HYROX Doubles Training, Sled Push Without a Sled & HYROX and Ironman | ENDUROX Podcast Ep. 8
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Adam Storey (00:13)
Drum roll, we need a drum roll, actually. We need to somehow get funding or a sponsor to have a nice drum roll entry for us. But yeah, we're here. Welcome, welcome, my friend.
Dan Plews (00:23)
It's been a while, hasn't it? We've been a bit busy, so we apologise to those who are listening. I think people are just waiting for the next drop of the ENDUROX podcast.
Adam Storey (00:37)
Well, we've been like two ships in the night, haven't we? We've been in different parts of the world, you and I. And yeah, we've actually got a lot to discuss. I'm going to kick off with what's most recent, and that was the DRS8 Deadly Dozen on the weekend. It's been a tough, tough wee journey. Do you want to give the listeners an update on what came of it?
Dan Plews (01:02)
To rewind from the start, anyone who follows me on Instagram knows 2026 has been a bit of a journey. I started with HYROX Auckland, which I barely got through with an Achilles injury. I managed to hobble my way around, but the last half of it was pretty much a disaster. That was the start of a pretty bad plantar fasciitis after Melbourne, which led into the Achilles problem. I'd also put in for a double cheilectomy on my toes. From years and years of training, bone spurs had grown over both toe joints, and I was trying to get that fixed. Long story short, the operation went well, but the Achilles took ages to come back. Ages. Three PRPs in my Achilles as a result.
Finally it started to come right after about six months. In fact, more like seven months. Slowly I got my fitness back. I was probably the fittest I've been in a long time and I was looking forward to getting back into racing, so I did the Deadly Dozen at the weekend. You were there watching. I was in what they'd call the quote unquote elite wave. I did the first run and finished the farmers carry. I was just about to put the kettlebells down and slipped at a very awkward angle in the wet grass and ruptured my syndesmosis in the ankle. By all accounts, from what everyone keeps telling me as I've been discussing it, it's a more severe ankle sprain.
Dan Plews (02:48)
For those who don't know, the syndesmosis is the ligament that attaches your fibula and your tibia. There's a posterior and an anterior part, and there's also one that goes right down the middle, straight up the centre between the fibula and tibia. Now I'm just in the position of having had two X-rays, an ultrasound, and an MRI yesterday. So I'm looking to get to the bottom of the severity of the rupture and where exactly it is. If it's all three, I could be looking at a surgery where they put a wire through both the fibula and the tibia and start to pull it together again. Regardless, it's going to be a long rehab journey.
Adam Storey (03:37)
Yeah, and unfortunately I did witness it. At the time I just thought you'd slipped and hit your ankle on the kettlebells that were on the ground. But it turned out to be a lot worse, because you just didn't get up. I was chatting to one of our other athletes, David Barton, a former AFL player, about how it's a common injury in AFL and rugby. With studded boots, players get their foot stuck in the ground and then their ankle twists in that high area. So for you to do it with a bloody farmers carry is a real bugger, man.
Dan Plews (04:27)
It's a really weird one. I spoke on Monday to a friend of mine, Alex Ridby, who's head of performance for the Gold Coast Suns, because he has a lot of experience, and like you say, with AFL players it's mega common. It was really weird at the time, because I fell and I heard a pop. And if you remember, I was holding my shin more than anything. My upper leg was killing me immediately, not my ankle. My ankle swelled up like a balloon, but since then I'd say I've had more pain in my peroneals than in the ankle, to be fair. That makes it slightly more concerning, because it probably means it's ruptured quite high up in the syndesmosis, between the fibula and the tibia. Anyway, it's been an eventful week and a start to the school holidays. Unpopular at home, as you can imagine.
Adam Storey (05:39)
Yeah, and it's tough on you, Plewsy. I do sincerely feel for you. You and I have dealt with our fair share of injured athletes over the years. So what's going through your head at the moment, in terms of next steps, and how are you keeping afloat?
Dan Plews (06:00)
I think the hardest thing at the moment is that I need a plan, and I don't have one, because I don't really know the extent of it. Someone asked me the other day how I'm coping, and it's way worse mentally than physically, because you're so used to building your life around exercising. What's been really hard is that I've got a lot of athletes, some in HYROX, some in Kona, and lots of them are having their fair share of niggles at the moment. Kona is coming up this weekend. Listening to everyone else's problems has been surprisingly tough. You do your best, but you've got athletes with small niggles who are still training, and you're having to console them, and in the meantime I can't even walk without crutches. That's been tough. As soon as I can do something again and have a plan in place, I think things will get better. You've just got to stay optimistic as best you can. Anyway.
Dan Plews (07:25)
And you have just got back from São Paulo with the Red Bull HYROX Coaches Camp. I was living vicariously through you online, seeing what you were setting up with testing some of the coaches. Tell us a bit about that. It seemed pretty exciting.
Adam Storey (07:47)
Yeah, it was a really great opportunity and I'm really grateful to be part of it. Red Bull has always been a bucket list company for me to do some work with over the years.
Dan Plews (07:58)
Did it give you wings?
Adam Storey (08:01)
I had my fair share of Red Bulls over there, I'll tell you that.
Dan Plews (08:06)
On the flight back, like this.
Adam Storey (08:08)
Yeah, it got me through that 35 hour trip home. But it was a really cool experience. For people unaware of it, it's a Red Bull, all expenses paid trip for 60 coaches from around the world. There was a selection process where people submitted their bios, coaching backgrounds and philosophies, and 60 coaches were selected from 28 different countries. It was a cool spectrum, too. Some coaches are working with people who are still relatively new to HYROX, building them up for their first event. Some coach people at podium level or qualifying for Worlds. Some coach Elite 15 athletes, and some were Elite 15 athletes themselves who moved into coaching. A really cool demographic and a cool way to share knowledge across the board.
The idea was to deliver practical workshops, with theory in a classroom setting but then applying the learnings in practice. As you were learning too, we did some pre-cooling testing, running people through the effects of ice towels versus ice slushies versus no cooling, and seeing how that affects their heart rate and thermal sensation. On reflection, Dr. Bryna Chrismas was my colleague doing the lab with me, and we asked each other what our highlight of the whole camp was. We both agreed it was the lab. You'll be familiar with this: nowadays when we do data collection, I'm typically helping my master's and PhD students, so it's not really my data collection. I haven't actually done data collection myself since my PhD, back in 1948. So it felt like I was back in the lab, and it was quite exciting. It felt like being a student all over again, and same with Bryna. We got some joy out of that.
Dan Plews (10:28)
Back on the ground. Did you actually collect some meaningful data? Take us through what the protocol was.
Adam Storey (10:35)
Yeah. As mentioned, we had 60 coaches, and we broke them into three conditions. One group did a standardised warm-up with no pre-cooling intervention. Another did the same standardised warm-up but used external cooling, which was ice towels. The third did the same warm-up but with internal cooling, so ice slushies with some electrolytes. Throughout the standardised warm-up, at set times they captured their heart rate, RPE, thermal sensation and thermal comfort scores. After the warm-up they did a 1K time trial on a SkiErg.
We got some really cool results. Both cooling methods kept RPE, heart rate and thermal scores down all the way through the warm-up protocol. We also showed a slight difference between the external cooling and the internal methods. But for a quick and dirty practical workshop, it was a great opportunity for the coaches to see, and most importantly feel, the effects of those pre-cooling methods themselves.
Dan Plews (12:08)
Nice. Did each group do all the conditions, or did each group just do one? I'm guessing just one. That would be a bit much, asking for three 1K time trials in the space of a few hours, which would be quite harsh. So who was presenting with you? Is it Bryna Chrismas, you said?
Adam Storey (12:15)
No, we didn't have time to cross over. And yeah, Bryna Chrismas. She's an absolute legend. She's based over in the UK, at Loughborough, and her research has two main areas: heat acclimation and women's health. She also did some work with Piers Plowman, our HYROX 365 colleague, on skill development within training sessions. As opposed to nice clean training sessions with set rest periods, how can you manipulate those sessions to include what we call dual-task loading, where you're cognitively working through problems while doing a physical output? Because on race day, that's exactly what happens. You're figuring out pacing, you're working out when you can make a surge, while still trying to maintain.
Dan Plews (13:35)
A bit like what we talked about with Josh and the race brain, right? Trying to get control of that during competition. I was thinking about it the other day. Even with something like Ironman triathlon, you'd think there's not much going on and not much to think about. But the number of times people lose their brain and do something stupid with nutrition they've never done before, suddenly take on loads more than they ever have, and then their pacing goes out the window. It's a true thing. Keeping calm and sticking with the plan under pressure is real.
Adam Storey (14:10)
It is, 100%. And on that topic, Plewsy, you had a hell of a training camp yourself while you were overseas.
Dan Plews (14:20)
Yeah, I did, and I got pretty fit for that period. I've been in HYROX training for so long, but it was nice to get back into the full swing with four of my age group athletes who were training for Kona. We had a Kona training camp and I got straight back into the Ironman training. I did a couple of strength sessions, but mostly a lot of long rides. I ran 80K that week, which is a lot for me considering where I've been, and I ended up doing 26 hours of training in total that week.
I have to say it was really nice. It reminded me that if I had to put one over the other, Ironman training is harder than HYROX training, but it's also quite different. It's a very different kind of draining. You're very drained, but you're not quite as sore. HYROX training makes you a bit sore, but you don't get that global, overall fatigue. And it's mental as well. Some of the guys did a four hour ride and then ran 20K off the bike. It's not for the faint hearted. That's massive. If you think about it, they didn't even do anywhere near the race distance. The bike was four hours, but it wasn't at race intensity. The event is a big event, and I think it's harder, which is why you don't get people off the couch going to do an Ironman. There are people at my kids' school doing HYROX, and no one doing an Ironman. If they do an Ironman, it's a big deal.
It also made me think that sort of training would be beneficial for anyone doing a HYROX: a designated period of that kind of aerobic load. Especially if you're not from an endurance background, you'd get a massive benefit from it, and I think you'd really improve as well.
Adam Storey (16:47)
Yeah, well, I've got a few questions for you. This topic will segue into some of our listeners' questions, actually. My first question to you: once you dipped your dirty toe back into that pond, do you have any inklings or desires to go further into it again?
Dan Plews (17:10)
I'd be lying if I said I didn't, but I think it's the mystique of being in Kona as well. The reality is it's very hard to do well at with young kids. I think you can do the sport, but if you really want to be good, there's a lot of sacrifice, and I'm not willing to do that. Whereas with HYROX you can be done and dusted in a couple of hours. If you're really taking Ironman training seriously, it's long days. Five hour days, and that's the end of it.
Adam Storey (17:54)
And you said you got up to 80K running. How did you find that step up, not only in running volume but in training volume?
Dan Plews (18:05)
As I said, don't try this at home, kids. It's not to be recommended, because I went from about 45 to 80 in the space of a week. But I was fine, to be honest. I wasn't running fast. There were four of my athletes, all at very different speeds, so I separated my time between them as much as I could. Even on the bike, say we were doing intervals of four by 40 minutes, you have to turn around on your second 40 minute interval and start coming back, so we'd time it like that. I'd also run the first quarter with one athlete, the next quarter with another, and the next quarter with another, so I wasn't running at my own pace all the time. I think that made a difference to how my legs came through. But I was actually fine. My body coped really well. It's what you're used to as well. Your body adapts and falls back into something you've done all the time. It was a great way to build that CTL up.
Adam Storey (19:15)
Excellent. On that topic, I'm actually going to interview you a little bit, Plewsy, because some of these questions will definitely be right up your alley, if you're comfortable with that.
Dan Plews (20:20)
Yeah, well, I think some are right up yours as well, to be fair.
Adam Storey (20:25)
They are. With some of this Kona chat we can probably lean into a few of them. Just for the listeners' context, this week we put out a bit of a bat signal for any questions people might have that we'd be happy to discuss on the podcast today. We had a really good response, so I shall dive in. There are ones around, for example, planning with ultras, Ironman and gravel. It sounds like we've got some listeners trying to juggle multiple events. How do you see the planning with ultras and Ironman?
Dan Plews (21:19)
This was from, I don't know the name, but the Instagram handle was th_jrgns. Is that the one? Yeah.
Adam Storey (21:29)
Yep. There are actually two questions bleeding into that one. There's that one, and a somewhat similar one around whether a marathon build-up is an ideal thing to do for a HYROX. What are your thoughts on those two, please?
Dan Plews (21:45)
Great question. Some sports lend themselves more towards doing well in HYROX than others. The longer you go, the more it deviates away from being optimal for HYROX. If I had to choose the ultimate running event for HYROX, I'd choose a half marathon. That's the ultimate duration and pace. If you run a good half marathon, you'll likely run a very good HYROX. But as you get into ultras, Ironman and gravel, the answer is: yes, you can do well in these events, but can you do as well as you possibly could while training for HYROX? No. I think there's a degree of body composition and body size that has to be optimised to do exceptionally well in those events compared to HYROX. If you really want to be good at Ironman, you can't carry any excess upper body muscle. For your wall balls, sled pushes and sled pulls, that just isn't going to help you at all. So it's hard to optimise both.
I think you can do well in both. You can optimise for HYROX, have fun and do okay in those events, but you can't do your best in both. You'll find you can't PB in one and PB in the other if you've really optimised for one. For me, if I'm training for HYROX and I do an Ironman, there's no way I'll do as well as I ever have. I think that would be the case for anyone in that situation. But there are definite benefits for your HYROX from cycling and from aiming for those events while maintaining the other, and then coming back around and doing it again. I'm coaching a lady in Thailand at the moment who's training for both HYROX and triathlon, and she's really thriving. I think she's actually going to go better in HYROX because of the triathlon training, though her endurance background isn't as strong as someone from a pure triathlon background. If we took someone like Tom Rogers, Matt Slee or Pelayo, who have very strong triathlon backgrounds, we'd never get them as good as they were at triathlon while doing HYROX. But it's all within the context.
Like I say, concentrating on triathlon for a period, accepting that you're not going to focus on HYROX for that time, could be very beneficial to build your aerobic base. You may find that holds true when you come back around and focus on HYROX. With the lady I'm coaching in Thailand, she's training for Laguna Phuket at the moment, so we're doing mostly triathlon training with a couple of strength sessions with EMOMs here and there, and just keeping the HYROX stuff ticking over so the movements are still there. Then we'll switch it around. She's naturally also quite strong, so it depends where your weaknesses lie as well.
Adam Storey (25:17)
That's great. I completely agree with you on the half marathon comparison to HYROX. People new to it will often say they've run a half marathon before, so it's that duration, feel and training intensity you need to be familiar with.
Dan Plews (25:39)
And the running paces are very similar.
Adam Storey (25:42)
Yeah. That segues to my next question. What about doubles racing? Some people say it's more geared towards a 10K kind of intensity. There was a question from Jack Tompkins: how does training for doubles compare to solo training, and is there more stress on VO2? What are your thoughts on that? Is it still about pacing?
Dan Plews (26:08)
It's an interesting one. There's definitely a more anaerobic component to doubles racing than there is to singles racing. But in my opinion, that doesn't mean you should assume you have to train your anaerobic system more, because it's your aerobic system that allows you to recover and use that anaerobic system again. The best thing you can do for doubles is still to train very much like you would for singles. But I think you want to practise slightly different techniques on some stations, and maybe do a little less wall ball density. You probably don't need as many wall balls in your week if you're just doing doubles, but practising your technique for faster execution is really important. You see it in the burpees all the time. In doubles, people suddenly do the jump up, jump down technique and make a big gap, whereas no one does that in singles, but you have to practise it. Same with the wall balls: a higher carry, popping them faster, faster cycle rates. You need to practise that in training. I think those would be the main differences. At the end of the day, it's your aerobic system. It's been shown in the research. I can't remember the name of the paper, but I actually did an Instagram post on it. It showed that how fast you can reconstitute your anaerobic power is directly related to your threshold and your aerobic capacity. So you've got to build that, because even if you have the highest anaerobic capacity in the world, if you can't reconstitute it, it's hopeless.
Adam Storey (28:01)
Your point about practising the skill of moving fast is so important as well. That's your ability to drive from your brain down to your muscle, as a skill, and that develops over time. Your ability to hold speed, or a fast movement, in a coordinated fashion needs to be trained and built out. If you're not used to doing burpees at a higher cadence or walking lunges at a higher cadence, you'll boom and bust. That skill needs to be learned.
Circling back to Ironman and body types and upper body carriage: Christian Blummenfelt has a big torso. Give me your thoughts on that, please. He's quite a unique body type and obviously an absolute weapon.
Dan Plews (28:54)
When you say a big torso, I wouldn't say it's a muscular torso, though. It's a very thick rib cage. If you see him with his shirt off, his ribs almost come out. It's a very strange shape. Would he be good at HYROX? I mean, if he trained for it he probably would, but I don't think he would if he just jumped in off the bat.
Adam Storey (29:24)
That was actually a question from Jack G. Cullen: would he be good at HYROX?
Dan Plews (29:27)
Yeah, exactly. I think he'd crush a doubles time with someone who could run fast as well, because if they could share the load, they'd be okay. But without training... If that were the case, all the best triathletes, the best endurance athletes, would be coming in and cleaning up all the HYROXs, which isn't usually the case. He obviously has the potential. But he's quite heavy. I think he's in the eighties, 80 kilos. He's spent a lot of time this year purposely trying to get lighter as well. I'm convinced that GLP-1 microdosing is rife within those elite circles now. GLPs aren't illegal yet, are they?
Adam Storey (30:34)
Not yet. On a previous podcast, when I was over at World Champs, I was talking to someone who's on the Medical Advisory Council for HYROX, and he's done a lot of work directly with WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency. He said they'll most likely be on the list next year, 2027.
Dan Plews (30:54)
From what I can understand talking to people, it's quite common and becoming increasingly common, particularly the microdosing. Having said that, microdosing GLPs is also seemingly a bit of a longevity drug. So it comes back to: if you're doing it for your health but it's affecting your performance, it's a grey area, and it's so hard to decide. I'm going off point here, but say it proves that microdosing GLP-1s is really good for your longevity and lifespan, and it's also helping you get a bit leaner and helping your HYROX performance. Where do you decide? At the end of the day, everyone's doing HYROX because they want to live healthier, or they're doing any sport because they want to live healthier. It's interesting, to say the least.
Adam Storey (31:53)
It is such a polarising topic, especially after the Enhanced Games this year. There was that debate: is it a health promoter or a performance enhancer? Where do you draw the line?
Dan Plews (32:07)
Yeah. But there's always going to be a crossover, isn't there? It's not going to be mutually exclusive in all cases. Some, like steroids, are obvious. But there's such a grey area. I'll be interested to see where it goes in 2027.
Adam Storey (32:28)
100%. And I don't know which competition it was, but one of the people from HYROX said that at a recent competition they randomly drug tested the age groupers as well. I think it's going to be...
Dan Plews (32:41)
You said that was the Deadly Dozen, yeah. Did they catch any? Do you know if they caught anyone? We can name and shame on the podcast.
Adam Storey (32:49)
No, I'm not too sure. But people think the age group level is a free, open slather, go for gold thing, and potentially it's not going to be now, because they'll be testing. So watch this space.
Dan Plews (33:04)
It's interesting. Even now, I'm here with an injured tendon. Could I be taking some kind of peptide to help me in this situation? BPC-157 would be the obvious choice for me right now, but it's not legal. I'm severely injured, so where's the line drawn? It's a tricky one, but that's a good case in point.
Dan Plews (33:58)
Can I ask you a question next? This is a good one that's right up your street, from Mel Hotbolt. I feel like I'm butchering the names, maybe. We do our best. Sorry, Mel. "I don't have sled access and I'm racing a sim event in November. How should I train the sled push and pull?"
Adam Storey (34:25)
Yeah, great question, Mel. Unfortunately a lot of people come across that situation where they just don't have access to sleds, or the gym uses the turf as a stretching area, so the sleds are out of action. But there are a couple of ways around it. If you've got access to, for example, a leg press, heavy compound lifts will be really good to a certain degree. One thing to bear in mind is that leg press and back squats are bilateral in nature. They're great for developing your overall peak force, but in terms of specificity to a sled push, which is unilateral, there could be a bit of a gap there. Plewsy, a question from the audience.
Dan Plews (35:11)
I do have a question on that one. Why not do single leg leg press?
Adam Storey (35:16)
Well, you just cut my mustard, mate. I was just segueing to that. So the next thing you can lock on to is movement specificity. Single leg leg press, who would have thought, Plewsy? Or other things like walking lunges. Some gyms have self-propelled treadmills where you can absolutely ramp up the resistance and do almost a sled movement on the treadmill, and those are pretty good. Don't discount isometrics either, because with the sled push it's about getting your body position accustomed to it. Back squats have the disadvantage of working in the vertical plane, whereas with sled pushes you need to get into that semi-horizontal position. So develop your strength, especially through your posterior chain. I'm sure everyone can see my posterior chain based on my arm.
Even just pushing against a squat rack and mimicking the sled push hold positions will be very important. The reason I say that is, in this week's Engine Room newsletter, I do a bit of a shout out on injury data. What we're seeing across all injury profiles in HYROX is overuse injuries going through the roof, and they're typically tendon related. Tendons respond to load. So if you can do things like heavy isometric work, that's going to help give you strong Achilles. Often people who don't do a lot of sled work and then go from zero to hero will get a niggly Achilles afterwards.
Dan Plews (37:08)
And plantar fascia.
Adam Storey (37:10)
Yes, plantar fascia, 100%.
Dan Plews (37:11)
Plantar fascia is a real niggler. If you do a lot of sled push work, my plantar fascia gets really fired up.
Adam Storey (37:17)
100%. So circling back to that injury data, Achilles, patellar tendon and plantar fascia were the big three grumpy areas to be mindful of.
Dan Plews (37:30)
Sled pull?
Adam Storey (37:32)
Pull, yes. If you break down the mechanics of the sled pull, there's obviously a big upper body pull component, but it's also quite quad dominant with the backward stepping. So do things to build your capacity for your quads, like sissy squats. If you don't know what a sissy squat is, just YouTube it. It's a great, very quad dominant movement to build capacity. Spanish squats as well. Just Google that one. It's quite a unique squat exercise, which is also primarily quad driven. Those exercises build capacity in your quads, which is great for the sled pull. Then things like dumbbell rows and all those accessory movements will be highly beneficial for the full body pulling component as well. Hopefully there are some good workarounds there for you now.
Dan Plews (38:30)
What about cable pulls? Sometimes you've got a cable machine and you can put the rope on it, literally pull it, walk it back, and then let it go again.
Adam Storey (38:41)
Yeah, definitely you can do those. Even for some of my athletes, I'll get them to do something like a TRX power pull, like we do with the sled. If they don't have access to a sled, I'll get them to do a similar movement, which is pretty much a squat row on the cable machine.
Dan Plews (39:01)
It's quite hard. I've done that before, literally on the cable machine, but not doing a walk back. You just do the first movement of the pull, and you can do reps of it, ten, fifteen reps, and man, cardio. Real cardio. It gets you up a lot. It's a good session. I've included it in some HYROX endurance and AMRAP sessions before, in the middle of a set, or after you jump off a SkiErg and do a few of them. Good training.
Adam Storey (39:38)
Yeah, and cardio or conditioning is a great point there, Plewsy. Yes, there's a high force component to the sleds, but there's also a good anaerobic kick. Even doing very high resistance on, for example, a C2 bike, with maximal 30 second power outputs, building power endurance in your lower body will have some transference to your sled performance. So don't just look at it from a peak force or strength perspective. Look at what that movement demands of you across the whole body. And even in saying that, I think farmers carry is such an underrated exercise in terms of developing so many things, because it can develop total body strength and postural endurance, which will then transfer to your sled ability as well.
Dan Plews (40:43)
Don't slip over when you put them down.
Adam Storey (40:44)
Just don't freaking slip over, mate. I told you not to do that. Why did you do that?
Dan Plews (40:47)
Do you know the best part? I was thinking back to it. Martin, the owner of the Deadly Dozen, was on the stage saying, "Can you get up?" I was like, no, definitely cannot.
Adam Storey (41:01)
It was bad. And as I said, I was just so gutted, because I was literally about to pull out my phone to film you. And I thought, no, I'm not going to film him, because he's just going to put the kettlebells down. And then that was the moment.
Dan Plews (41:15)
You could have got it. It would have been viral by now.
Adam Storey (41:19)
It would have been.
Dan Plews (41:20)
Viral. Yeah. Anyway, what's next? Can I give you another one? How would you feel about a nutrition question?
Adam Storey (41:30)
Well, interesting. I always say I'm not a dietitian, so I don't like recommending things that are outside of my wheelhouse.
Dan Plews (41:45)
Well, I'm happy to talk about it, so I'll talk about it, I guess. One of the questions...
Adam Storey (41:50)
I was going to save those for you, actually. How about we do this combined one, mate? Because this is relevant to us. There's a question from Pontus Training: how would you create a test package for HYROX athletes in the lab? This individual, Pontus, actually emailed me during the week. He's doing his undergrad thesis or dissertation in the area of HYROX, so I think this is a very hot topic question for him.
Dan Plews (42:27)
Very good. It's interesting, because I don't know if you saw it, but Alyssa McKillaney broke the internet this week by doing 350 wall balls. Then our friends at WAD Science, Grom AI, put up a post talking about the data he got from them in the Adidas testing they did. The testing seemed a bit crazy to me. I'm sure they had their reasons for it. Pelayo was there, so I asked my good friend Pelayo what exactly they did for the testing. It was one minute of burpee broad jumps, where they had to jump one metre every time, one minute of wall balls, and a two minute run, and then a lactate measure while they rested a minute before they did the next step. The first step was five burpee broad jumps, ten wall balls, and 11 kilometres an hour, and each round they went up by one burpee, two wall balls and 1.2 kilometres per hour.
To me, that kind of testing is a way to end up with nothing. When I had this question, I thought the biggest mistake you can make when you do HYROX testing in the lab is to try and bring things together. You've got to think of the determinants of HYROX success, work out what you think is important, and then isolate it. Otherwise, with a test like that, how do you know what's going on? Alyssa probably had the low lactate because she's such a good runner and she's just clearing the lactate after she's done the wall balls. It doesn't mean she's any good at wall balls, though obviously she is. What that would tell me is that she increased her lactate during the burpees and wall balls, and then cleared it because she's an amazing runner.
The funny thing is what Pelayo said to me. He said something like the results told him his threshold was five burpees a minute, something really slow like that. Anyway, to get to the point about lactates, that's the sort of test where I think you won't get much out of it. It's one of those things where you measure everything and get nothing. You need to be very specific. Think about the HYROX event. Threshold is important, running economy is important, strength endurance is important, and maximal strength is probably somewhere important as well. That's what I'd be trying to break down in the lab, the key parts. And some kind of fatigue resistance, right? Which could tie into your strength endurance. It might come a bit closer to Sam's work, actually. We've talked about this before: the difference between your one-rep max and your reps to fatigue at 60% of your one-rep max, something like that.
Adam Storey (46:06)
Yeah, definitely. We've got a research project through La Trobe that's kicking off, looking at the characterisation of HYROX athletes as well, so that will be interesting. And the 350 wall balls, mate, I gave it a go. I was about 280 shy. Absolutely unbelievable effort.
Dan Plews (46:45)
Good try. But it's crazy, and I don't think it's fair to say it's because she has an amazing aerobic capacity, because if that were the case, why aren't the people with the highest endurance backgrounds the best at wall balls? In fact, I'd say it's the opposite. Think about Fabian and Pelayo. They really struggled with their wall balls and they've got massive endurance backgrounds. Pelayo not so much anymore, they've improved over time, but it's not like they came in and were great at wall balls. I'd say most endurance athletes come in and are really bad at wall balls. There's something different, and a lot of it is obviously technique. If you can get under the ball and do it very efficiently with low energy cost, that's going to be huge, right?
Dan Plews (47:48)
Do you think we've answered that enough? I wouldn't mind jumping in a little more. How would you test the strength, though? What would you do?
Adam Storey (47:59)
It's interesting. I think a muscular endurance test would be paramount. Some type of functional test. Even with our project through La Trobe, we've got a wall ball AMRAP as a functional test. One-rep max strength is a measure, but I'd definitely lean more towards strength endurance as the more important one.
Dan Plews (48:33)
So how would you measure that strength endurance? Would you do time to exhaustion at 60% of your one-rep max or something like that?
Adam Storey (48:44)
Yeah, we did contemplate that, going back to the La Trobe study. But there can be technique-related issues with that type of testing. We thought about repeated jump testing as well, which previous studies have done at a relatively low percentage of 1RM, almost doing timed jumps on a metronome. Once you see a decrease in a set velocity, you look at a velocity cap, which gives a measure of power endurance. We also toyed with repeat 30 second efforts on a Wingate style test. But I think 1RM is not necessarily overly important as a true measure.
Dan Plews (49:37)
Yeah. But the bottom line, Pontus, is that I think you have to separate them. If you think you'll come up with some ultimate HYROX test with a bit of burpees, a bit of this, you'll measure everything and get nothing.
To finish on the lab testing, one thing I'd seriously consider is, if you're measuring your LT, like your maximal lactate steady state, LT2, which typically sits a little below, or if you're measuring critical speed. There is a difference between maximal lactate steady state and critical speed. Critical speed typically sits a little above it, but it's probably a more important measure for HYROX because of the reconstitution of your W prime, your anaerobic capacity, when you're doing the stations and racing. So I'd be looking at a measure of that. Critical speed comes with pros and cons. It's a better measure, but you don't get as much out of it. You can measure LT1 and LT2 by doing a step test, and you can get loads out of that: the fractional utilisation, LT1, LT2, running economy. With critical speed, you're basically doing about four time trials and getting the curve of the fatigue rate. It's probably a more important measure in my view, but it's something to think about if you're getting into your PhD studies. Maybe you could do both. Typically you have to do a step test to ascertain maximal critical speed anyway. So there you go. Cool.
Adam Storey (51:17)
Love that. Sorry, a question that a lot of coaches get asked, including us: is all Zone 2 the same? For example, from JMcManus88: if I'm struggling with big running Ks, is time on the StairMaster a similar stimulus?
Dan Plews (51:45)
Similar, for sure, but I'd never say it's the same. The principle of specificity says adaptations are specific to the muscle and even the tendons and ligaments around it. Those are important, but I think you can do a lot with getting on the bike and doing more Zone 2. I've just started working a lot with Big Dex, as you know, helping him with his endurance side. One of the main things we're doing is building up his running, while at the same time getting a lot more quality on the bike. It's not just a case of sitting there doing an hour of nothing. We're very specific around sets and reps while still keeping it around Zone 2 intensity, and we've started controlling it a little with watts as well. The more you can build up your weekly hours, and I think I've said this on previous podcasts, the better. The bike is a great way to do that, because there's less injury risk. I think the StairMaster is great, but for me, I just can't stand it. I'm just not a fan. I feel like an old aunty when I'm on it.
Adam Storey (53:15)
It's because you're on your phone, mate, and you get your little coffee.
Dan Plews (53:18)
Yeah, I'm just scrolling on my phone. I don't know, I'm just so much happier riding a bike than being on a StairMaster. There are good benefits to the StairMaster. You get good extension, and it's quite similar to the running movement. But I'm just not a big fan. If you enjoy the StairMaster, get into it, but I'm more of a bike man myself.
Adam Storey (53:47)
Yeah, and just a bit of the other end of the spectrum on that topic. You mentioned the bike being a lower injury risk. I have been dealing with a few athletes recently, and in the past, who were in a vicious cycle where running would stir up things like their Achilles or plantar fascia, so they'd have to spend quite a bit of time on the bike. But it got to the point where they were doing so much on the bike that the running became very minimal, and yet they were still stuck in the injury cycle. You did allude to the fact that tendon and bone adaptations aren't the same. So a caveat for people doing a lot of long hours on the bike: always remember that things like your Achilles will still need some type of load, including impact load, before you get back into running. Please bear that in mind.
Dan Plews (54:47)
Which is again what you talked about in the Engine Room as well.
Adam Storey (54:50)
Yes. And again, circling back to things like basic isometrics or even low level pogos, you've always got to keep that going. You can't think you can go from zero to here and back to running because you've got a massive engine on the bike. Unfortunately, your tissues don't adapt at the same rate as your engine. So just be mindful of that too.
Dan Plews (55:11)
And on that note, if anyone's listening and wants to sign up to the Engine Room, you can do so through our email list. It's once a month, our coaching thoughts, me and Adam. We cover a recent study and then a movement-related idea or just a thought at the end. It's pretty informative, so if you're interested, do sign up. Just to finish off on tendons, one thing I did with my Achilles, Adam, was use a system called the Lever system. Have you heard of that?
Adam Storey (55:46)
No.
Dan Plews (55:47)
So the Lever system, and I recommend this to anyone coming back from an injury, and I don't have any affiliation with them either. It's a Y-shaped frame that sits on the arms of your treadmill, and you wear shorts with a loop, and a bungee comes around. You pull on the bungee and it takes off some of your body weight, and you can start running again very gradually. It is brilliant. That's basically what saved my Achilles, because I could start running again, gradually putting a bit of tension through the Achilles, and eventually I eased it off and then took it off. I know a lot of triathletes use it as part of their recovery and as part of general training, because it lets them get more running volume. Personally, if I can run fully, I don't like using it, because it makes you feel really crap. When you wear that thing and then go back to full body weight, you feel so unspringy. Adam's looking it up, everyone. He's going to get one. They're not cheap, unfortunately.
Adam Storey (56:57)
Well, no, I was just saying that's a great way, because in the past, you and I would have used these through different high performance settings, like the AlterG. For listeners who aren't familiar with it, the AlterG is an anti-gravity treadmill. You're locked into this kind of thing which then inflates and lifts up your body weight. Or the alternative there is underwater treadmills, believe it or not. You're literally in a pool, up to about chest level, which takes away a bit of body weight. No impact.
Dan Plews (57:26)
Oh God. Yeah. But there's no impact, though, so it's not actually helping you.
Adam Storey (57:35)
No, but I mean, these AlterGs, I was just looking at the price, mate. Roughly 100K USD.
Dan Plews (57:41)
So a bit cheaper. I think the Lever is about two grand or something like that, which is very expensive for what it is, but it's a lot cheaper than an AlterG.
Adam Storey (57:50)
Yeah, but I think that's a great workaround, because things like the AlterG have very limited availability for a lot of people, but if you've got another alternative that could fill that gap, I think that's a great one.
Dan Plews (58:01)
Very good. I reckon we've got time for one more question, and I really wanted to get to this one. There were two similar questions, one from Sion and one from Suphthap, I think is the pronunciation. If someone has a max of one and a half hours of training time per day, how would you structure it per week? And similar to that, Sion asked how you'd split easy work and quality work for a person with an eight hour training week. Do you want to start?
Adam Storey (58:34)
You can kick off, mate.
Dan Plews (58:35)
Yeah. It's funny, I was asked this question the other day, and I always feel like a broken record with questions, because it always depends. It depends on your background. If you're dealing with someone who's used to training 20 hours a week and suddenly has to deal with an eight hour training week, you're going to have to structure things very differently, because at the end of the day, training is about the dose, and the dose depends on the individual. An hour run for someone who's used to running two hours is not the same as an hour run for someone who's used to running ten minutes. That's the context. What's really important is that all training should remain somewhat polarised. If you talk about an elite athlete training 35 hours a week, they're not really polarised. 90% of their training is aerobic and 10% is at higher intensity, though I wouldn't necessarily say VO2 max. But 10% of 35 hours is a lot of training. So that's why you have to think of it as a sliding scale. If you're dealing with someone training eight hours a week, you're probably looking at maybe 60 to 70% of that being aerobic and the rest some kind of quality. Unless you're a complete beginner who's never really trained before, in which case you're probably looking at between 80 and 90%, and again you want to be more polarised.
To answer these questions, it's impossible without knowing your background, I'm afraid. But hopefully that knowledge helps you think about how to work it out. So, Sion, if you have a good training history, I'd certainly look at pushing a little more high intensity, probably 30 to 40% of your training week as quality work, with just a little bit of endurance training. It's something to work around and think about.
Adam Storey (1:00:48)
Yeah, and I completely agree with you there. One shout out from the strength side of things, when we think about that polarised training week: some people fall into the trap of having a hard strength session the day after a key conditioning or threshold session, because although the modality is completely different, they think it won't be as taxing on the body. But bear in mind that the central fatigue from a hard strength session for a novice trained individual can persist for up to 48 hours. So all of a sudden you've got depressed central nervous system drive for potentially 48 hours. Then if you stack another hard session on top, like a threshold session, the day after, or even the second day after a hard gym session, that can really throw your week off. So you do need to structure that in. Just because it's a different modality, and you're not doing a road run or something on the ergs, you're doing something in the gym, doesn't mean you get physical recovery. It's a different end of the spectrum, but it can fatigue you as well.
Dan Plews (1:02:04)
Yeah. Typically in HYROX, and even with the things we're doing with Josh, we're always trying to really separate those days. Make the hard days hard and the easy days aerobic, and not mix and match the two. It's not the same for everyone, but we've certainly found that is working quite well at the moment.
Adam Storey (1:02:25)
Yeah.
Dan Plews (1:02:26)
Cool. Well, that was good. We got through many questions. Sorry we didn't get to everyone's questions. We did miss a few. Sam Purchase asked when someone's going to do a HYROX in Crocs, because did you see that person run a marathon in 2:29 in Crocs?
Adam Storey (1:02:41)
I actually didn't realise that was Sam Purchase. I was going to address that. Yeah, it was the Berlin Marathon, two hours 30 minutes. But I did look that one up. Officially, you can run a HYROX in Crocs. There's no rule around it, as long as you have them in sports mode, apparently. There's a guy who's run a few HYROXs in Crocs, and he even wears a T-shirt that says "HYROX in Crocs". Just put them in sports mode, people.
Dan Plews (1:03:11)
Sports mode. There you go. Excellent. Alright, team, I'll keep the world updated on how I go, and we'll be back on the regular schedule, people. Let's go.
Adam Storey (1:03:21)
Nice. Love your work, team. Keep it up.
Dan Plews (1:03:23)
Team. All right, we'll speak soon. Ciao, ciao.
