WDM Coaching

Low skill doesn’t mean low technique.

HYROX movements might be simple compared with highly technical sports, but simple movements can still be done inefficiently.

And inefficiency has a cost.

Poor positions create extra movement. Extra movement creates more muscular work. More muscular work increases the physiological cost. Repeat that across dozens or hundreds of reps and suddenly a “small” inefficiency is no longer small.

Technique also has to survive fatigue. It is one thing to move well when fresh. It is another to keep your rhythm, positions and standards intact when breathing is high and the race has already taken its toll.

Build efficiency first. Then add speed.

Fitness gives you capacity. Efficiency decides how much of it you waste.

You don’t need to simulate HYROX every week to get better at HYROX.

Race-specific work matters, but it is expensive. It combines running, stations, muscular fatigue, cardiovascular demand, mechanical loading and a decent recovery bill afterwards.

Most of the time, the better question is whether you are actually developing the qualities the race requires.

Aerobic capacity. Threshold. Running economy. Strength. Movement efficiency. Strength endurance.

Then, as the race gets closer, you progressively connect those qualities and make the training more specific.

Simulations still have a job. They can be useful for pacing, tactics, transitions, movement splits, fuelling and race confidence.

But testing the system is not the same as building the system.

Build the capacity. Integrate it. Sharpen it. Then race.

Power-to-weight matters in HYROX, but not every part of the race rewards it in the same way.

Running makes body mass more expensive. You have to carry it for the whole race, so aerobic fitness, running economy and relative capacity all matter.

But the stations change the problem. Sleds, carries and lunges ask for force, so absolute strength matters too.

That is why chasing the lightest body or the strongest body is usually the wrong target.

The goal is not an extreme.

It is to build enough force to handle the stations without carrying more cost than you need on the runs.

Assess the limiter. Not just the scale.

Threshold training isn’t a fitness test.

The goal is not to win the first rep, chase faster splits or turn the final interval into a race because you still had something left.

The goal is accumulation.

You want enough time at the right intensity to create the signal, keep fatigue manageable and preserve the quality of the whole session.

That means controlled early, clearly working later, and still looking like the same athlete on the final rep.

Pace matters, but it doesn’t get the only vote. Heart rate and RPE help tell you whether the physiological cost still matches the purpose of the session.

Use threshold training to become fitter, not to prove how fit you already are.

A useful reminder that treadmill and overground running are similar, but not perfectly interchangeable.

In Shahidi et al.’s 2026 study, overground running showed a higher energetic cost than treadmill running at a 1% gradient, with the gap becoming more noticeable as intensity approached VT2.

That does not mean every treadmill is easier, that 2% is suddenly the answer, or that one universal pace correction exists.

It means 1% is a setting, not a law.

Use the treadmill for what it is. Use pace as the external target, then check heart rate and RPE to understand the internal cost rather than assuming the belt and the road are doing exactly the same thing.

Study: Overground running incurs a higher energetic cost than treadmill running at a 1% grade: A comparison of running economy, oxygen cost of transport, and energy cost in endurance athletes
Identifier: DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0355988 • Article number e0355988

You’re not training eight separate stations and hoping they magically add up to a good HYROX race.

You’re training one continuous race.

That means station work still matters, but it only really matters when it can hold up in context. Running before. Running after. Accumulated fatigue. The ability to settle back into rhythm and get back to running properly.

A station done well in isolation is not automatically a station done well in a race.

The goal is not just to get better at the parts. It is to make the parts work inside the whole.

Train the race the stations live inside.

You don’t need to be as strong as possible for HYROX. You need to be strong enough.

Strength matters because it gives you reserve. If you can produce more force, the relative demand of sleds, lunges, carries and wall balls becomes lower.

But strength also has a cost. More gym work means more training time, more fatigue and more recovery demand, so at some point the question has to become whether that extra strength is actually improving your race performance.

HYROX doesn’t ask you for one maximal effort. It asks you to produce force, run again, and keep repeating that while fatigue accumulates.

Build the strength. Create the reserve. Then make it repeatable and apply it in the context of the race.

Strength supports HYROX performance. It isn’t the whole performance.

80/20 is useful. It just isn’t a law.

The mistake is treating the percentage like a target you have to hit every week, regardless of how much time you actually have to train.

Easy work still matters at lower volume. It helps build aerobic capacity, supports recovery and gives you more training you can actually absorb.

The difference is the training budget.

If you have more total hours available, there is more room to accumulate easy volume around your quality days. If your total volume is lower, those same quality days naturally make up a bigger percentage of the week.

Same priorities. Different proportions.

Use 80/20 as a heuristic, not a scorecard.

Shots fired.

A lot of athletes finish a HYROX race and assume the problem was fitness.

Sometimes it is.

But plenty of the time the issue is pacing.

You did not run out of fitness. You spent too much of it too early.

Good pacing is not just picking a run pace and forcing it all day. It is managing the cost of that pace as the race changes. That is where pace, heart rate and perceived effort all matter.

The same speed can feel very different after sled push, burpees or lunges. If you ignore that, the bill usually arrives late.

Pace is the target. Heart rate and RPE tell you what you are paying for it.

The team out dropping some impressive results this weekend 💪