037 : 022 Building Capacity I
Hell Week alluded to an eventual build and peak of what most would consider the defining attribute of fitness, work capacity. We are looking at helping a client that wants to compete in in the Hyrox series of fitness competition. I felt like it was a good opportunity to share the process with our entire community. I have never competed or prepped anyone for this event, but that being said, the events and performances are known. We can easily test and get a close estimate of what it will be like on the day. and as far as general fitness tests go, it looks pretty fun.
First, there is very little skill involved. Some might think this is an advantage, and it might be for those that are not naturally athletic but what it puts emphasis on is a pure engine. To me, that translates as “pain tolerance.” But since it is such a clear capacity signal it should be easy to give general guidelines and have this series of sessions still be helpful to those following remotely. That being said, if you want to follow along and have specific questions, leave them in the comments so we can help.
The requirements are known, a series of grunt style movements split up by repeated 1km running efforts. The duration is somewhere between an hour and an hour 20 depending on your fitness level. The core is running, so efficiency in that domain will be paramount. But people can get hung up on some of the strength endurance stuff, so it can’t be ignored. There are events in November and December so it gives us between 4-5 months to prep.
The first 6-10 weeks will be focused on building volume. This means 3 sessions a week dedicated to longer steady efforts of mixed modal, but mostly running and biking efforts. The other efforts throughout the week will be supportive, strength/mobility, power, and strength endurance. We will have some running tests in order to determine running efficiency and pacing for this build. But this week we are looking at just getting people working for longer periods of time. I arbitrarily started at 50min, but that is just based on knowing where most of our people are at. IF you are at a traditional CF gym you may have to start much lower than this, I find most CFers lose efficiency in the 20min realm and you might want to start there. The plan is to gve your body 3 sessions to adapt to each time domain, raising the duration 5-10% each week. This can be done objectively through MAF testing and using a HR monitor but I want to stress that you don’t need to. I will have a few people use HR and I will just be going off of feel.
If everything goes smoothly, we will be seeing efforts that push almost into the 2 hour range, granted, I want this to feel easy, it is not the same as a 2 hour max effort. My priority above everything is to keep the build interesting. They are bound to get monotonous, because honestly, monotony has its way of helping develop a mind that can tolerate extended hard efforts. But if you get through something like this and you don’t feel like training, we obviously didn’t do the right thing. Our goal is to experience this event, even if we just set it up on our own, but to also experience events after. If you wreck yourself prepping for this, you did it wrong—even if you win.
This first session needs to be easy, think about having a conversation the whole time. That being said, everyone will likely go too hard and thats fine, this is about tuning. No matter how hard you go you will finish out the session on a bike for the remaining of the 50min. The increasing stress of the compounding movements like box jumps are meant to cause a bit of redlining so that you learn to back off and recover during the longer monostructural pieces. Consider running barefoot to slow you down, especially if you have injuries related to running.
Session One
Work:
10 cal machine
100x Step ups
400m Run
20cal machine
80x Lunges
400m run
30 cal machine
60x box jumps
400m run
40 cal machine
40x burpee box step-up and over
400m run
50 cal machine
20x burpee pull up
400m run
Finish the remaining 50min on a machine at conversational pace.
Results:
TMB: 37’00”
LTC: 36’42”
Session Two
The circuits found in this session can use any implement of choice KB, DBs, D-ball , etc, Try and pick a weight that you can work with nonstop for the entirety of each segment.
Work:
50min running clock
0-8min AMRAP (as many rounds as is potentially useful)
10x Deadlift
10x Ground to Shoulder
10X Squat
20m Carry
8-10min easy recovery on bike
10-17min AMRAP
Carry Object in 10m increments
17-20min easy recovery on bike
20-26min AMRAP
10x Deadlift
10x Ground to Over head
10x Squat
20m Carry
26-30min Easy recovery on bike
30-35min AMRAP
Walking Weighted Lunges
35-40min Easy recovery on bike
40-44min AMRAP
Ground to Shoulder
44-50min Easy Recovery on bike
Session Three
Work:
45-50 min run or bike
This should be a steady pace. If you are running and feel this is too long, mix in walking to break up the effort. This session should add more to recovery than it should tax you. I suggest that you do it outside on a trail or in nature.
