BUILD AEROBIC BASE

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It's better to measure something than it is to measure nothing. So that could account for heart rate. That could account for muscle oxygenation. That could account for VO two max. That could account for really anything. It's better to measure something than it is to not measure anything. So if you're measuring VO two max, you can get a rough idea.”

“People had some really big knee jerk reactions to that I that I heard online and listening to other podcasts and stuff to some of the changes. But it's like, why don't we wait for everything to come out before we make it the, like, a decision or because these knee jerk reactions, it's like, oh, why are they doing that? Well, now they're showing you, like, hey, this is a transition year. This is coming. Other things are coming. And it's like, oh, maybe, you know, they do have a plan, and we just don't know it all right now.”

“If you follow Triathlon and Ironman, like, you've probably heard of the name Christian Blumberg who's, I guess is one of the most iconic, Ironman, 70.3 and also Olympic distance athletes in the world. He measured the biggest z o two max score ever in history. He cracked a 100. A 102 is his VO two max score. Long story short, the race afterwards, like his first race after doing that VO2 Max max was three or four weeks ago in New Zealand. He placed seventh at this Ironman.”

“If you wanna increase your VO two max, one of the and you're new, especially, like, I'd say low level, it's basically just move. One of the things you could do as the most simple thing is six days a week, either go for a run or ride a bike. Doesn't have to be long. Twenty minutes, maybe. And one of those days, do it on a as a fartlek. So, like, do 10 or eight by one minute hard, two minutes easy. And do that fartlek once a week for four weeks.”

“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.”

“Matlock revealed that head one is coming, and that stands for head, h e d, is Hyrock's elite division one, which as I understand it afterwards is basically a b heat that'll be run earlier in the day of if first through fifteenth, whatever roll downs, the 15 top athletes compete in heat one at a major next year, the sixteenth to thirtieth rank with x amount of roll downs, it wasn't specific, will be run earlier in the day on the same grid course.”

“I had was not prepared to to do this test, and I felt kinda sick as I as I started to do the test. They gave me these, like, wipes to wipe down. As I was, like, finishing up, they're asking me how I am and, like, walking me through what the numbers mean and stuff. And all of a sudden, I felt sick and there was a trash can right there, and I just start dry heaving into the trash can until finally I start puking into the trash can that was right next to it. We get into the car, the Uber, and we start driving. We're about fifteen minutes into this drive, and I'm like, pull over. He pulls over on the side of London. I open the door, dude, and, like, a gallon of vomit just hopped inside the car.”

“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?”

“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 guarantee I would I've said this to a a a few people before. I guarantee I'd put my put my house on it that I would not right now, I would not run a sub 6,400 meters. I think Lauren could beat me in a 400 for sure. I know Jess Petro could right now for sure. Lauren, and I think Jess Petro would beat me in a 400 meter dash.”

“You can increase your VO two max and not get any better. Absolutely. Does not correlate to performance. There are a plethora of studies that show that that, like, they're they're just all over the place. If you took a bunch of people that were from 50 to 70, and I'm fifty fifty eight b o two max at 37 years old, if if you have anybody that's in that range, you could not predict the results of a race just based on our b o two max.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”