From Australian Football to Yoga: A Quest to Complete Every WHOOP Activity

Former collegiate baseball player Eric Nagle is on a mission to log every single activity available in the WHOOP app.

Fresh off a 50-minute workout with world champion jump roper and fellow WHOOP member Tori Boggs, Eric Nagle was feeling a bit awestruck. “I’m really still speechless about getting to jump rope with Tori,” he said. “I didn’t know what to expect when I started this project, and three months later to be checking off a WHOOP activity with someone who’s the most accomplished athlete of that sport is surreal. How does it get any better than that?”

Eric and WORLD CHAMPION JUMP ROPER TORI BOGGS Each show off their WHOOP.

Attempting Every WHOOP Activity

Eric says the idea to try every WHOOP activity came to him on August 13, 2021. “I ran, played golf, did a CrossFit WOD, and then played tennis all in one day, hitting a 19.3 day strain,” He told us. “I really enjoyed the process of learning something new (tennis) and hanging out with some fun people.” About a year after graduating from college, Eric joined a CrossFit gym owned by his sister and brother-in-law, Silk City Fit in Manchester, CT. He’d spent most of his life playing baseball and was feeling a need to get back to some sort of physical activity. “After getting into CrossFit a few friends and I started to play adult rec league sports as well. I noticed I got pretty good at kicking a kickball, dodging a dodgeball, and doing whatever physical activity. My experience with CrossFit gave me the ability to take any opportunity and feel confident about doing it.”

Commuting was a much more enjoyable WHOOP activity than Eric expected it to be.

Now 26, Eric joined WHOOP in the summer of 2019. “From there, fitness became a priority in my life,” he said. “As I kept doing new things, I would always check to see if WHOOP had them as activities I could log. Going through the list, a few caught my eye that I wanted to try, but I kind of sat on that idea until the day I played tennis.” At the time, Eric was getting a master’s degree in behavior analysis. “We were being taught that ‘learning’ itself is a behavior, and it blew my mind,” he explained. “And the process of learning can be generalized across different environments and tasks–like how learning a second language is hard, but once you do it it becomes easier to learn a third, and so on. I felt that first hand after playing tennis, and decided trying every WHOOP activity would be a really great adventure for me.”  

Max Heart Rate, Highest Strain & More

Eric was also in the process of training for a marathon, so naturally that was a great place for him to start. “Completing the marathon helped me build trust within myself, just focusing on today and doing the best I can to optimize my performance. With WHOOP I felt very in sync with my body, so I took a leap of faith and made a promise to myself to do all 84 activities.” As of now, Eric has participated in 25 different WHOOP activities. To this point, his first (running) is still the most strenuous, a 20.7 activity strain (on a 0-21 scale) for the marathon he finished in 4 hours and 24 minutes. He achieved his highest heart rate to date during his most recent activity (jumping rope), maxing out at 186 beats per minute.

Eric reached a MAX HEART RATE of 186 beats per minute while jumping rope.

“Commuting was my most unexpectedly enjoyable activity,” Eric told us. “Riding my bike 10 miles to Hartford, CT, I had so much fun feeling more connected to the community.” Boxing was the first new thing he tried that he’d never actually done before, and it proved to be one of the most strenuous activities as well. Eric accumulated a 14.2 strain in just over an hour in the ring.

An hour of Boxing gave Eric a 14.2 strain.

Maybe the most intriguing WHOOP data Eric has come across is from when he logged an ice bath. “My ice bath heart rate was visually the coolest in my opinion. I did 3 rounds of 5 minutes in the cold, then 5 minutes in a hot bath. My HR spiked right away to 127 bpm when I first got in the ice, and then the trend line steadily declined as my body got acclimated to it.”

Getting into an ice bath caused Eric's heart rate to spike immediately.

It wasn’t a lot, but simply sitting in a tub of ice led to Eric accumulating a 4.4 strain. On the other hand, for him gaming was 0.0 strain with his HR never exceeded 93 bpm (you can check out the video on “Gaming with Derek” with CrossFit Games host and WHOOP member Derek Forrest). “So far I've been to 3 different states and have worked with over a dozen different experts and coaches,” Eric added. “One of my goals is to continue to travel and complete each activity as authentically as possible with amazing people!”  

What Lies Ahead?

With at least 59 activities to go (chances are there will be more added in the app before he’s done–and how about “zip-lining” to have one that starts with the letter “z”?), we asked Eric what he’s most excited about trying, as well as what he may be the most afraid of. “I think motor racing is going to be a blast,” he answered. “Motocross, horseback riding, and operations - flying are definitely circled as the ones that scare me. But also, thinking of stage performance makes my palms sweat. I’ll want it to be something legit, and I think that’ll really take me out of my comfort zone.”   You can follow Eric’s journey on Instagram @everywhoopactivity.