PODCAST - can you do hyrox with asthma here’s the truth
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[00:00:00] Welcome to The Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host, Johnny Hapie, an ultrarunner, 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.
Whenever I try a new workout routine or sign up for a new race that I have zero experience with, I always ask myself, "Can I do this? Can someone with asthma do this thing?" Today on the show, we're gonna break down can you do HYROX with asthma? [00:01:00] Well, in order to answer this question, we need to break down what is HYROX.
So if you didn't know already, HYROX is eight one-kilometer runs plus eight functional workout stations, and it's a race. HYROX doesn't really stand for anything, but it's what we call a hybrid fitness race. So each of these functional workout stations you're going to do either for a certain number of reps or a certain distance, and you're gonna do a set amount of weight.
So when you combine eight one-kilometer runs with eight functional workout stations, you get a very intense race, a race that can be very intimidating if you have asthma. Now, I've done a lot of different things in my life. When I was four years old, I was told I shouldn't play soccer, I should never become a runner, and even had to be careful when running around the playground with my friends.
Well, my parents knew I didn't like hearing this news, and they knew I [00:02:00] loved soccer, and I loved to run around the playground, and I even enjoyed other sports as well, but I really wanted to play soccer. So they helped me find a medical doctor that would help me, that would coach me, that would give me a way for me to become a high-level athlete without having to rely on my inhaler all the time.
Well, when I was a kid, what I was taught is to use progressive overload to increase the strength of my lungs by not taking my inhaler before working out, before playing soccer, but taking it five or 10 minutes in and as needed, and eventually increasing the amount of time that I would go without my inhaler, allowing myself to really strengthen my lungs.
Well, throughout my life, I've really attacked every new fitness challenge in this way. When I was in my 20s, I got into climbing 14,000-foot mountains, and I'd always bring my inhaler with me, and I'd bring my inhaler with me on all these things that I do to this day. But I didn't take my inhaler at the beginning of the hike, but I did take it about an hour into my first 14 that I climbed.
Well, [00:03:00] when I first got into high-intensity workouts, which that is what HYROX is. HYROX is a HIIT race. That's all it is. It's a HIIT race. Now, it's a HIIT race for 60 to 120 minutes. Now, if it takes you longer, fine, but 60 to 120 minutes is really what we're looking at. So when we look at high-intensity interval training, we're typically looking at 45 minutes to an hour, 45 minutes to 60 minutes.
So we're talking that HYROX is on the upper end of this range all the way to double the range and beyond. That's why we need to be really careful and why HYROX can seem super intimidating if you have asthma. Well, I have multiple friends who have been interested in HYROX, and I'm gonna share a little bit about their journeys and I'm gonna share a little bit about my journey as I prepare to do my first HYROX event as an athlete with asthma.
Let's dig a little bit deeper about why HYROX is harder with asthma. We already talked about [00:04:00] how it's high intensity for a long period of time. Here's a quick lesson. When we're looking at intensity, we're looking at rate of perceived exertion or RPE. This is how you feel your output, your energy output is when you're doing a workout.
This is a very subjective measurement. So what I like to do is look at heart rate zones or zone training. So you can look at RPE, but you can also look at zones. Now, I've seen zones broken down in different ways. I think the simplest way to look at this is there are five zones, one, two, three, four, five.
And when we're looking at this here, it's important to know that there is a line between zone three and zone four that is the aerobic to anaerobic line. What does aerobic mean? Aerobic means with oxygen. What does anaerobic mean? Without oxygen. In our bodies, [00:05:00] when we're in zone one, two, and three, we are creating energy using oxygen.
That means that our body is getting enough oxygen to create enough energy to do the thing that we're doing. When you cross over, this is called threshold, when you cl- cross over the threshold into zone four, this means that your body is no longer able to get enough energy out of oxygen. We move into anaerobic.
What this feels like in your body is becoming more breathy and lactic acid buildup in your muscles. The amount of time you can hold this pace plummets. So when we're looking at the HYROX event, we are living in zone three and zone four, and you may even jump into zone five for a little bit, depending on how much adrenaline you got going in your body.
Zone one is really your rest pace. Zone two is your all-day pace. You are working, you're burning calories. [00:06:00] This is where you wanna spend most of your time in long endurance events. As an ultra runner, I try and spend most of my time in zone two for a 12-hour race. I'll probably spend some time in zone three, but I know the more time I spend in zone three, the more calories I'm gonna need to eat, the harder it is on my body.
This is where I live in ultra, zone two and zone three. Don't wanna go into zone four . Too hard on the body. Too hard to keep up a pace for 12 hours in zone four. That's all-day pace. Zone three, we start getting to the point of what you can really hold for an hour at a time. Zone four This plummets to holding it for about 15 minutes.
And then zone five, we're talking like one to two minutes. For HYROXs, we're living between zone three and zone four. We're living at the pace that you can do for only an hour and the pace that [00:07:00] you can do for only 15 minutes. This is real hard on the body. This is why that's gonna be so hard when you have asthma because when you have asthma, your aerobic capacity is already lower.
It just is. It doesn't have to be. That's why we strengthen our lungs, to increase our aerobic capacity. But if your aerobic capacity is already lower, that means that being in zone three and zone four in the anaerobic space, which you're probably in more often than people that don't have asthma already because when you do something, you already have less oxygen in your sy- your system is already not as good at taking oxygen in, so you find yourself in anaerobic more often.
For HYROXs, you are probably gonna find yourself in zone four a lot unless you consciously bring yourself back down to zone three, and even bringing yourself back down to zone two at times. That's what I'm gonna talk about later in this episode. But this is why when we're looking at HYROXs being harder for people with [00:08:00] asthma and we're talking about sustained high intensity, this is why this is so.
Some other things: Breathing rhythm gets disrupted. Well, when we're in this high-intensity space and we're oscillating between aerobic and anaerobic, it can be really hard to have a pattern with our breathing. Don't worry, I'm gonna teach you what we can do in order to take back our control over our breathing.
And then this is what the zones are, too, is zones are defined by heart rate. So zone one is gonna be your biggest heart rate zone, gonna be like zero to 120, depending on your fitness level. Then each zone is gonna get smaller as we get towards zone five. So zone two is probably somewhere around 120 to 140.
Then zone three is gonna be like 140 to 160 or 55. Zone four is gonna shrink even more. And zone five's gonna shrink even more. And then really the last thing is lactic acid and transitions. [00:09:00] This is the sneakiest part about HYROXs, is the transitions and where you and I can really take control of our race by doing this the right way Because when we're getting lactic acid in our system, this is basically telling you and I that we are in anaerobic territory.
We have moved into zone four. We may even be getting close to zone five, which means we need to come back down to zone three or even down into zone two. We can do that, we can do HYROXs. So can you do HYROXs with asthma? I believe that you can, and here is what I do as an athlete with asthma to take back control of my breath and my asthma during high intensity workouts, during the HYROX simulation I completed a couple weeks ago, and what I'm planning on doing in order to become an elite HYROX athlete.
I'm actually looking to complete HYROX solo, HYROX with a partner, and HYROX as part of a relay, and [00:10:00] I know multiple people who have been interested in doing HYROX that have asthma who I've learned from as well. And together, we're really figuring out what the best way to tackle these hybrid fitness races together.
The first thing, and I've taught this in many episodes of this podcast, is loud, audible exhales. I believe that this becomes even more important in HYROX. Now, I teach loud, audible exhales because this empowers you and I to Create a mind lung, mind body connection through sound. It also just simplifies breathing.
And when you're in the midst of a high-intensity event, you need simplicity. So for me, I focus on loud audible exhales. Shh. Just push out as much air as possible. It sets me up to bring in fresh oxygen. It sets me up to be more efficient with my energy output. This keeps me in aerobic territory longer.[00:11:00]
This is the key to breath control. It can still get kind of crazy. So we're talking about running a kilometer followed by a functional fitness racing exercise. And eight different ones, from the skier to sled pull, push, burpees, farmer carries, rower, lunges, wall balls, you name it. There's a bunch of different things that test different parts of our body.
You combine that with running, and this is really tough on our system. It's really tough to keep breath control. But when you focus on loud audible exhales, doesn't matter what you're doing in the race, shh, you just push the CO2 out, you open your lungs up to take in fresh oxygen. Loud audible exhales. You can practice this whenever.
You can do it right now. Shh, and feel your lungs open up for fresh oxygen. One of my friends who has asthma, who has completed HYROX with a partner, said that this was the key to helping her get through the event. She also used her inhaler. Her inhaler plus this is what empowered her to finish [00:12:00] HYROX in under 90 minutes.
And she's now done a simulation with a partner and broke her record by seven minutes. She's getting better and better, and we're teaming up in a relay later this year. Really excited about that. The second thing is you need to slow down on transitions. This Is huge and is very interesting, 'cause during my HYROX simulation, I did the simulation with a partner.
Well, after the functional fitness events and we were going out running, I started real slow. I'm a fast runner. I'm an ultra runner. I was doing a sub-six-minute pace for all of these runs, but not at the beginning, not at the beginning of the runs. The beginning of the runs, it sounded like I was really struggling 'cause I was pushing out all the air, loud audible exhales, and I was taking time with the transitions.
I was watching my heart rate, which I highly recommend that if you have asthma, you need to get a heart rate monitor of some sort and something you can actually read, so an Apple Watch, something that you can see so [00:13:00] you can track your heart rate throughout the event. I was being very careful of keeping my heart rate in zone three.
I told myself, "I know zone four. If I spend too much time in zone four, I'm gonna burn too many calories. It's gonna be too hard on my body, and I'm gonna burn out." I've done this before in ultra running, where I've gone out way too hard in a 20 or 30-mile run, and mile 15, 16, 17, I'm like, "Whoa, I need food. I need to slow down.
I need to rest." And then my ti- and then even though I finished the training session, my time suffered because I'm having to walk and really bring my heart rate back down and fuel myself. So I know that even if my transitions are slower... And I'm not talking about transitions not knowing what's going on, and I'm like, "Oh, I don't know if I'm going here or here."
This is on purpose, is I'm transitioning slower to bring my heart rate down. So I'm doing it fluid, and I'm actually doing a very fluid transition. Same thing going from run to exercise. These transitions are interesting, too. So we have exercise or workout station to run, and we have run to [00:14:00] exercise.
Throughout the event, I was making sure that I was slowing down at the end of the run before I got to the exercise. So I'm running, like, a sub-six mile. But as I get closer to the exercise station, slowing down a little bit. I'm dropping my heart rate a little bit going into the exercise. And the same thing, the exercise, I'm pushing real hard, and then I'm running right away.
I'm not walking. I'm running right away, but I'm running a much lower pace to bring my heart rate down to push out that CO2, open up my lungs for oxygen, and then I explode. And I go and I keep myself in range though. So knowing your zones is extremely important for HYROX. Keeping yourself in zone three, and even dropping yourself down to zone two if you feel like you need it, is really important.
By having a heart rate monitor, it'll tell you what zone you're in. You can set up your Apple Watch so you can see exactly what zone you're in while you're working out. This is so helpful. And for me, I know that when I'm racing, I need to stay [00:15:00] under 165, or really after doing my HYROX simulation, I think staying under 170 beats per minute is what I wanna do for most of the event.
That is gonna serve me and my time, and keeping me ready for the rest of the event, 'cause it's a hard event. The last thing here, especially if it's your first time doing HYROX, do HYROX with a partner. This is great just to learn the events, to learn from a partner who's done it before. It also allows you to, on the exercise stations, only do half of them.
Or if your asthma flares up, you can take a break, and then your partner jumps in. Now, even if you're doing it solo, I highly recommend that if your asthma flares up, that you take a break, take your inhaler, and do whatever you need. But when you have a partner, you have built-in rest periods. You could also do the relay.
With the relay, you only have to do two of the stations, and only have to run two kilometers instead of eight. These are great ways to get into HYROX. Now, when I did my HYROX simulation a couple weeks ago, me and my partner finished in 58 minutes and [00:16:00] 25 seconds. This was a PR for him. He's done multiple HYROX events.
He's done it multiple times by himself, multiple times with a partner. This was a PR for him. So yes, we were moving real good, and even though I, going into the simulation, had never done HYROX before, I had a strategy going in, it was heart rate management. I followed the strategy that I just laid out for you.
Heart rate management, staying in zone three, if not, dropping to zone two. It's okay if you go into zone four, just bring yourself back down so that you can keep pushing, and by the end of the race, you're still feeling real good, and then you can empty the tank in that last kilometer run and those wall balls.
But if you do your heart rate management right, even if you're going slower in transitions, even if you're going slower and making a lot of noise and people think, "What the heck is going on with this guy?" You can be very successful. Now, I wanna hear from you, what tips do you have that help you as an athlete with asthma, as someone with asthma, when you're doing [00:17:00] high intensity interval training?
What helps you with your asthma? Drop a comment on YouTube if you're watching this as a YouTube video, or send me an email, [email protected], if you're listening to this as a podcast. If you're interested in working together, I have links in the show notes and in the description if you're watching this on YouTube.
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 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 [00:18:00] what's possible
