PODCAST how i’m training for hyrox with asthma (full weekly plan)
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[00:00:00] Welcome to The Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host, Johnny Havey, an ultra runner, endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone 100K ultra, I proved them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned, from breathing techniques to mindset shifts, to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals despite limitations, let's get started.
I recently completed my first HYROX simulation, and from that simulation, I have come up with my full weekly plan for how I'm training for HYROX with asthma. Now, I've had asthma since I was a kid, and since I was a kid, I have had [00:01:00] so many different athletic interests over the years, starting with running around the playground and playing soccer all the way through high school.
Then I got into road biking, Ultimate Frisbee, high-intensity interval training mixed with yoga, called Yoga Sculpt classes, mountain biking, climbing 14,000-foot mountains, running, marathon running, ultra running, and now, and now HYROX training. It kinda makes sense because if you look at everything I've done in my life, I have always liked pushing myself and progressively increasing the strength of my lungs and my body, and this is really what I teach on this show.
My goal is to support athletes with and without asthma to show what's possible when you put your mind to it and you listen to your body, to build your lungs, to build your body, and to build your mind. Now, before I share with you my asthma-friendly HYROX training routine, I wanna unpack what is HYROX, H-Y-R-O-X.
[00:02:00] HYROX equals hybrid fitness racing, combining running with eight workout stations, and each workout station hits a different part or combination of parts of our body. It is extremely fun. I knew that I would like it before I even did my simulation because for the past decade or so, I've really had an interest in the holistic part of being an athlete, the holistic piece of having really strong conditioning, strength, and high-intensity interval training all in one.
Now, if you've been following me for a while, I am an ultra runner, and I have competed in and won 100-kilometer ultras, and that's why really when I look at HYROX and I saw running, I'm like, "I can get into this." Then I saw it was only eight kilometers of running, and I'm like, "Hmm, maybe my endurance training isn't gonna translate very well because eight kilometers of running means we're probably running real fast."
But then I looked at what made up all the workout [00:03:00] stations, and I saw burpees, the rower, and I saw these other things, and I'm like, "Huh, I could really get into this." Wall balls. And really, this is why I took a chance on HYROX. So here is the race format. Remember, you start with a run. So you run first and then you do a station.
You run a kilometer, do another station. Wall balls is the end. So you start with a run, and ultimately you end with wall balls. So here is how it looks. You start by running that one kilometer around a track. Then you jump on the SkiErg and do 1,000 meters. Then you run another kilometer. Then you run again.
Then you do a sled push. Then you run again. Then you do a sled pull. Then you run again. Then you do burpee broad jumps. Then you run again. Then you do RowErg for 1,000 meters. You run, do farmer carries. [00:04:00] You run, sandbag lunges You run, do wall balls, and then you're done. Now, it's really interesting. Each of these has a different distance, and when I look at building my training routine on a weekly basis, what I'm really looking at is when do these things happen?
How much mileage is under our belts as we go through? As the runs are gonna get harder. As you go through, different parts of your body are gonna be breaking down. It's very interesting. If you have ever done a triathlon, a duathlon, or switching from one event to the other, swimming, biking, running, it's a similar thing in a much more condensed setting.
And we're actually doing weight in a lot of these things. With the SkiErg and the RowErg, we are using our entire body for conditioning. When we look at this and building a training program, what we really need to look at is what are the hardest events and where do they fall? Well, the hardest events for me, from my simulation, were the sled [00:05:00] pull, the sandbag lunges, and wall balls.
Well, if you look at this, and I know you might be listening to this as a podcast, but you can break HYROX into part one and part two. Part one is SkiErg, sled push, sled pull, and burpee broad jumps. That's part one. Part two starts with the row or the RowErg. You go RowErg, farmer's carry, sandbag lunges, and wall balls.
Well, for me, the easiest exercises on the board, other than the running since I'm an ultra runner, are the burpee broad jumps, the rower, and the farmer carries. This is really interesting. Even though they're the easiest for me, they're also in the middle. This is where things start getting real hard. If we look at this, we look at the sled pull, sandbag lunges, and wall balls as being the hardest, then this is where I wanna spend my training.
But I also wanna make sure that I'm set up [00:06:00] for all of part two. So I train all of these things, farmer carries, RowErg. I'm integrating sandbag lunges now and wall balls. But when you're breaking this down and when you start doing specific exercises, I want you to think about where they fall in the race.
'Cause if the harder exercises for you are earlier, then your body's gonna be more ready for them. So let's say SkiErg is really hard for you. For me, it's kind of neutral. If SkiErg's really hard for you, the great thing is- It's at the beginning. Let's not kill ourselves on the SkiErg, though, for the rest of the event.
Let's just have a slower pace for that, get through it, and move on. For me, sled pull is really the first major one that hits early in the race, and I wanna make sure that I don't crush my quads. I don't wanna crush my quads, my calves, or my hamstrings doing that. So I'm very mindful of that as well. But then when we look at sandbag lunges and wall balls, these are the last two [00:07:00] events.
You've already ran six, seven, eight kilometers at this point, and you've been doing them hard. And you've already done six other workout stations at this point. And sandbag lunges for me was the hardest thing of the whole day. Wall balls, though, doing 100 of these after being sore, after hitting it really hard and emptying the tank on that last kilometer run, wall balls can make or break you winning your HYROX event or setting a personal record.
Then when you layer asthma into this, if you're not used to running, running is gonna be really tough, and I highly recommend that you start off your training by walking and running and doing it with these other things, doing it before you even get to race day, where you are combining running with these strength-oriented activities and also focusing on the rower.
I think the rower is one of the keys to HYROX, even though it takes up 1,000 [00:08:00] meters of the event, which could be a really quick event for you, three to five minutes, I believe that getting good at the rower can help you with a lot of these other things. Now, my training plan is broken into three parts.
Running, joining a group fitness gym, and having access to a gym in general. By combining these three things, you will create a powerful foundation for your HYROX training with or without asthma. Now, if you have asthma, I do highly recommend that you spend a lot of focus on the running piece. Running, or as I teach, walk-running Can be very powerful in building your lungs, progressively building your lungs.
I teach this concept throughout my YouTube channel and podcast called Progressive Overload, where we progressively increase the power of our lungs. When I was four years old, I was told that I probably shouldn't play soccer, and then when I did, I'd have to take [00:09:00] my inhaler all the time. Well, this is a tricky thing because I always felt good when I took my inhaler.
Take my inhaler, I could play soccer, at least for a while, then I need to take it again. So I just keep taking my inhaler, keep playing soccer, and my lungs were not getting better. My fitness wasn't getting better. So what I found is after talking to different medical providers over the years, my parents were always looking for alternative medical opinions, I found a doctor that told me that in order to strengthen my lungs, I would need to take the crutch of using my inhaler away.
Now, he said that I always needed to have it with me, and he's sure that I can still use it. I just shouldn't use it before I do the thing, before I go play soccer. Well, this concept works great with building your lungs if you have asthma, but it also works great if you've never really ran before or if you've never really liked running.
What we're basically doing is progressively increasing our mileage, progressively increasing what we're doing without using our inhalers. So what I did is I would [00:10:00] go to soccer practice, and instead of using my inhaler at the start of practice, I would wait five or 10 minutes, and then I would use it. I did that for a couple weeks.
Then I would wait 10 to 15 minutes. Did that for a couple weeks. Then 15 to 20 minutes. Did that for a couple weeks. Well, what I experienced happening is I found that I didn't need my inhaler for longer periods of time as I progressively increased my lung capacity. And I've done the same thing, going from never running more than five, six miles before, all the way to running and winning a 100-kilometer ultramarathon, 62.2 miles.
I did this with walk running. Same thing with HYROX. I highly recommend that for HYROX you push yourself on the running piece, and this is really what I've heard from multiple HYROX athletes where if you wanna get faster at HYROX, you gotta get better at running. So why not training for your first HYROX spend some significant time running?
For me, I am running 25 To 30 miles per week. [00:11:00] Now, I don't expect you to do this because this is really base mileage territory for running a marathon which is really cool. So you can get in marathon shape training for a HYROX by running 25 to 30 miles a week. Well, really, you wanna get in the 35 to 40 miles a week range if you're planning on running a marathon.
But when I compare this to what I run when training for a 50-mile, 100-kilometer race, this is significantly lower. Typically, I'm running 80 to 100 miles in my peak weeks for these other races, and for HYROX, I'm only running 25 to 30 miles a week. You could really even look at this as 20 to 30 miles per week.
But you may be looking at this and being like, "Johnny, I'm not running at all," and that's okay. In that case, I recommend you getting five to 10 miles per weekend. This will elevate you and your HYROX experience significantly. To get in those extra miles, and HYROX is 4.9-ish miles. Eight kilometers, 4.9-ish [00:12:00] miles.
Now, keep in mind, when you're going to stations, when you're going through stations, you're gonna add maybe another mile to two miles, so you're looking at an event in the five to seven-mile range. So by incorporating walking and running into your life and making sure that you're not just walking, you're adding running as well, slowly as you progressively overload your body and working to that HYROX finish, adding this is going to be huge.
And that's why the closer you can get to that 10 mile a week range on top of this other stuff is gonna help you so much. And if you wanna join me with 20 to 30 miles or 25 to 30 miles per week in your HYROX journey, I invite you to. It's gonna be a lot of fun. The next piece is group fitness. Now, I do think that this from a training perspective, from a camaraderie perspective, from a...
The reason why HYROX is so fun is because you're doing it with other people. You're cheering other people on. They're cheering you on. Even if you're doing it solo, if you're part of a community, it's gonna be a lot more fun. So [00:13:00] joining a group fitness community that focuses on HYROX is huge for you. And if you live in Colorado, I highly recommend that you go check out Endorphin, spelled like endorphins.
Endorphin is set up to help train you for HYROX. They have all the different events. It's in a group fitness class setting. I personally go to two- HIIT classes per week that focus on HYROX. Now, we don't just do HYROX stuff, but really the focus here is group fitness classes, specifically high intensity interval training, HIIT.
Highly recommend that you do this at least twice per week. So you get those five to 10 miles in per week running, you do two HIIT classes per week. The last piece here you don't have to do, but this can really allow you to focus on the events, and the muscle groups, and the conditioning, and the strength that you feel like you need to focus the most on to improve your HYROX game, [00:14:00] is going to a gym.
Now, different gyms, like Endorphin, has all the things. You can go there and lift and do all the things outside of group fitness as well. But for me, I like to go to a gym that's really close to my house. So finding a gym, a rec center, whatever you can go to to focus on the things that you need to focus on for your training is gonna be ideal.
And that's what I'm gonna share with you next, is what I'm focused on alongside running 25 to 30 miles a week, alongside doing two group high intensity interval training classes per week. There's specific events that I'm focusing on, and there's specific workouts that I'm doing, and I'm gonna share that with you now.
To start, I'm going to the gym two to three times per week, and this is in addition to doing my group fitness classes. So I go to group fitness classes at Endorphin one to two days a week. I'm running 20 to 30 miles per week. I do most of that mileage in the morning with my dog. And now I'm layering in going to the gym two to three times a week, and I'm [00:15:00] specifically focusing on rowing, farmer carries- Wall balls, weighted lunges, and burpees.
And I picked these very intentionally. When we look at how HYROX is set up, you see that rowing, farmer carries, and burpees are all in the middle, and weighted lunges or sandbag lunges and wall balls are at the end. So I'm focusing on exercises that are later in the race. I'm also, to be fair, I can't find a sled push at the gym that I go to.
It's at Endorphin, so when I go to these group fitness classes, it is there, but it's not at the gym I go to. Same with the sled pull. But I have figured out that by focusing on these things, I am helping myself with these other events. Let's start with the rowing. So rowing, I've been trying a couple different philosophies.
The first is pretty simple, rowing one kilometer [00:16:00] or 1,000 meters. Pretty simple. That's what we have to do in HYROX, so I do that and I see how fast I can do it. I'm also doing three kilometers and really seeing how hard I can push in that third kilometer, that last 1,000 meters. And now I'm even going to five kilometers or 5,000 meters and really looking at how I feel for that last kilometer.
I am considering going all the way up to 10 kilometers to really see how fast I can row, to feel the fatigue in my body after rowing for 30 to 40 minutes. And one of the reasons why rowing, I think, is one of the keys to HYROX is because it is a full-body exercise, and throughout HYROX, we are doing various exercises that hit different parts of the body.
Rowing is a full-body conditioning exercise that shows you that you are strong. It teaches your brain that your entire body is strong. It also, what I've found, is rowing helps with the sled [00:17:00] pull. It helps with grip, which is another big part of all this. Grip is huge for farmer carries, for sled push, for sled pull, for the SkiErg.
Rowing and farmer carries help you with that. Farmer carries, while they are one of the easier events, pushing- Yourself and carrying heavier than what's required and carrying, you know, five, 10 pounds heavier than what's required in each hand can really help you get an even bigger edge with farmer carries.
It teaches you to have a lower heart rate while doing them, which is very important for you being able to run faster and being able to do all these other things faster. If you can make farmer carries so easy that you just fly through that event with very little heart rate change, this is a workout station in the middle of the race where you can really look at it as almost running two kilometers in a row really easily.
You can finish farmer carries really fast, and it helps you with grip. So what I'm looking at with farmer carries right now is doing [00:18:00] 70 pounds, which is what- the pro level men do, then I'm doing 65 pounds and 60 pounds. And I'm also going for 400 meters instead of 200. Typically, you have to do 200 meters.
Well, I'm doing 400 meters. And the same thing with rowing. I'm trying to do more. I'm doing double the distance and doing more weight 'cause I'm teaching myself to be able to do this fast under fatigue. I'm working on my grip for all these other things as well. Wall balls. What I'm currently doing is 20 pounds and I'm doing 100 reps.
But then right after that, I take a little break. I'm doing 15 pounds and 100 reps. For- Men's not pro, I think we end up doing about 12 pounds for 100 reps. But I'm not doing wall balls after doing all these things, oh, and I'm doing this at the gym. Doing more weight and doing more reps is huge for creating that fatigue.
Now, I would like to increase this even more. I'd like to go all the way up to 30 pounds and doing 100 [00:19:00] reps to really get to where I want to be for training. Now let's go to our weighted lunges. Weighted lunges I'm still figuring out 'cause I'm recovering from my simulation. But really, weighted lunges is going to be something I put a lot of focus on every week.
And yet again, my goal is to do more than 70 pounds be- because I know that's the pro weight, and I'm excited to really push myself into that pro tier. And then burpees I like to throw in in every workout wherever I feel like I want to. Don't even have to do very many. What I'll typically do is do 10 to 25 burpees as part of a workout, layering it in with all these other things.
Just a really good way to have a full body exercise and to really feel how it feels to do burpees while your heart rate is already elevated. Now, from an asthma perspective, what I find is the better we can get our cardio- the easier all this other stuff becomes, which is why if you have asthma, I come back to [00:20:00] rowing and running are gonna be your keys that are gonna unlock the rest of this.
Now, you are gonna wanna have opportunity to feel how heavy all these other things are, but by getting your conditioning in, by locking your conditioning in, you're gonna really train your lungs to be able to support you through all of this. Remember, you always wanna have your inhaler with you, and I do highly recommend that the first time you try out HYROX, you do it at least with a partner.
You may even wanna do the relay event so you don't have to do the whole thing by yourself, then you can work your way up to doing more and more of it. That's what I did. I did, first time I did HYROX at a simulation and I had a partner, and he helped me get through all the stations, taught me how to go through all the stations, gave me a rest because as you're going through the stations, while you have to run all the kilometers when you have a partner still, when you get to the stations, you cut the stations in half, or you and your partner figure out how much of each each of you wants to do.
When you get to the relay, you [00:21:00] actually get to cut the running down as well, which is why the relay is a great place for you to start if you have asthma. Now, I'm really grateful for you being here with me today, which is why I have my Three Pillars of Healthy Living guide. It is linked in the show notes and in the YouTube description.
Or you can go to www.athletewithasthma.com/healthy-living-guide to grab your free copy. In my Healthy Living Guide, I teach the three pillars of healthy living, movement, tracking, and accountability. We've been talking about movement a lot today and really building up our bodies using these different exercises.
Well, when you combine that with tracking and accountability, this empowers you to live an even healthier lifestyle. Definitely go grab your copy, and I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to The Athlete with Asthma Show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey [00:22:00] isn't about perfection, it's about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals. And if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible.
