HCP #95 - Fitness for HYROX, Cold HYROX courses, Listener Questions

“Two-thirds of the records set there are always when the temperatures are low and humidity is low. There are so many factors that affect this race that cold temperatures, which we all know it was cold temperatures there, is between 11 to 13 degrees Celsius between all these races. One thing that I saw, I said that for every one degree Celsius above 10 degrees Celsius, you start to get diminishing, like slower returns.”

“I think HYROX Fitness to me is simply like the term sustained power output is the first thing that comes into my head. Sustained, because that word is the most important about it because it has to be sustained over a long period of time. We all know most people that do a HYROX, well, right now, it's between 50 odd minutes and sometimes even two hours. So your ability to sustain power over a long period of time is the definition of HYROX Fitness.”

“I think HYROX presents a good framework for getting people from the low end of the spectrum to the higher end, right? And it also presents a measurement tool, observable, repeatable, measurable, for people from the unhealthy, the healthy or the fit to measure themselves against, to show improvement, to show, hey, I am increasing my fitness because I'm getting better and better and better at this test.”

“18 degrees Celsius is 64.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Makes sense. What do we say? It was 11 to 13, so 12 degrees Celsius. Even on the low end, it was six degrees Celsius cooler, which is 53 degrees Fahrenheit. That's almost perfect running temperature. The 18 is where they're usually at, and now they're at 12. You're six degrees lower. You're looking at a three and a half percent improvement.”

“A yellow card issued on the first length of a lunge or the first length of a burpee would end up slowing an athlete down by almost 15 seconds anyway. Because it'll slow them down anywhere from three to five seconds per remaining length of burpees or lunges they have left to do. On your second burpee, you get a yellow card. You don't want a red card. So now all of a sudden, instead of focusing on just getting to the end, you're focusing on how tight your movement is. To prevent yourself from getting a red card, you're essentially giving yourself a red card.”

“I'm not a super fan of doing everything based on heart rate because one, lots of people measure just on their wrist. Some people have an arm band, which is better. Some people have a truss strap, which are probably the best. But additionally, like, there is not a physiological difference. It's a feeling. I do like RPE just a little bit better for that reason. I'd rather you measure something than nothing. If heart rate is all you have, then let's go off of it.”

“That zone, if you were to measure your lactate every single time during your runs, that zone is from 2.3 to about 3.1 millimoles. You're like, wait, Anthony, my LT2 is supposed to be at 4 millimoles and it's highly variable per person. Your LT1 might be low at 2 to 2.5 millimoles per person. But you need to run 2.3 to 3.1 is about the right golden zone. You can even make it tighter, 2.5 to 3.0.”