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Will Ahmed Talks Future of Wellness at Fortune Brainstorm Health
The second annual Fortune Brainstorm HEALTH conference took place this week in San Diego, California. Per Fortune.com, the intent was to bring together C-suite leaders of top hospitals, insurers, and biotech companies along with titans of venture capital, tech, and telecom–those who are pushing boundaries and “changing the face of healthcare.”
The list of speakers included former United States Vice President Joe Biden, the CEOs of Aetna and Whole Foods, and a great number of leading doctors and medical researchers from around the country. WHOOP Founder and CEO Will Ahmed sat on a panel with Los Angeles Chargers safety and avid WHOOP user Darrell Stuckey. Moderated by Fortune Magazine’s Erika Fry, the panel was titled “Game Theory: Can Data Help Athletes Boost their Performance as Never Before?”
Stuckey, one of the first NFL players to use WHOOP, spoke candidly about how it’s made him a better athlete. “I can manage my performance and peak more–take my ability to the next level–once I can see how my day-to-day choices and activities affect my recovery,” he said. A sample of Stuckey’s data showed high strain levels coinciding with high-recovery days, an indication that he’s making the most of his training.
“I think what’s fascinating is looking at how all these different things in your behavior and your lifestyle ultimately affect your body’s recovery,” said Ahmed. “That applies to the best athletes in the world, and also to a lot of people in this room.”
Looking at the bigger picture, Ahmed added “For the health industry at large, I think there’s so much to learn from people who are putting as much stress and strain on their bodies as Darrell and other professional athletes are. What are they doing that the population can learn from to really better understand our bodies? And in terms of the travel, the sleep, I think there are a lot of fascinating insights.”
When the topic of the recent partnership between WHOOP and the NFL Players Association came up, Stuckey was asked a popular question, “How do you feel about the idea of your Recovery data being used for fantasy football or other things?”
His response was simple: “Well I own it, so they can’t use it without my permission.”
Also discussed were Stuckey’s heart rates on game day (it actually peaked before the game in the example displayed), and what WHOOP has taught him about alcohol consumption:
.@Chargers safety Darrell Stuckey says this device helped him learn how alcohol before bed affects his body https://t.co/f9kqIpoOdP pic.twitter.com/H8wVunNpZl
— SI Edge (@SI_Edge) May 4, 2017
The conversation concluded with Fry asking Ahmed what athletes and teams respond to most while using WHOOP. “To go from thinking of yourself as an athlete 3 hours a day to thinking of yourself as an athlete 24/7 is a fundamental mindset shift,” he said. “And at the team level, you have an opportunity to go from treating everyone on a team as one individual [in regards to workouts] to making much more personalized training plans.”