Roxfit started as a simple workout timer built by two HYROX athletes who wanted a better way to track their training.
It has since grown to more than 500,000 downloads, raised over £2 million in investment and accumulated a huge amount of data on how people race HYROX.
And some of that data gives us a fascinating insight into what actually separates faster athletes from slower ones.
When I spoke to Roxfit founders Ben and Joey on the Rox Lyfe podcast, we discussed what they have learned from analysing HYROX results, including why going out too hard can be so costly, which stations correlate most strongly with overall race time, the importance of the Roxzone and how much athletes typically improve between their first and second race.
We also discussed the next version of Roxfit, including tools designed to predict your race time, identify your strengths and weaknesses and even allow you to race against previous versions of yourself.
Here are some of the most interesting things I took from the conversation…
Going Out Hot Can Be Costly
Everyone knows that pacing matters in HYROX.
The Roxfit data gives us a better idea of just how much it might matter.
According to Ben and Joey, around seven in ten athletes complete their first run faster than their intended target pace.
And approximately three quarters of those athletes who go out too quickly then fail to hit their overall goal time.
Their analysis also suggests something even more interesting.
For every second an athlete gets ahead of their target pace early in the race, they can eventually lose around 2.5 seconds from their finishing time.
In other words, banking 10 seconds on the first run does not necessarily give you 10 seconds to play with later.  It could eventually cost you around 25 seconds.
Consistent Pacing
Another pattern Roxfit sees is that better athletes tend to produce much more consistent running splits.
That does not necessarily mean running every kilometre at exactly the same pace.
Course layouts vary, and some runs include longer transitions than others.
But once Roxfit normalises for those differences, the pattern is clear.
Going hard early and hanging on is rarely the best strategy.
If anything, Ben believes the better approach is closer to negative splitting the overall race.
That means arriving in the second half in a position where you can maintain or increase your effort rather than simply trying to survive.
Dylan Scott’s performance at the HYROX World Championships was one example discussed during the podcast.
He was well down the field early in the race but remained disciplined, trusted his pacing and worked his way through the field as others slowed.
Predictors of Your HYROX Time
There is sometimes a temptation to think of HYROX as eight running sections and eight completely separate workout stations.
The data suggests that is not really how performance works.
Running remains the strongest predictor of total finishing time.
That is probably unsurprising when approximately half of the race consists of running.
What is more interesting is what comes next.
When Roxfit looked at the relationship between individual stations and overall finishing time, burpee broad jumps showed one of the strongest correlations.
The row also ranked highly.
Ben described running, burpees and rowing as giving a surprisingly good indication of what someone’s final time will be.
That does not necessarily mean becoming 10 seconds faster at rowing will automatically take 10 seconds from your race.
Correlation does not tell us that the row itself is causing the faster overall performance.
Instead, the row may tell us something about the athlete’s condition at that stage of the race.
By the time you reach it, you have already completed four runs, the SkiErg, sled push, sled pull and burpee broad jumps.
Someone who arrives at the row composed, gets onto the machine quickly and holds a strong pace is probably managing the entire race well.
Someone who walks into the station, takes time before strapping in and struggles to produce power may already be paying for decisions made much earlier.
Roxfit Is Trying to Turn Race Data Into Actual Advice
Collecting data is one thing.
Understanding what to do with it is much more useful.
That is where Roxfit is heading next.
Its new Athlete IQ system is designed to combine information from your HYROX races with things such as your 5K and 10K times, benchmark workouts and eventually wearable data.
The aim is to answer questions such as:
- What HYROX time should you realistically target?
- Where are your biggest weaknesses?
- Which areas could produce the biggest improvement?
- How should you pace your race?
- How does your running ability translate to HYROX?
That could be particularly useful for first-time athletes.
Ben said Roxfit regularly sees people entering target times that bear very little relationship to their current fitness.
If the app knows your 5K time and has enough data from thousands of athletes with similar performances, it can potentially give you a much more realistic prediction.
And that could stop you making the classic mistake of setting a goal time first and then trying to force your race to fit it.
You Will Be Able to Race Yourself
The other major development is something Roxfit calls Compete.
The idea is to introduce more competition into everyday training.
You might complete a benchmark workout this week and then repeat it a month later.
Instead of simply comparing the results afterwards, you will be able to see during the workout whether you are ahead or behind your previous performance.
You could do the same against a friend.
Or an elite athlete.
If Charlie Bottrill completes a workout in 22 minutes, for example, you could load his splits onto your watch and effectively race against them.
After each section, you would know whether you were 10 seconds, 30 seconds or two minutes behind.
For most of us, that final number might become quite humbling quite quickly.
But the more useful application may be racing yourself.
Many elite athletes already use repeatable benchmark sessions to assess whether their fitness is improving.
Roxfit wants to make that approach much easier for everyone.
Doubles Strategy Could Become Much Smarter
Roxfit is also developing a doubles pacing tool.
This could be particularly useful because deciding how to split stations is often guesswork.
If two athletes have previous race data inside the app, Roxfit plans to analyse their respective strengths and weaknesses and recommend a strategy.
That might include who should start a station, who should finish it and how frequently they should swap.
A data-driven strategy could help partners work out where unequal workloads actually produce the fastest combined performance.
You can hear my full conversation with Ben and Joey from Roxfit on the Rox Lyfe podcast or by watching below…
