Hello and welcome to the progress theory, where we discuss scientific principles for optimising human performance.

In this episode, we are joined by Hyrox athlete and the host of the Roxlyfe podcast, Greg Williams. Now, Hyrox is a functional fitness event which is gaining massively in popularity. It involves running and functional fitness stations and seems to be very popular with the hybrid, crossfit and running communities. Greg on his Roxlyfe podcast has interviewed many of the elite athletes, so I wanted to speak to him to find out exactly what it takes to reach the elite level of Hyrox.

In this episode, we discuss:

2:13 - The genesis of the RoxLyfe podcast
4:20 - What is Hyrox?
11:05 - How Greg Trains for Hyrox
13:18 - How much strength do you need?
14:27 - transitioning from being a sprinter to Hyrox
17:30 - What separates the elites from the rest
24:40 - Mindset & pressure is a privilege
31:37 - Importance of structuring your year
37:50 - Where to start training for hyrox
42:58 - The future of Hyrox

Key Thoughts

Elite Athlete Performance: "I think there's some people that just don't deal with that very well. And the elites of the sport do."
Taking Risks in Sport: "You've got to take risks. And like you said, you can convince yourself you're pushing yourself hard, but not going quite as hard as you can."
Overcoming Fear in sports: "I think it can be taught or practised. And I think some of it is just like not tying yourself or your happiness to the outcome or the final time or your position."
Race data analysis: "Often it's the running, because that's essentially 50% of the race. That is a major factor."
Elite Athletes' Season Structure: "I think there's a level of maturity in someone like Hunter and some of the other experienced athletes with how they structure their season."
Elite Racing Strategies: "He knows he can probably run one race and qualify, whereas there's others that are trying to get a time in a regular race to qualify for those majors to then try and qualify for the world championships through those majors."
Quote: "But certainly running is the critical element for most people in the race. Compromise running, I should say. So getting to a point where they're comfortable with that over that sort of time domain as well, is the most important thing."
The Importance of Experience in Endurance Racing: "And there is a huge amount to be said for experience and pacing properly, all that sort of stuff. Most people vastly overestimate their ability in a race."
The Global Expansion of Functional Fitness Events: "From a business perspective, it seemingly is continuing to grow rapidly, and I think that's deliberate. I don't know how they're doing profit wise, but I think they're really trying to make an imprint in as many countries as possible."
Professionalising a Sport: "They want them to become professional, they want them to be able to get their own sponsorship, and they're facilitating that through a doing quite high quality, in theory, like broadcast and live streams of those elite races."

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The Science of Hybrid Training

It was originally thought that you could not effectively train for both strength and endurance at the same time because they required different adaptations which were not compatible with each other. It was claimed that ‘an interference effect’, blunted the adaptations for strength if you simultaneously trained for endurance. However, recent developments in sports which require both strength and endurance have really challenged this idea, with hybrid athletes producing impressive performances in both strength and endurance sports together. This had led scientists, coaches, and athletes to rethink what is humanly possible and suggests the interference effect is not as influential as originally thought. But what is a hybrid athlete? What is the ‘interference effect’? And how can we maximize our training to improve at the same time our strength and endurance performance? In this book, Dr Phil Price provides insight into the misconceptions surrounding strength and endurance training by distilling the past 50 years of research and drawing on the conversations he had with great scientists, coaches, and athletes on The Progress Theory podcast. This book is essential reading for hybrid athletes and coaches who are looking to understand the key training variables and their effect on the simultaneous development of strength and endurance performance.

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