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Volume 80 | Human Engine
WHOOP teams up with Ferrari, NFL athletes tackle HYROX, plus a new workout bike redefining cardio.
Alec Grawe
January 27, 2026
đź“° The Pulse
WHOOP Becomes Ferrari’s Latest Performance Advantage
Scuderia Ferrari has named WHOOP its Official Health & Fitness Wearable Partner, extending the team’s data obsession beyond the car and into the human engine. By analyzing sleep, stress, and recovery across the entire organization, Ferrari is treating athlete readiness like lap time—measured, optimized, and relentlessly refined.(More)
Why HYROX Is Becoming the World’s Hottest New Sport
HYROX has evolved from a niche fitness race into a global competitive movement, drawing everyday athletes and elite pros alike. With NFL players like Darren Waller stepping onto the course, HYROX is proving that mass-participation sport is the future—and community is the fuel. (More)
🧬 The Shop
CAROL Bike: The 5-Minute Cardio That’s Rewriting the Rules
CAROL Bike is bringing lab-grade REHIT training into the home, delivering the cardio benefits of a 45-minute run in just five minutes. With AI-driven resistance and clinically backed results, it’s a compelling answer for anyone short on time—but serious about results. (More)
Beast Health Goes All-In on Stainless Steel Blending
Beast Health has unveiled its Blended in Steel™ Collection, introducing double-walled stainless steel vessels that keep blends cold for up to 12 hours. Built for durability, simplicity, and ritual, it’s a material upgrade for people who take their daily fuel seriously. (More)
truefuels Launches CoreCtrl — A New Category in Heat Performance
truefuels has introduced CoreCtrl, a breakthrough product designed to help athletes manage heat stress—not just hydrate through it. Backed by emerging thermoregulation science and co-developed with Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee, CoreCtrl reframes heat as a trainable condition, not a performance ceiling. (More)
🔋 Recovery At The Push Of A Button
Finally — a recovery tool that speaks your body’s natural language: frequency.
Your cells are like batteries — powering every thought, heartbeat, and movement. But stress, screen time, and overtraining drain that charge fast.
HAELO uses Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy (PEMF) to restore cellular energy and balance at the push of a button.
Backed by 2,000+ double-blind studies
Trusted by elite coaches, Olympians, and pro athletes
Designed for at-home use
Just choose a Frequency Set in the app, place the coil on your body, and hit play. Each session aligns with your body’s natural rhythm — helping you regulate, repair, and recharge from the inside out.
👉 Use code PLAYBOOK and get $300 OFF
🎙️ On The Podcast
This week on the Playbook HQ Podcast, we sat down with Dr. Tyler Lesher — NBA performance therapist for Dallas Mavericks Caleb Martin and founder of ARC (Advanced Rehab Certification).
Lesher breaks down why rehab shouldn’t be treated as a separate phase, how elite athletes actually recover, and the tools he trusts most — from PEMF therapy and shockwave to contrast protocols and fasting.
If you’re an athlete, coach, or operator obsessed with durability and long-term performance, this episode is a masterclass in the future of sports/human performance.
đź“° Full article here.
đź’° The Boardroom
The NBA’s fifth Launchpad cohort highlights where the league believes the next decade of basketball innovation will come from: cognition, commerce, spatial intelligence, and AI-driven performance. Here’s a breakdown of each company and why it matters.
Atlas | Cognitive Performance & Mental Readiness
Location: San Francisco, CA
Atlas is building a multi-modal brain-sensing wearable designed to quantify “cognitive clarity” — essentially how ready the mind is for focused, high-pressure thinking.
Why it matters:
Basketball performance isn’t just physical. Decision-making speed, reaction time, and mental fatigue increasingly define elite outcomes. Atlas gives teams a potential window into mental readiness, load management, and recovery — an untapped frontier in performance analytics.
CRED | AI for Sponsorship ROI
Location: San Francisco, CA
CRED is a predictive intelligence platform for sponsorship lead generation. It merges internal business data with real-time market signals to recommend high-value partnership opportunities.
Why it matters:
As sponsorship dollars fragment across platforms and audiences, leagues need smarter tools to quantify value. CRED helps the NBA and teams move from reactive deal-making to proactive, data-driven revenue growth.
Diddo | Commerce Inside Content
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Diddo provides an API that allows rights holders and publishers to embed shoppable moments directly into media content — without disrupting the viewing experience.
Why it matters:
This turns highlights, interviews, and social clips into direct commerce channels. For the NBA, it’s a path toward monetizing attention in real time, closing the loop between fandom and purchase behavior.
Peripheral Labs | 3D Basketball Reconstruction
Location: Toronto, Canada
Peripheral Labs applies autonomous-vehicle technology to sports, reconstructing live games into photorealistic 3D environments with high-fidelity player and ball tracking.
Why it matters:
This unlocks advanced analytics, immersive fan experiences, officiating tools, and new broadcast formats. Think digital twins of games — where every movement becomes data.
Swish Basket | Connected Courts & Gamified Training
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Swish Basket uses AI, cameras, and sensors to connect real-world basketball courts to a digital training and gaming ecosystem, delivering advanced shooting analytics through a consumer app.
Why it matters:
This is grassroots meets data. Swish Basket bridges player development, community engagement, and gamification — extending the NBA’s reach from elite arenas to everyday courts worldwide.