[2] He decided to pursue gymnastics and moved to Colorado to attend the United States Olympic Training Center under Vitaly Marinich.

At the 2014 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, Whittenburg won the bronze medal in the team event with the Americans,[5] and contributed scored on floor exercise (15.300), still rings (14.766), vault (14.966) and parallel bars (14.633).

[6] At the 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, he won the individual bronze medal on vault with an average combined score of 15.350 behind Ri Se Gwang of North Korea (15.450) and Marian Drăgulescu of Romania (15.400).

At the 2017 London World Cup, Whittenburg won gold in that all-around competition, and at the 2017 Koper World Challenge Cup, the individual apparatus competition, in Slovenia, Whittenburg won gold on parallel bars, and silvers on floor and vault.

[7][3] At the 2022 World Challenge Cup in Paris he won bronze medal on parallel bars and rings.