HOW SHOULD YOU APPROACH A HYROX COMPETITION?

HYROX coach, Paul Russell, offers his top 5 tips for coaches looking to enter the HYROX competition with their clients;

Separate, and together. The HYROX is made up of 8 very specific and defined events. Running, for example, but also wall balls. Allow for training of specific performance qualities; intervals, timed distances, and threshold sessions to increase running speed, would be nice, loaded squats, jump squats, and squat presses, to enhance wall ball speed and endurance, could be good. But also bring these together, sometimes. For example, a circuit based workout with running intervals and heavy wall balls for reps, to ensure the sum of these component parts can be managed, and familiar, when interwoven.

Be prepared. You might feel like you don’t completely know what you’re doing. That’s ok, there is going to be a little trial and error here. But find out what the 8 stations are, watch videos of past events, attend one if possible, find some trusted sources of information, write out your plan, and expect to put in a lot more time and effort than you think will be needed. But also, be prepared for things not working, not going to plan, not being possible, and needing to change for endless different reasons.

Little by little the bird builds its nest. This old French proverb lends itself very nicely to the nature in which the body makes physiological adaptations. With this in mind, certainly expose your athlete to the full myriad of stresses that will drive the adaptations you have identified as necessary for competition - but do it gradually, over time; little by little.

Organise your training plan into blocks. This will allow you to review, reflect, adapt, modify, manage, and progress accordingly, and at regular intervals. Training blocks also sound exciting, important, exotic even, and can enhance your athlete’s experience, promoting buy-in.

Your programme is important, your athlete is more important. Your relationship with the athlete must be one built on trust, and open, honest communication, and this takes time, but also vulnerability. The better the environment and experience you create, the better the relationship will be, and the better they will perform. If a programme needs rewriting that might take a few hour’s, but a relationship that isn’t working can take weeks, months, even longer sometimes, to repair. Don’t be precious, hostile, all knowing, work with them, not against them.

Finally, enjoy yourself, but also fully embrace this opportunity to challenge yourself, and learn from and about yourself. If you’re exposing your athlete to difficulty and discomfort, it’s quite right you expose yourself to some of that too. If you’re coming from a traditional gym based training background, here’s a lovely statement to provoke you into some difficult and uncomfortable thinking from coach Mike Boyle: “If you describe your workouts by body part there’s a good chance you shouldn’t be training athletes.”