In this solo episode of the No Days Off podcast, host Brian Gubernick shares how he finally achieved a 99% recovery score on his WHOOP strap after more than 800 attempts. He explains what WHOOP measures—heart‑rate variability, resting heart rate, sleep performance, respiratory rate, blood oxygen, and skin temperature—and why these metrics matter for fitness. Brian then walks listeners through the exact 24‑hour routine that led to the high score: 7.5 hours of sleep the night before, waking at 6:40 am, drinking a salt‑lemon water, a sunrise walk with his dog, an hour of sun exposure while reading, black coffee, a supplement stack (fish oil, ashwagandha, turmeric, multivitamin, liquid vitamin D, topical glutathione), a delayed first meal (eggs, quinoa, spinach, tomatoes), a brief nap in the grass, a low‑intensity hike, dried mango snack, cold‑water immersion (52 °F pool) followed by stretching and a hot‑tub soak, another quick cold dip, electrolyte drink (LMNT), a light grilled chicken and broccoli dinner, evening sun‑watching, reading, and finally an 8.5‑hour night of sleep. He notes he was still COVID‑positive during this period, highlighting that the regimen still produced a high recovery despite illness. Throughout, Brian emphasizes that he is not a medical professional, frames the routine as a personal “blueprint,” and encourages listeners to adopt elements like sunlight, hydration, gentle movement, and recovery practices that are feasible for most people.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into it. Today I want to talk about health, and I want to talk about it by explaining or sharing with you a major accomplishment It's going to sound like a big accomplishment to some of you. Others are going to be wondering what the hell I'm even talking about. But after I think 800 or so attempts, I have finally scored 99% recovery on my Whoop. 99% recovery score on my Whoop. And, and what I thought would be fun to share is what I did the day prior and how that night went last night for me to wake up this morning with a 99% recovery and want to put together a special episode just discussing the past 24 hours and what led to this recovery score. Now, some of you know what the WHOOP is, others may not know. You probably see people wearing this thing around, this, this bracelet on their wrist. I've been wearing one for a couple years now, a few years now. And it measures all different sorts of things as it pertains to recovery. What the WHOOP is measuring are several different metrics, heart rate variability, which is literally the variance in time between your heartbeats. And heart rate variability is a benchmark of, uh, for evaluating physical fitness. It also measures resting heart rate, which is another valuable fitness indicator. And the lower your resting heart rate, happens to be, uh, the stronger your heart appears to be, is that it does not have to work as hard to pump blood throughout your body. It's factored in the recovery, as is sleep performance, the amount of sleep you get compared to the amount of sleep you need. It goes without saying that the more sleep you get relative to what it is you need, the higher your recovery should be. It measures your respiratory rate, the number of breaths that you're taking per minute. So your respiratory rate generally stays fairly consistent from night to night. And oftentimes it doesn't really impact your recovery. But again, if it's steady without spikes, your recovery tends to be a little bit better. There are other things that get factored into recovery. But that's really what the WHOOP is looking at. There's a couple other things like blood oxygen levels and, and, and skin temperature, some other things there. But all of these metrics impact the recovery score provided to you by your Whoop. And in, in 800+ attempts, I have never been at 99%. I don't know if you can get 100%. I think it might cap at 99. I've been in the 90s, but never at 99. So I thought it'd be fun to share what my previous 24 hours looked like that led to this recovery score. Okay, here's, here's my day. And I'm not a— I am not your doctor. I'm not the health expert. I am just sharing with you literally the blueprint, what worked for me. And sure, there's lots of things that played into this that I probably won't be able to account for. But I'm going to give you like what has proven to be the ideal recipe for me to score high. Okay. First, I had slept 7.5 hours the night before. I woke up at 6:40 AM. 6:40. Now that's important. Why? Well, again, I slept 7.5 hours, which is pretty good for me. The sunrise in Phoenix is 7:05. So I woke up at 6:40 AM and I drank 18 ounces of water that included salt, pinch of salt and lemon. There's a previous episode here at No Days Off. I talked about the salt water concoction, add lemon to it, drink it every morning. So I drank my 18 ounces of water plus the salt plus the lemon. And after I did that, I immediately go outside. Now this time it was probably 6:55, 7:00 AM. So at sunrise, as the sun's coming up, I was walking. I walk a couple miles every morning with the dog, right? So the dog is a great accountability partner. We get out and we move. Usually it's a little bit earlier than that. So I'm not walking at sunrise. I think this is important. Because there's a lot of science out there that says morning sun is critical, critical to managing circadian rhythm, to managing just your best self, your best health. And I think it played a role in my recovery. I walked 2 miles, I get back, all I have is black coffee. And I sit outside for about an hour in the sun and I read. I was reading some business journals I was trying to get caught up on, but I just sat in the sun for about an hour, drank blank black coffee, no food, nothing like that. Came inside an hour later. I took my supplements, my supplement routine that I think led to this recovery. I take fish oil, I take ashwagandha, I take turmeric, I take a multivitamin, I take some vitamin D, like a liquid vitamin D, and then I have this spray, uh, glutathione. That's like dermal. So I spray and rub it in. I then, at about noon, 12:15, I have my very first meal of the day. Wasn't necessarily my plan not to eat. I just didn't. So there was a fasting component. So I had been awake about 5, 5.5 hours before I ate. I had a few eggs, quinoa, spinach, and tomatoes. And that was a pretty solid meal for me. After I was done eating, I went back outside in the sun. And you know what? Uh, shoes off, feet in the grass, sitting in a chair. I actually fell asleep. Super rare for me, but I napped and the nap lasted, I don't know, 35, 40 minutes just sitting in a chair in the sun. Now again, I'm here in Arizona. It's the best time of year, right? It's 70 degrees out. So I'm very blessed to have this environment. In the sun, fall asleep, take the ideal nap or period of time for a nap. Not something I normally do. After I got up from that nap, hydrated, whatever, I ended up going to hike for a couple miles, slow pace, 120 to 130 heart rate, which is, which is fairly slow for me. Stayed in that zone, which is really like a high zone 1, low zone 2 for me. Did that for an hour, came home, had some dried fruit. I'm a big fan of mangoes, just love dried mangoes. And went outside and hit the cold tub. Hit the cold tub. I actually though didn't get in my standard, my tub, which is about 40 degrees right now. I decided for whatever reason to get in the pool that was 52 degrees. So it was still a shock, but not the shock that the 40 degrees typically is. It was 52 degrees, which makes it more manageable and something I spent a little bit more time in. Got out of that, stretched in the grass, just stood there, stretched, had like a good 10-minute stretch or so, and then sat in the hot tub. So I went from cold to stretch to hot. As you can see, this is like the ultimate recovery day so far, right? After the hot tub, I jumped back in the pool for a minute because you always want to end on cold. At least that's what all the experts tell me. And so that's what I do. I came inside, I was, I was thirsty, dropped an LMNT, which is another saltwater drink, and had 24 ounces of that before it was time to eat again. Straight barbecue, start straight chicken off the barbecue. Wasn't barbecue sauce, but had grilled some chicken, chicken thighs actually, and ate broccoli. Really bland, plain meal that I love. And now it's almost nighttime. Sun, sun setting. Hung outside as the sun set, watched a documentary for an hour and a half with one of my daughters, read a little bit more, uh, probably another 20, 30 minutes of reading. I was in bed not too long after that, slept 8 and a half hours solid. Again, rare for me. Woke up this morning, and had a 99% recovery. So I know that that's a lot, right? As you can see, that was like the ultimate recovery day. No obligations except to take care of myself. That does not happen all that often. I maximized it. What's the key here? I think I was outside a lot. I was getting great sunlight. I ate well. I ate light, but I ate well. I had recovery in that I was in the cold, which I think helped with inflammation. I was active but not stressing my body with respect to my activity. I read and there was some more meditation or mind, I would say, calming activity, and ultimately went to bed and had a really, really, really solid night of sleep. Now here's the kicker to all of this. This is how we're going to tie this thing out. Oddly enough, guess what? COVID is still a real thing. And I say that jokingly, we all know it's real. But I'm out, I'm on the tail end of having COVID right now. Picked it up last week, and have been on the mend. And actually, even this morning, after the 99% recovery, still tested positive. So I share that because I'm fascinated, right? Because typically an illness or not feeling well is going to elevate your heart rate, is going to impact your respiratory rate, is going to definitely impact your recovery. So in spite of the fact that I had it, that, that regimen, that recipe I just gave you the past 24 hours led to some success with respect to recovery. So Again, I'm not the expert. I'm just a guinea pig here. And I don't know what most impacted, you know, the success I had. I think maybe it was sleep and rest. And then just the cadence of my day and having kind of a complete day without any hiccups, hydration. I mean, what variable played the greatest role? I'm unclear. But I can tell you what, there are things there, forget about it being me. There are things there that were done right. That you could easily, easily, easily incorporate into your world. Supplements, I mean, that might be specific to me, but we all can get a little bit more sun. We could all rest a little bit. We could all read a little bit more. We could all put our feet in the grass. You know, we could all try these things out. Like, I love like the cold and the hot and all of that. Some of these things work. Might want to give it a shot. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
