HYROX can be a challenging and demanding sport that requires a lot of preparation. However, many athletes commonly make mistakes in their training which hinders their performance and increases their risk of injury.
It’s very easily done. Training for a hybrid event like HYROX – where you need a balance of strength and endurance – can be confusing. It’s fairly well understood how to train for a pure running event, for example. And it’s fairly well understood how to train just for strength. But combining the two? That’s when it becomes more difficult!
In this article, we’ll cover common training mistakes made by HYROX athletes, and share tips to help you maximize your efforts and achieve better results…
#1. 100% + 100% Equals Problems
One common mistake made by many athletes is trying to take their existing training programme (say, a running focused one), and then add a strength programme on top it. But for your average, non-performance enhancing drug taking person, that’s not possible. You can’t take 100% of one plan, add 100% of another, and expect to train at 200%. At least you can’t without experiencing extreme fatigue and / or injury!
The demands need to be balanced. How that’s done can be somewhat of a fine art and is dependent on what an athlete most needs. Where do priorities need to be placed for this athlete?
One important factor to appreciate is that it’s much easier to maintain fitness / strength, than it is to improve it. Therefore, if someone is a very good runner, but needs to build their strength, their running volume and intensity can likely be reduced to focus on maintenance. And greater time and energy can be given to strength work.
#2. Always Going Hard
HYROX is tough and intense. But that doesn’t mean you need to train that way every day. Training at a consistently high intensity is tough to recover from, doesn’t efficiently build aerobic fitness, and can lead to injury and fatigue. Of course, sometimes you need to do the hard work. But that needs to be balanced. There’s a benefit to slow steady aerobic work, not to mention not always maxing out for every set on all of your strength-based lifts.
As a natural follow on from this point, it’s common to see athletes regularly doing HYROX simulations as part of their training. This is where they perform a full HYROX, or scaled down version of the race. There is a time and place for these in training, but to do them too often is not optimal. Again, it can lead to injury and fatigue. And the reality is that the best way to get better at HYROX isn’t to just do a full HYROX every week! Nor is the best way to get better at 100m of walking lunges, for example, to just do 100m of walking lunges each time you’re in the gym.
#3. Not Periodising Training
You can’t necessarily expect to train hard, all year round, for HYROX. Training should, instead, be periodised. This is a systematic approach to training that involves dividing the athletic year into smaller, focused training phases. It’s designed to help athletes reach peak performance at key moments, such as before certain races which they’ve prioritised.
Unfortunately, many athletes make the mistake of not periodising their HYROX training, leading to a number of negative consequences that can limit their progress and hinder their performance.
The first and most obvious consequence of this is a lack of progress. This is because the body becomes accustomed to a specific type of training, and the stress and adaptation response that was once there is no longer present. On the other hand, periodised training allows athletes to gradually increase the intensity and volume of their work, leading to continued progress and improvement.
Another key issue is the increased risk of injury. Overuse injuries such as stress fractures, tendonitis, and muscle strains, can become much more likely. In contrast, periodised training provides athletes with the necessary rest and recovery periods, reducing the risk of injury and helping them stay healthy.
#4. Running; Too Much, Too Soon
Running is a high impact activity. With each stride, you put a LOT of force through your body. Your running mileage and intensity needs to be gradually increased over time to help minimise injury risk, but it’s a very common mistake for someone to try and do too much too soon.
This is one reason why we offer personalised training plans at Rox Lyfe to help you prepare for the event. If a newcomer who hasn’t done much running in the past tries to do the same training programme as an experienced long-distance runner, they will almost certainly eventually injure themselves. Working with an experienced coach helps to reduce the chances of this happening.
Remember too, not all your aerobic / endurance work needs to come from running. There are low impact forms you can utilise, including the row and ski erg (both of which feature anyway in HYROX), as well as the bike.
We talk more about minimising injuries when running in this article.
#5. Not Practicing Standards
If you don’t know – and practice – the movement standards for HYROX, it can hurt you on race day. “No reps” from improper technique will cost you time and energy. This is certainly something to be practicing in training.
In particular, make sure you know and comply with the technique on burpee broad jumps and wall balls. If possible, film yourself doing them, and critique your form afterwards (and have an experienced HYROX competitor do the same). It’s quite possible you currently lack the mobility needed to effectively execute the standards, and if that’s the case you can identify it and work on it in training before the event.
To help reinforce adherence to the standards, you should give yourself “no reps” in training. This is something George Anderson brought up when I discussed mindset strategies for HYROX with him. In training, if you do a wall ball rep, for example, that doesn’t quite hit the centre of the target, or if you know you didn’t squat low enough, then no rep yourself. Do an extra one to make up for it. This very quickly helps you to pay more attention to the standards for each rep!
#6. Not Respecting the Sleds
Many newcomers to HYROX are often surprised by how heavy the sleds feel. You need to push and pull them across the HYROX carpet, which adds a significant resistance to the sled movement. It tends to be much harder to move than the same weight in most gyms. It would be a mistake to assume the stated weight in your gym will feel the same at HYROX, and many people have ruined their race by doing so. Therefore, training with a heavier weight makes sense for most athletes.
#7. Only Training the HYROX Movements
While it’s important to train for the specific movements performed in HYROX, it’s also a common mistake to only focus on these movements, and neglect other exercises that can carry over well to the event. This can mean a lot of extra training time and energy is wasted.
For example, by training squats, you can help to develop, in particular, your abilities on the sled push, lunges, burpee broad jumps, rowing and wall balls. Of course, they might carry over more effectively to some areas of HYROX than others, and I’m certainly not saying you don’t need to ever train the individual movements. But identifying where some exercises will carry over makes your training time as effective as possible.
Similarly, as already mentioned, not all your cardiovascular endurance training needs to come from running, ski or row – even if they all feature in HYROX. Using a bike – the Concept2 bike erg, or an assault bike, for example – can be used to help your aerobic development in an easy to use, low impact way.
#8. Avoiding Compromised Training
In HYROX, you’ll find that there is a noticeable difference in running when feeling completely fresh, and running straight after pushing a heavy sled, for example. This type of running is known as “compromised running”. It can very much impact the speed at which you are able to run.
It’s not just the running that will be compromised though – everything is compromised to some extent (with the exception of the first 1km run). As a quite clear example, there’s a huge difference between doing 100 wall balls feeling completely fresh, and 100 wall balls at the end of the race. If you only trained wall balls when you were feeling good, you wouldn’t be fully prepared for what you’d face in the race!
Failure to dedicate any of your training time to compromised training is a common mistake. To read more on this important topic, check out our article on compromised running.
I hope this has helped. Training for HYROX can be hugely confusing, and mistakes are very easily made. For more information on designing a HYROX training plan, click the link.
A lot of progress can be left on the table by just trying to wing it, using workouts you’ve found online that aren’t written for you. That’s one reason why we offer personalised coaching, where we write a programme for YOU (not hundreds of other clients all at the same time). To find out more, click here. We also have a more standardised, 12 week training plan option available here (for individuals or doubles).
