, a wearable helps keep you on track with our favorite thing - riding bikes and working out.

Ready to unlock the full potential of training with a wearable? Subscribe to Optimize today to enjoy the data analytics of combining training stress with recovery data, plus unlimited access to all our training plans, workouts, meal plans, and recipes.

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