Whatever level of fitness you’re at, HYROX is a demanding sport that asks a lot of the body. Therefore, proper nutrition is key to optimising your performance and recovery.  This is the case not just on race day, but throughout your training.
For years I have worked as a nutritionist, and currently offer performance nutrition calls with HYROX athletes to help improve their performance, and get them feeling better on a day to day basis. Through these calls, I am seeing many of the same mistakes being made by competitors. These mistakes are leading to lack of progress, fatigue, energy crashes, cravings, a huge reliance on caffeine, and more.
Here’s 5 of the most common nutrition mistakes I see, and how to avoid them:
1. Not Eating Enough Calories
HYROX training, for most people, is high volume, with a mix of cardio and weights. This leads to a large calorie expenditure that must be replaced. However, it’s quite often a different style of training to what many people may have been used to. If they come from a background of training (and eating) purely for body composition purposes, for example, they generally aren’t used to fuelling for performance. They are used to worrying about eating too much, want to limit their carbs and calories for aesthetic reasons, and carry that thought process into HYROX training. But if you want to cope with the demands of HYROX, you need to fuel your body. Undereating is a common mistake that leads to loss of muscle mass, low energy, lack of adaptations and poor recovery between workouts.
On our performance nutrition calls, if I think someone is undereating, we’ll often come up with calorie targets to (roughly) aim for each day (or week). That’s not something they need to be obsessive over by any means, but having a rough target, which can be adjusted over time (as needed), can be a big step in the right direction.
2. Neglecting Carb Intake
As a natural follow on from the above, the one macronutrient that I typically see people undereating when training for HYROX is carbohydrates. Carbs are the main source of energy for most of your workouts. Restricting carbs can lead to poor performance, muscle breakdown and fatigue. If you’re feeling fatigued, have a huge reliance on caffeine for energy and/or are underperforming, a lack of carbs could certainly be the issue.
When exercising, the body utilises carbohydrates consumed through food and converts them into glycogen, storing this energy source in the muscles. The glycogen accumulated in the muscles then provides the fuel needed to sustain prolonged or intense bouts of physical activity.
It’s worth saying that, for most people, the timing of your carbs doesn’t matter a huge amount if you are getting appropriate amounts each day. However, if you do have reasonably long training sessions, or train more than once a day, as many HYROX athletes do, then the timing of your carb intake becomes much more important.
3. Skimping on Protein
Getting adequate protein is crucial for building/maintaining muscle and supporting recovery as a HYROX athlete. In addition, protein is often filling and satisfies hunger. This beneficial quality helps minimize cravings between meals.Â
Good protein sources include meat, fish, eggs, dairy and protein supplements.
A lack of protein isn’t as common in HYROX athletes as a lack of calories and carbs appears to be, but it can still be an issue. Ideally, you’ll consume protein in your meals throughout the day, as opposed to getting it all from one or two servings.
4. Not Staying Hydrated
Dehydration is detrimental to performance and recovery. HYROX athletes typically sweat a lot during many of their workouts, and those lost fluids need replacing. Even a slight reduction in hydration can result in a large drop in performance (and energy and wellbeing).
It’s not just fluid intake you need to be thinking about. When you sweat you lose electrolytes and they too need replacing. A lot of the people I speak with on the nutrition calls take a range of supplements, but electrolytes are one of those most commonly missing, and it is a relatively cheap, easy fix that can have a substantial effect on how you feel and perform. This range of supplements are all electrolyte based for this very reason.
5. Thinking it’s all Nutrition
I know this might seem an odd point to make in an article about nutrition, but its worth appreciating that not all your fatigue, underperformance, etc is down to what you’re eating. Something I’m commonly seeing is people doing far too much training for their fitness levels / capabilities, and especially too much intensity. If you are maxing out on your strength lifts regularly, plus doing HYROX style workouts too often, with little breaks, and a minimal offseason etc, then it can all become too much and no matter what you do nutrition wise you just wont feel as good as you could.
I know it can sometimes look like, on Instagram, as if everyone else is constantly smashing the toughest of workouts, but you need balance. You need to train at a level that is appropriate for you, and manage the intensity levels of your training. Too hard, too often, eventually results in fatigue and injury.
As a natural follow on from this point, it’s worth also appreciating that you don’t have a separate (metaphorical) bucket of energy for your work, one for your relationships, one for day-to-day life, and one for your training. Instead, you have one bucket. That’s it. If you’re stressed at work, for example, it can drain you and you may need to adjust other areas of your life (including your training) to compensate. Of course, eating right, and avoiding the mistakes listed in the rest of this article can help to stop your bucket from overflowing, but it can only do so much.
Avoiding these common pitfalls is vital for HYROX athletes to feel and perform at their best. If you would like some more personalised support with your nutrition, check out our personalised performance nutrition calls here.
