Is Hyrox Good For MMA Training?

“Can I use Hyrox training as conditioning work for my MMA?”

I forgot to note the name of the person who sent this.

But this is a repeat of 15 years ago wh3n people were asking the same about crossfit for MMA

In terms of the two formats, Hyrox and Crossfit, they are separate enough entities that the many comparisons between then are unfounded.

But the general premise of “can I use “X” as training for “Y” is a poor question.

Here's why.

We have this thing called the Internet and on it we can find out almost anything about anything.

We can look up what kind of training the top level people in our chosen pursuit undertake, hell, ChatGPT will even write you a program if you ask it to!

My point being, no one who successfully competes at a given sport does so by training as:

A Hyrox competitor

A Crossfit athlete

A powerlifter

An Olympic Lifter

A Kettlebell Sport Athlete

And so on and so forth.

Now, taking a Hrox or other conditioning based exercise class may be helpful to you.

It could be well structured and run and be quite motivating for you to attend.

It may even offer some conditioning benefits that are useful to you.

Does that make it optimal?

No

But if I'm honest, we don't always need optimal, sometimes we just need to show up, an exercise class may be the answer to that question.

Now, look at what Hyrox is. It's an endurance event.

So by its nature it is aerobic.

You need to operate for an hour or so at a high heart rate.

But then, your average MMA session is the same.

60+ minutes, mostly at a relatively high heart rate.

And it's doing the actual thing you want to be good at.

Which would carry more benefit there do you think?

So, for MMA training, we would want to focus get in 1-3 strength sessions.

Include plyos, jumps, throes, Olympic variants and maybe the power lifts.

You will want 1-2 pure aerobic sessions, maybe on the bike or mobility circuits done at conversation pace.

And 1-2 higher intensity type sessions that are pointed, directed to elicit particular outcomes.

Maybe cardiac power, maybe lactate tolerance, maybe aerobic threshold.

But most importantly, you need to train the sport.

And if I'm honest, a well trained combat sport athlete should be able to walk into a Hyrox event and do quite well with zero extra work.

I don't think the Hyrox athlete would do too well in a combat sport training event though..

Regards

Dave Hedges

www.davehedges.net