Chris Bayens | Elite Hyrox Coach

An all too common error developing athletes make in HYROX is confusing race feel with threshold pace in training. You run a race. The runs feel like an 8–9/10 RPE. So naturally, you assume: “That must be how my threshold pace feels in training.” You go back into training and start forcing your threshold runs at the pace the race felt like. But that’s the trap. Because it’s manageable in training with controlled conditions and rest periods during your intervals. But race day changes physiology. Adrenaline rises. Cortisol rises. Competition elevates arousal. Crowds increase emotional intensity. Your body floods itself with extra fuel and stimulation. And what that does is temporarily mask the true physiological cost of the effort. That’s why it is so easy to overcook the opening stages of HYROX. You easily run that first 1km too fast. Hit the ski too hard. Get through the second run still feeling “okay.” Because the stress chemistry of racing is carrying you. But then the physiology catches up. The lactate accumulates. The hydrogen ions accumulate. The fatigue your body masked early suddenly arrives all at once. And that’s where races unravel. Not because the athlete lacks fitness. But because they trained their runs too fast for what was appropriate and sustainable in race conditions. This is why many athletes would perform better by doing their threshold work slightly slower than they think they should. Building real tolerance. Real fatigue management. Real aerobic durability. Then race day comes and the stress effect elevates the perceived effort naturally. The pace feels harder — even though the pace itself is actually correct. That’s the distinction. The pace is the same. The feel is different. And this is also why experienced racers often pace better. The more race exposure you accumulate, the more familiar the environment becomes. The adrenaline spike reduces. The emotional stress decreases. The race is familiar. Only then do athletes really begin to close the gap between training feel and race feel. Train the pace. Let racing add the stress.

Threshold training is still probably one of the most misunderstood parts of HYROX running. Many athletes do a race, remember how hard the runs felt, then go back into training trying to replicate that exact feeling. That’s usually the wrong approach. Your threshold sessions are not supposed to feel like race-day. They are supposed to build the system that allows you to perform at your best on race-day. That’s a very important difference. Threshold running is essentially about improving your ability to sustain a high pace while still managing fatigue - for the duration of the event, not a hand full of intervals with rest. You are accumulating lactate and the associated hydrogen ions… but also clearing and managing them at the same time. Think of it like sitting right near the maximum speed your engine can sustain for an hour, not a 1k sprint. Once you push too far beyond that point, fatigue starts accumulating faster than your body can manage it. And this is where athletes often get confused. A HYROX race adds: • Competition • Adrenaline • Atmosphere • Crowds • Emotion • Stress All of those factors make your race pace feel significantly harder than it does in training. That does not mean your training should constantly try to recreate that sensation. The goal of threshold training is not to repeatedly simulate race-day. The goal is to gradually build an aerobic system capable of sustaining faster and faster paces under controlled fatigue. That’s why good threshold work should usually feel more like managed discomfort than survival. You should feel in control of the effort, not like you are hanging on for dear life every interval. A good guide for the appropriate intensity is if someone came up to you mid interval and said add 3 more minutes, it wouldn’t be the end of you. Because when race day arrives, the environment itself elevates the intensity. And if you’ve built the system correctly in training, you can handle that higher emotional and physiological load without completely tipping over.

One of the biggest mistakes in HYROX training is chasing “race feel” for everything. Some things? Absolutely. Others? Completely misguided. The sled is a great example of where race feel actually matters. Different gyms have different turf. Different sleds feel completely different. Some tracks feel fast. Some feel like you’re pushing through wet concrete. If your compromised sled work has you pushing 50 metres in 2:05 because the sled is light and the turf is quick… that might feel great for the ego. But in reality? That race-day sled might take you 3:30… or 4+ minutes. And that changes the entire metabolic cost of the race. My advice: Load the sled so your 50 metre push takes roughly 3:15–3:30 in compromised conditions. That tends to prepare athletes well for a wide range of race environments. If race day ends up lighter? Great. You’re over-prepared. The last thing you want is training for a 2-minute sled… then arriving on race day and getting buried for 4 minutes. But here’s where athletes make the mistake: They then try to chase “race feel” with running too. That’s where things start going wrong. Because your race runs feel harder largely due to: • Competition • Adrenaline • Atmosphere • Crowds • Stress • Emotion Trying to recreate that sensation every threshold session often just means running too hard. And that’s exactly what Part 2 is about.

In Hyrox training, it’s okay to be specific. I think many coaches, particularly early on, feel pressure to constantly provide novelty. New sessions. Different formats. More entertainment. Because if the athlete gets bored, maybe they leave. But performance and entertainment are rarely linked. And this is where “race-specific” training often becomes random circuits using Hyrox movements instead of actual specificity. 12 cal ski. 10 burpees. 12.5m sled push. 250m run. Repeat. That’s not race-specific. That’s just a circuit. In a Hyrox race, you never arrive at the sled push and suddenly get asked to complete 4 rounds of a 12.5m push & 250m run. The demands of the race are known. 1km run. 50m sled push. 1km run. Next station. Specific adaptation to imposed demand. If you want to improve at the demands of Hyrox, then impose those demands in training. Learn how it feels to run for 3-4 minutes into the sled. Learn how it feels to push exactly race distance, not 25% of it. Learn how it feels to settle back into race pace immediately after. Of course, variables can still be manipulated: pace density station emphasis fatigue profile recovery But major in the major. Hyrox is probably the most known fitness event in the world. It’s okay to be specific.

Following on from the previous post, the next consideration becomes programming and implementation. Where can very high-intensity work actually fit into a Hyrox program? Personally, I find this style of session often works best as the second session of a tempo/threshold running day. The goal is not simply fatigue. The goal is to expose the cardiovascular system to very high heart rates while still using movements relevant to Hyrox. Although running sprints and hill sprints are effective, I am generally mindful of the mechanical cost they carry — particularly close to an A race. At this stage, availability matters. You cannot race well if you are injured. So I will often favour lower-impact methods that still create extremely high cardiac demand: • SkiErg • Echo Bike • Wall balls • Burpees • Kettlebell swings • Dumbbell work The structure I consistently come back to is simple: • 3–4 rounds • 3–4 minutes work • 60 seconds recovery The goal: Get the heart rate very high and sustain it there. Realistically, we are chasing roughly 3–5 total minutes at very high cardiac output. Less fit athletes may only need 2 rounds. More is not always better. Highly trained athletes often will not reach these heart rates until late in the round, so more sets may be appropriate. Once the target time at that intensity has been reached, the session can be stopped. Used correctly, this type of work can be very useful in the final weeks before a major race — but only if it sharpens performance without accumulating unnecessary fatigue.

Five weeks out from an A race like Hyrox Worlds is often where many athletes begin strategically introducing small amounts of very high-intensity work. Not because Hyrox suddenly becomes a sprint. And not because you are trying to build an entirely new engine in the final month - you can’t cram for a Hyrox. The goal is to sharpen the fitness that’s already there. From a physiological perspective, very high-intensity work can help maintain: • Cardiac output capacity • Peak heart rate exposure • VO₂ kinetics • High-end aerobic enzyme activity • Tolerance to rapid surges in effort and pressure And although Hyrox is primarily aerobic, the race still contains repeated moments of very high physiological stress: • Fast opening paces • Burpee broad jump surges • Sled push cardiac loading • Late-race pace changes under fatigue & 100 wall balls for good measure! Small doses of very high-intensity work can help maintain familiarity with those sensations and sharpen high-end race readiness. But the benefits come with a cost. This type of work also creates: • Higher sympathetic stress • Larger neuromuscular fatigue • Greater glycogen depletion • Increased recovery demands • Greater risk of autonomic suppression if overused Which is why timing matters. For many athletes, the next 2–3 weeks can be an appropriate time to strategically expose the body to these intensities before taper and deload begin roughly 10–14 days before race day. The mistake is assuming more intensity automatically means more performance. At this stage of preparation, the goal is not simply to build fitness. It is to arrive sharp, fresh and capable of expressing it.

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Fitness is adaptation. And adaptation leaves clues. Three of the simplest markers to track over time: 1. Resting Heart Rate In many athletes, a gradual reduction in resting heart rate is a sign the heart is becoming more efficient, often linked to increased stroke volume and improved aerobic fitness. 2. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) For novice and intermediate athletes, HRV will often trend upward as aerobic fitness and recovery improve. As athletes become more advanced, stability becomes the goal. A long-term downward trend is rarely something you want to see. 3. Recovery Heart Rate How quickly your heart rate drops after hard exercise matters. Faster recovery between efforts and after sessions is generally a strong indicator of improving conditioning and autonomic recovery. Fitness is not just about what happens during training. It is about how the body responds, adapts and recovers from it.

The athletes who succeed long-term in Hyrox aren’t always the ones who just train the hardest. They’re the ones managing overall stress the best. Because stress is stress. Your body doesn’t separate: work stress relationship stress financial stress sleep deprivation and most importantly training stress It all draws from the same pool of recovery resources. That’s why training stress has to be the last stress you add to your life. Not the first. One of the biggest mistakes I see is athletes trying to copy the volume of full-time professionals without having the lifestyle that supports it. An elite athlete training 18–20 hours a week may also have: 9 hours sleep every night minimal financial stress perfect nutrition time between sessions recovery built into their day less overall life load That’s very different to someone working 50+ hours a week, raising kids, managing a mortgage, commuting, and living in a constant state of low-grade stress. Can some people force themselves to train through that? Absolutely. Drive, grit, and discipline can push you to perform high volumes temporarily. But adaptation is different to performance. Many people can survive the workload. Far fewer can actually absorb it, recover from it, and improve because of it. That’s the difference. For some people, 18 hours per week is productive. For others, 8–10 hours done consistently, recovered from properly, and layered into a manageable life will produce far better long-term progress. Slow progress is still progress. Injury, burnout, chronic fatigue, and inconsistency are not. The goal isn’t to train as much as possible. The goal is to train as much as you can recover from.

One of the biggest mistakes in Hyrox training is misunderstanding how the body produces energy. Because ATP — the body’s energy currency — can be produced in different ways. And the way it’s produced carries different physiological costs. Some systems can produce ATP extremely quickly. But they fatigue rapidly. Others produce ATP much slower, but are dramatically more sustainable and carry far lower fatigue costs. This is important because Hyrox is not simply about producing the most energy possible. It’s about producing enough energy to sustain a high output for a long period of time while managing fatigue effectively. That changes how we should think about training. Because every time you train, you are stressing specific energy systems. Long aerobic work stresses the body differently to short maximal intervals. Threshold work stresses the body differently to repeated sprint work. A hard sled push creates a different energy demand to steady running. Different systems. Different costs. Different adaptations. This is where many athletes get lost. They chase the feeling of fatigue instead of understanding the physiology creating it. But fatigue itself is not the goal. The goal is improving the body’s ability to: • Produce energy efficiently • Sustain output for longer • Recover faster between efforts • Accumulate fatigue more slowly And in a race like Hyrox, that matters enormously. Because the athlete who best manages energy and fatigue across the entire race is usually the athlete who performs best.

Everything in Hyrox comes back to energy. More specifically: How the body produces energy. How long it can produce it for. And the cost of producing it. Because every movement in the body requires ATP. ATP is the body’s energy currency. It is what powers muscle contraction and ultimately allows movement to occur. The body is constantly breaking down fuel to regenerate ATP so we can continue producing force and movement. The important thing is this: The body can produce ATP through different energy systems. Each system has strengths. Each system has limitations. And each system carries a different physiological cost. Some systems produce ATP extremely quickly, but fatigue rapidly. Others produce ATP much slower, but can sustain output for much longer with far less fatigue accumulation. The body is always shifting between these systems depending on the intensity and duration of the task. Sprint for 10 seconds and the demand is different. Run for 60 minutes and the demand changes completely. Push a heavy sled and energy demand changes again. This is where understanding Hyrox actually begins. Because Hyrox is fundamentally an energy management and fatigue management race. The athlete who wins is not simply the athlete who can suffer the most. It is usually the athlete who can: • Produce the required energy most efficiently • Accumulate fatigue the slowest • Recover the fastest between efforts • Stay predominantly in sustainable energy production for as long as possible That changes how training should be approached. Because training is ultimately the process of improving the body’s ability to produce ATP efficiently under the demands of the sport. Every interval. Every long aerobic session. Every threshold piece. Every strength endurance workout. All of it is targeting energy production and fatigue management in some way. And once you understand that, you stop viewing Hyrox as random suffering and start understanding it as physiology.

There’s a misunderstanding I see constantly in Hyrox running. People think faster running automatically equals better Hyrox performance. But just because you can run hard… doesn’t mean you should. After a number of consults recently, the pattern is quite clear. Athletes are filling their “quality” sessions with hard 500s, aggressive 1Ks, constantly hanging on at intensities that are simply too high to train the actual system that determines Hyrox performance. And that’s where threshold gets misunderstood. In normal language, threshold sounds like the absolute limit. The maximum something can tolerate. But in endurance physiology, threshold is not maximal effort. Threshold is the highest intensity where the body can still manage fatigue in a controlled way for the event duration. That distinction matters. Because Hyrox is not a race won by repeatedly producing massive fatigue spikes. It’s won by producing a manageable level of fatigue… over and over again… for 60–90 minutes. The athletes excelling in the sport understand this. They spend most of their quality running at moderately high intensities where lactate is being produced, hydrogen ions are accumulating, breathing rate is elevated, but the system is still under control. That is the adaptation. Teaching the body to: • Produce fatigue • Buffer fatigue • Clear fatigue • Continue moving efficiently while fatigue is present That’s the sport. If every quality session turns into hard running, you’re no longer teaching the body to manage fatigue. You’re teaching yourself how to suffer for short periods relying on rest to save you. They’re not the same thing. That doesn’t mean harder VO₂-style running has no place. It absolutely can. Early in a block it can help drive central cardiovascular adaptations. Closer to race day it can sharpen the system and improve top-end aerobic power. But for the majority of Hyrox athletes, the bulk of quality running should sit in that threshold range where the goal is sustained fatigue management, not repeated system failure. Because Hyrox is not about seeing how hard you can go for 4 minutes. It’s about how well you