How Jess Pettrow Built the Aerobic Engine for HYROX’s Elite 15 — From 400m Speed to 20-Hour Training Weeks (#29)

“To be honest, the biggest improvement has just been building my aerobic capacity. My aerobic capacity was non-existent. I won't lie. Like at the beginning of my Hyrox journey. And I think actually to share my first Hyrox race, spent looking at my heart rate data, my max heart rate hit like 220, and I spent over 20 minutes above 200 beats per minute. So yeah, to think like that's where I started to where I am now, like it's just incredible.”

“If there was, honestly, if there was no racing, I would literally train the exact same way that I am because I love what I do every single day. I find that I just get so much joy out of the process and going, going to the gym and doing my training and challenging myself. The competition is just kind of like the cherry on top.”

“That's just so interesting because I think, especially against the elite 15 field of girls, if you compare, if we were just to run a straight 8km race, I think my pure running ability against the field would not be very competitive. I think I could obviously hang okay, but I think when we add in obviously all of the elements of the race together and your ability to run under fatigue, that just can produce a different sort of athlete versus your just solo running type of athlete.”

“I would say I'm putting in roughly like three to four-ish hours a day, like depending of work. Yeah, I do have a full rest day on Sunday. So yeah, what's that? I guess, like probably like 18 to 20-ish hours, I would say a week. Usually like my days are structured where I have a day that is more of an aerobic base focusing more on obviously like easy running, easy work on the ergs, strength work, accessory pieces as well. And then the day following would be more of a quality day.”

“I think, you know, Hyrox is a race of repetitive power output at a very moderate load. So the pure strength side of things is not really going to move the needle for you in the Hyrox space. I think, you know, depending if you're an athlete that is very limited in strength, there is benefit to you, you know, maybe touching on some pure strength work. However, for the majority of people working in more moderate loaded movements is going to be way more beneficial because we're not looking to move super heavyweight at all through any of the stations.”

“Underrated. I'm huge on the fuel. I take two gels. There has been a race that I've taken three, but two minimally, and that's kind of where I'm sitting right now at two. I take my first one coming into the sled push, and my second one is taken after the burpees, so right before the row.”

“And the thing now I think we're finding, and I think I said this to James, especially on the men's side, like it's, I really start to think that it's coming down to a big seven run, seven station buy-in, and then a wall ball race. Like, because it's, we're starting to see that, like it doesn't matter where you're positioned at any point in time throughout the race, but you need to make sure that you're getting to the wall balls and you're obviously in a position that you're able to make ground.”

“I think the biggest, one of the biggest tools for pacing is a lot of tabata work or EMOM work. So it's, and tracking that, right? So it's like week to week, like how many reps did you do in this certain time domain that we worked in? Now next week, how many reps are you doing? And progressing that over time, but it's teaching pacing control as well. So like, let's just say if you're doing a eight to 10 minute EMOM and you're working for a 30 seconds on 30 seconds off, it's teaching like that ability to move steadily.”

“One of the cues I teach my athletes, and it's a pretty common one, but it's making sure that you're doing a big exhale when the ball hits the target. And that's kind of like a good target or a good mental cue that as soon as that ball touch, we're doing a big exhale, a big inhale for us to receive the ball for the next rep.”

“I've had a few people that have said to me, I'm not an elite, I don't want to be in the elite field, can I train with you? And I'm actually like, I don't want to train someone that is looking to be elite, right? I actually just love training anyone of any ability. I love getting a new athlete come through my door, having a chat with them, seeing where they've come from, what their background is, what their goals are, and really just going, hey, how can we get this person from where they're at now to where they want to go?”