How to improve your Running for HYROX

running for Hyrox

HYROX races are taking over the fitness world by storm.

From bringing a fresh new challenge to fans of functional fitness or getting more runners involved with strength training to attracting a whole new crowd of fans who might have never thought of giving any form working out a crack before.

And they did so by combining the world of running with that of functional training, with every race consisting of 8 rounds of a 1km run followed by a functional exercise station. These stations require the athlete to be strong enough to carry heavy kettlebells and push even heavier sleds, or explosive enough to get through several reps of burpee broad jumps and wall balls.

Note

However, despite the training to prepare for the functional stations is crucial it cannot be denied that the most important piece of preparation for a HYROX race is the running.

Whatโ€™s even more special about these hybrid races is that the 8km isnโ€™t completed all in one go but split into 1000m at a time. This means that it will be a test both for your endurance but also your speed as you should be aiming to run at a much faster pace.

With all this considered, if you are looking at signing up for a HYROX race, or have already, itโ€™s important you take a good and careful look at how youโ€™re running.

Running in HYROX
Photo credit sportograf.com

Not interested in racing but still want to incorporate a more hybrid approach to your training?

This article is also for you to make sure you stay healthy while getting faster with every session.

Understanding the running demands of HYROX

As previously discussed, running is the most crucial component of HYROX training and racing.

Itโ€™s arguably where you can make the biggest time difference and simultaneously one of the places you just canโ€™t hide.

You need to work up your capacity if you want to complete all 8km without stopping.

Another thing to keep in mind, especially if youโ€™re coming from a running background, is that running within a HYROX format is going to feel vastly different than โ€œjust runningโ€.

Your muscles will be taxed and the fatigue that sets in will affect your form, mechanics and breathing pattern. This is why itโ€™s important to be specific and intentional with your running training.

Preparing for a HYROX race in terms of running puts you closer into the moderate distance, high speed training range over the long distance, lower speed end.

Tip

Meaning the best training format to utilize will be intervals or โ€œshortโ€ distance repeats.

Weโ€™re talking 2-3:00 minute efforts or 400-800m repeats for most of your training.

Some lower intensity endurance sessions should be utilized at the start of your preparation to increase aerobic capacity, while more explosive speed work can be worked into to help decrease average race pace.

hyrox running different
Photo credit sportograf.com

Lastly as previously noted itโ€™s important to understand that running in a HYROX race will feel different.

Actually every kilometer will come with its unique challenges based on what muscle groups you exerted most while completing the previous functional station.

Learning to โ€œembrace the suckโ€ is going to be crucial as well as familiarizing yourself with how every exercise impacts your gait when running.

And combining your running with the stations will help train your body to remove muscle lactate faster and speed up recovery so you can speed up after the first few hundred meters.

Set a baseline: Assessing your current running level

The three areas you may be struggling in are:

  • Running endurance: you can bang out a quick 400m but when you have to run over 3km in one go you start slowing down significantly.
  • Speed: you have a long distance background or just love aerobic capacity work but struggle to push your pace on shorter distances.
  • Overall capacity: running on its own? Sure can manage that. Mixed up with a bunch of different exercises? Your muscles and/or nervous system is toast.

Some athletes may find they struggle with all three, others with just one and some just arenโ€™t really sure where their weaknesses, or strengths, lie. Thatโ€™s why itโ€™s so crucial to spend some time testing yourself to assess your preparation. Test weeks or sessions are just as important as the rest of the training you do and should never be overlooked. They give you all the essential information you need to build out the perfect-for-you training plan.

HYROX Running test

Our HYROX Daily training plan starts every athlete off with the following 4 tests.

Test 1 โ†’ MAX distance ran in 20:00

Test 2 โ†’ Time to complete 3 rounds of 500/450m each of row-erg and skii-erg.

Test 3+4 โ†’ In 12:00 complete as many reps (or rounds) as possible of 30 alternating lunges (20/10kg) + 15 burpee broad jumps + 30 wallballs (6/4kg, 10/9ft). At the 12 minute mark stop and take 1:00 rest. At 13:00 you will complete a MAX distance run for 5:00

In HYROX Daily youโ€™ll find a Level calculator that will take the scores for these tests and determine your preparation level to help you tailor our program to where youโ€™re at.ย 

running test for HYROX
Photo credit sportograf.com

On their own these tests still provide specific information about the three aforementioned categories and where you might shine, or struggle. 

Build a HYROX-Specific running plan

As we discussed in section 2 and 3 there are three main areas of running you must tackle in a HYROX specific training plan.

Capacity

First is running capacity and aerobic capacity.

Although these do go hand in hand depending on genetics, lifestyle factors and training background you may find one is more advanced or progresses faster than the other.

Particularly with running capacity a lot of adaptation of the joints and tendons is necessary.

If you have experience with other forms of working out you may be able to keep moving thanks to your aerobic capacity, despite this you will still need to be conservative with your distance progressions to allow said joints and tendons to catch up.

Speed

If you do have a good running capacity but struggle with establishing a good pace to achieve your race time goals youโ€™ll need to focus on speed.

This is done through interval training but also by including strength work and plyometrics into your plan.

Compromised running

Lastly, to prepare for the mixed modality of HYROX a training plan should always include a few pieces a week that test your running abilities โ€œunder strainโ€, where one or more exercises from the functional stations are mixed with running intervals.

Here are two sample workouts to demonstrate the different training components:

Capacity:

8-10:00 warm up
Then
12:00 at race pace
4:00 easy recovery jog
10:00 race pace
4:00 easy recovery jogย 
8:00 race pace

Duration of race pace intervals will depend on where your capacity is currently at.

Running compromised:

3 rounds of
400m run โ†’ 500m ski โ†’ 400m run
Rest 1:00
50 wallballsย 
Rest 1:00
400m run โ†’ 500m ski โ†’ 400m run
Rest 1:00
100m carry 2x 32/24kg
Rest 2:00 between rounds

HYROX running plan
Photo credit sportograf.com

Warming up for HYROX running

It can be tempting when approaching a running centric to not warm up, or just spend a few minutes preparing before your working sets. But if you want to see the best results, while feeling your best and staying injury free, you cannot skip a good warm up.

There are 4 components to an effective, yet efficient, warm up routine:

  • The โ€œheat upโ€: spend a few minutes (if available to you) on a low impact cardio machine of your choosing to increase heart rate and blood flow to muscles.
  • Active mobility: time to get nice and limber. DO NOT go for passive stretching (= holding a deep stretch position for a long time with no movement). Instead opt for more active stretches where you get in and out of the elongated position. Focus on calves, hamstrings and hip flexors.
  • Isometrics: funny enough the faster you plan to run the more still you should plan to be for your warm up exercises. Holding a few isometrics is a great way to get the system primed for a higher intensity effort. Think planks, hamstring curls and wall sits.
  • Plyometrics and drills: last but not least come the more explosive movements. Every athlete will have their set of preferred, and more useful to them, movements. High knee skips, kick variations, one legged jumps, ice skater bounds and so on and so forth. Use them to get ease your joints into the bounding effort of running and prime your nervous system.
mistakes HYROX running
Photo credit sportograf.com

Common mistakes and how to fix them

  • Overstriding: this is caused by the leading leg being too far in front of your torso and usually can be spotted when athletes are heavy on their heels โ†’ Focus on landing on your midfoot and play around with both stride length and torso angle.
  • Heel striking: often correlated with overstriding but it can also appear on its own when the athlete hits the ground with โ€œhammer feetโ€ = heavy on the heel, toes pointed upwards and shin highly active โ†’ work on calf activation, midfoot striking and impact control.
  • *Sloppy* torso: very common when athlete starts getting fatigued, torso will start leaning forward or generally there will be a loss of core engagement โ†’ Usually this improves simply with increasing endurance capacity but if you find yourself doing it often look at arm movement as well as work on keeping yourself accountable when fatigue settles in.
  • Arm swing and positioning: arms are either crossing the body, not matching lower body cadence, swinging excessively or traps are overactive causing them to be too high โ†’ Film yourself to pinpoint if there are any arm issues and focus on accountability, warm up drills and proper breathing.
  • Hands: closed into tight fists or overactive in any way will create tension that wastes energy, impacts breathing and can lower form quality โ†’ A common que is to think about holding something fragile in your hands leaving space for it in your palm and never squeezing too tight.

Most of these issues will benefit from spending time doing upper and lower body mobility, drills for cadence, muscle and nervous activation and warming up joints properly and breathing exercises.

Strength training for HYROX-Specific running

If you come from a running background it can be tempting to just brush off strength training.

However, you might have gotten away with it long enough in running but you cannot escape it with HYROX.ย 

Strength training is crucial to see speed gains over time and will keep you safe and healthy in the long run. But with HYROX itโ€™s also essential to be able to complete the stations as well as keep your pace consistent when compromised.

The muscles we want to target mainly are:

  • quadriceps
  • glutes
  • hamstrings
  • adductors
  • calves
  • core
strength for hyrox running
Photo credit sportograf.com

The strength building blocks that simply CANNOT be skipped to support your HYROX running are:

  • Hinging: deadlift in all its variations, kettlebell swings, good mornings. To make your hamstrings resilient and improve core and low back strength.
  • Squatting: squat variations, lunges, split squats, leg press and step ups. For that explosivity = speed.
  • Hip extension: hip trusts. Other movements also require hip extensions but isolating it with a specific exercise will help keep your hips healthy, break plateaus and not compensate with other muscles.
  • Core: planks, side planks, holds and carries, rotational movements. Donโ€™t underestimate core engagement ๐Ÿ˜‰
  • Calf raises: just donโ€™t skip them ok? Your joints will thank you for it.

Incorporating recovery days

You can only improve from what you can recover from. So STOP skipping those recover days and treat your body with the respect it deserves.

Still need to move?

Go for a walk or do some mobility but give your muscles and nervous system a chance to recover from all the strain you put it through.

Scheduling recovery days in your weekly training plan is just as important as mapping out your running and strength progressions.

After all, you will only see progress once youโ€™ve been able to fully recover from your previous sessions.ย 

Tracking progress and adjusting your plan

Remember those tests we mentioned in Section 3?

Well they arenโ€™t just a great tool to assess where youโ€™re at when you start training HYROX but theyโ€™re also perfect to use as a comparison retest to measure your improvements.

We recommend retesting your fitness level every 3 months or so and evaluate where you have made the most progress, or the least, to inform necessary adjustments to your training plan.

tips hyrox running
Photo credit sportograf.com

Conclusion: Embracing the journey to HYROX success

Now that weโ€™ve covered everything you need to know about running for HYROX and how to approach it from a training standpoint itโ€™s time to put in the work!

If youโ€™re unfamiliar with hybrid training it may feel frustrating at first, your body will need some time and experience to adapt but donโ€™t lose your cool and just keep going at it.

And if youโ€™re stressing about being prepared enough for your race, your kilometer splits or holding a certain pace, please slow down!

Donโ€™t forget you in this journey for yourself, and the first and most important thing is that you should enjoy yourself while pursuing your HYROX goals.

Remind yourself that no matter the outcome youโ€™ve shown up and put in the work.

And not only will you make yourself proud come race day but youโ€™ve done such good for your body by dedicating yourself to this amazing journey in fitness.

Alexandra Radini

by

Alexandra Radini

Alexandra Radini has been a longstanding contributor to The Progrmโ€™s blog and community. She has a Masterโ€™s degree in Food Science, and uses her background in STEM to teach others about nutrition, optimal recovery strategies and the ins-and-outs of functional fitness. If sheโ€™s not writing youโ€™ll likely find her somewhere perfecting a crazy (food) scientistย recipe.