If you struggle to find a reason to insert regular strength work into your training plan, maybe the motivation from entering a HYROX event will help.
HYROX is a relative newcomer to the mix of indoor events combining strength and endurance. At first glance you might think it’s similar to CrossFit, but actually it's quite different. To help you and me to understand what HYROX is all about, I have 2 guests to help.
Andy Sloan is a 39 year old former triathlete who competed twice at the IM World Champs in Hawaii, and he's recently started racing in HYROX events in the Pro division and regularly finishing in the top 10 at international events. Mel Varvel is a 53 year old female former triathlete who took part in her first HYROX event at the end of 2023. She competed in the doubles category with her racing partner Ron, and is currently preparing for her first solo event in London later this year. Mel is also a staff member for our nutrition/hydration partners at Precision Fuel and Hydration.
Mel and Andy give us a full run down about HYROX so that you’ll have all you need to decide whether to try your hand in that world. Topics covered include:
- Background on their respective triathlon history
- An outline of a HYROX event and the various disciplines, and how it differs from Crossfit
- Whether it's possible to combine training for HYROX and triathlon at the same time
- A normal training week for HYROX preparation
- Do you need to join a HYROX gym?
To find out more about Mel and Andy, please use the following social media channels:
Mel Varvel (most of Mel’s links are for Precision Fuel and Hydration)
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/precisionfandh/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/precisionfandh/
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/c/PrecisionHydration
Online Fuel & Hydration Planner:
https://www.precisionhydration.com/planner/
Please remember that as a podcast listener you can get
15% discount off your first order (and 15% off ALL orders if you join my SWAT Inner Circle). Contact me directly to get the code.
Mel’s book recommendation is
Good for a Girl: My life running in a man’s world by Lauren Fleshman.
Andy Sloan
Instagram
@Andy.nca
If you want to take a deep dive into the HYROX world you might like this podcast,
RoxLyfe.
Andy’s favourite book is
Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins.
To learn more about HYROX or to enter an event, click
HERE. You can also watch these videos to find out more about the events:
Race format
Hyrox for beginners
Burpee Broad Jumps
Wall Ball
Farmers Walk
Hyrox partner gyms
Hyrox time race calculator
And a couple of specific links to HYROX case studies featuring Mel and Andy!
https://www.precisionhydration.com/athletes/case-studies/other/andy-sloan/26-11-2023/
https://www.precisionhydration.com/athletes/case-studies/other/mel-varvel/26-11-2023/
**To get a free copy of my personal daily mobility routine, please click HERE**
To contact Beth regarding Life Coaching, please visit her website at BethanyWardLifeCoaching.uk.
Sports Nutrition questions - if you have a sports nutrition question that you would like answered on the podcast, please email it to me via
Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com.
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Visit Simon's website for more information about his coaching programmes. Links to all of Simon's social media channels can be found here. For any questions please email Beth@TheTriathlonCoach.com.
Hello folks, welcome back and if you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're listening to the high performance humour podcast and I'm your host, Simon Ward. I'm not sure if you've picked up on this, but one thing I and other guests have mentioned quite a lot in recent podcasts and one of the critical elements for good human and athletic performances you get older is mobility. Now I'll be the first to admit that it took me quite a while to fully get the message, but for the last four or five years I've spent 10 to 20 minutes just about every morning working through my daily mobility routine. I'm sure you'd like to get started on your own, but if you stuck for ideas I've put together a short plan which should take you no more than 10 minutes to work through and which covers all of the main joints, so please look for the link in the show notes to grab your copy. Let's chat about this week's guests. If you struggle to find a reason to insert regular strength work into your training plan, maybe the impetus of entering a high-rox event will help. If you haven't heard of it before, high-rox is a relative newcomer to the mix of indoor events which combine strength and endurance. At first glance you might think it's similar to CrossFit, but it's actually quite different, and to help you and me to understand what high-rox is all about, I've engaged the help of two guests. Andy Sloan is a former triathlete who competed twice at the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii and has recently started racing high-rox events in the pro division and regularly finishing in the top 10 at international events. Mel Vavil is a 53-year-old former triathlete who took part in her first high-rox event at the end of 2023. Mel was a really good age group competitor and I think her best performance there was second at Ironman Wales a couple of years ago, so she's got form as an endurance athlete, but in that event at the high-rox series back in December 2023 she competed in the doubles category with her racing partner Ron and she's currently preparing for her first solo event in London later this year. In this conversation Mel and Andy give us a full rundown about high-rox so that you'll have all you need to decide whether to try your hand in the high-rox world. Some of the topics we talk about include Andy and Mel share a bit more about their triathlon history and how they got started on high-rox. They talk about the outline of a high-rox event which you'll see or hear is pretty standard throughout all of the competitions and we talk about the various disciplines. We talk about how it really differs from CrossFit and why if you haven't got a weightlifting background you don't need to be worried. Whether it's possible to combine training for high-rox and triathlon at the same time Andy and Mel also share how they used to train for triathlon and how that training has changed now that they're preparing for high-rox events and then down to some simple admin things like how much it costs to do a race, where you can find them. Is it a welcoming community? Do you need to train at high-rox gym? In fact if we haven't covered something about high-rox then please drop me a line and I'll try to answer your question by email. So let's crack on and hear from Andy and Mel. Hello and welcome Mel Vavl and Andy Sloane. Thank you for being here. Good to see you. So you folks are going to help me today because I've become very interested in this. Let's say let's call it a new sport list. It was to me a few months ago. It's called high-rox. So I used to be taking the world by storm and I thought that would be quite an interesting sort of transition from triathlon to high-rox. And I started reading about triathletes. I thought I need to get some people who've been competing at a decent level at triathlon and now doing well at high-rox. So here you both are. So hopefully you can educate me about high-rox and how you prepare and race it. And also firstly to tell me about your own journey through triathlon to this new sport. So Mel I'm going to let the ladies go first if you don't mind. So Mel why don't you tell us about your triathlon career and how you found your way into the high-rox sphere? Yeah I'm probably quite a late starter in terms of triathlon. I'm 53 now but I did my first triathlon in 2007 I think which was the Cotswold women-only triathlon. I did it on a mountain bike with slicks. I wasn't quite sure whether I fancied doing triathlon at that stage. And I only actually entered it because someone in the gym was a I was at David Lloyd Gym was an age group triathlete. I was injured at the time and having to force to do swimming which I hated. And I think forced to probably do some cycling at the same time when running was my favorite thing at the time. So I did a bit of swimming and a bit of cycling and a bit of running and someone just taught me on the show and said why aren't you triathlon so I tried that and never really looked back. You put a lot after that. Wasn't surprised that most people I did I think it was probably a super sprint to start off with. And then it was probably only a month later I did a sprint and then a standard and then a middle distance. And I did my first I'm in New Zealand in 2009. Wow you went through two years later. You went through the gears pretty quickly then. Yeah and I couldn't to be honest I'm not as far as triathletes have been done. I've not done many Ironman races. I've had really done three and one of those was two years ago Ironman rails. And for various different reasons injuries and various different things I've done quite a bit of ultra running. I even did a bit a year where I had some injuries to my feet where I actually did a lot of swimming which I hate so I managed to be the time as marathon and the dark 10k and various different things. So I've got a kind of mixed endurance background but I also did some GB age group racing as well. Duathlon and triathlon and I paid him a couple of times. Yeah so I've done a few things but I suppose in the recent past ultra running has been my thing. And then I did Ironman rails just for shits and giggles. Very good. Okay where did you finish? Where did you finish in your age group at Ironman Wales? Annoyingly I came second. People that were watching me run the strict instruction because it had been a long time. It had been a decade since I done the Ironman. People were in the strict instruction not to tell me where I was in the race at any point. And I could sense in the last 5k that there was a degree of urgency in their eyes widely saying just keep it up. And for instance they got put to the post in the last I don't know two or three k so but yeah. And then did you wish that you'd told them to actually tell you? To be honest I couldn't have run any harder if I tried. So I think it's a lot of a deep beat chasing me with a red hot paper and probably have struggled to do a beat in the last week who won it very very fairly. I always think when as a coach when folks say afterwards I could have gone a bit harder on the bike or the run and I always think well if you could have done you would have done you went as hard as you could on the day. Maybe you think that there might have been something in there but actually most people don't deliberately go slowly do they? In any race. I think we'll all attest to the fact that you've finished your legs and probably with it about a minute you're thinking why didn't I do that? You didn't because you were completely shot at the end. That's right. Andy thank you for being so patient Andy Sloane. Tell us about your triathlon history career. It's very flattering to call it career. Yeah so I was always into like kind of just smashing weights and then going a bit of running then a body mind had said he'd entered a triathlon. I didn't have a clue what a triathlon was. I was like oh I'll do that. So then ended that it was like a like a jumbled one so I think it was a swim first which was just out around some rafting back and then it was like a kind of like a 5k run and then like a maybe like a 10 mile bike ride so a bought a bike like a mountain bike for a coach quid. Yeah did that triathlon. I remember doing the you know set out or out on the swim for about 30 meters. They ended up doing a rest of it breaststroke but yeah we really enjoyed it. So a little while after that I heard about Ironman at the time. I didn't know anyone had done one. I wasn't even a mate's dad had done one I think. I was like well all right this maybe get one of those ended at some point but I'll have to learn the swim so I started doing it but swim training was awful but swimming so just practice that a bit ended on Ironman. When did Ironman UK? That was the first one in, might have been like 2009 I think and then yeah I did that bang that and about I think it was about 11.40 odd 11.45 maybe then a kind of started look. I had planned to only just do that one because it just, that's all right stay out for everybody. Yeah that was it. I was like well I got a bit of time in a minute so I'll get an Ironman bang out now and then I can focus on life but like I think we all do is like you know I did that one and then I was like I could probably do a bit better than that so yeah then fast fast forward a bit bit beyond that and I ended up doing I don't know 15, 16 I don't know quite a few of them you know did you know got the cone and a couple of times did terrible both times there and yeah so done a fair bit of triathlon really particularly for the longer distance stuff but I was yeah got myself all right out of it really but then 20 I think 2018 was the last one I did maybe yeah I think it must have been 2018 and I kind of like lost me out of it a bit really not well might just frustrated with my biggest issues always like just cramping like uncontrollably for no experimental reason hence I know Andy for for a long time but yeah so got a bit frustrated with that really ended up then decided to do this 83 mile trail ultra run down where I live and doors it so I did that 2019 and then me and me make kind of ended up winning that and broke the record on it which was which was quite fun so I kind of got a bit of a bug for that so I smashed the ultra run in for a for a couple of years and I think last year last year was planning on coming out of quote unquote retirement so I entered the outdoor actually but then I started training for that I thought I'd give myself about six weeks but I actually I started started feeling all right actually but then I had a really bad tear in my car for like a month before like proper sort of grade three so got rid of that and then I think I then I have then I entered Ironman where else for this year I only to now realise I would know interesting doing it whatsoever so I've deferred that to next year and then yeah keep pushing it down the track right yeah I quite like donating money to Ironman because I don't feel like they make enough of it well they asked probably struggling a little bit more than they were a few years ago yeah yeah yeah yeah that's that's my journey really so yeah switch out from the old time and then yeah started hitting some eye rocks there's a bit of a pattern here isn't there because it seems like both you and Mel have done the triathlon ultra running and then now we're going to talk about that high rocks journey so Mel what what was it that first well how did high rocks first catch your attention and then what was it that prompted you to give it give it a world that was similar things really it's funny actually talking back I don't know if you ever remember the magazine ultra fit I do I wrote I wrote it in fact the first article I ever wrote was in 1995 for ultra fit so 30 years in it they had a cross train jumping tips okay yes I do remember the old speed cross train I do remember that yeah yeah not quite the same thing as high rocks but a kind of similar format and I actually did quite a few of those races so I guess I always had that in the back of my mind I've always been um I said I've always been 30 muster I always have five steps like copper um always always been always been always been a slightly thicker shaft triathlete I think um it actually I just had I actually crewed for the local R&L I and one of the crew members is a bit of a do lots of weights in your garage bag I run and I asked him once when we were in the pub opposite the station what was he doing it for um and he said well actually funny to say that I'm not really doing it for anything and I said have you ever thought about doing any kind of competition or crossfit or anything like that and he said no and then literally the same evening he sent me uh basically um an invitation to participate in high rocks as a mixed pair with him and to be honest I didn't really know an ultra lot I had stuff near about a high rock so I didn't really know an ultra lot about it before that other than that it was a kind of hybrid athlete sort of deal um when I looked into it I could actually it probably would really suit me you know 50% running 50% some sort of functional strength activities that aren't unlike crossfit I would not discuss that later I guess but unlike crossfit it doesn't require me to be you know a demon at an Olympic lifting or to be able to do a handstand which actually I can't do um so I was like fully up for it and um yeah I suppose it just it's just different I've got the stage now where I just I just don't really have the time um or maybe just the energy actually the commitment that I'm um racing takes and and so that seemed to be seems to take a lot of boxes for me really seem to maybe suit me physically um and just be the right thing for me to do at this stage in my life where you know I'm sort of constrained by time and everything else so yeah um and do you were laughing there when Mel says she got biceps like Popeye do you not have big biceps so they're moderate at best oh hold on hold on hold on wishing all new descent do you think do you think I can get entire rocks now then easy man come on Mel come on big three come on come on oh man I think um I think um that's a tie between Mel and Anthony and we probably take two things weird on that one but my easy yeah easy younger man I need to get now I've already done my weights today I need to get back and do a double weight sessions yeah I want to be honest how about you Andy then um what was your path into how rocks yeah I'd never heard of it um so so my business so I got business where we we basically work with gyms and upper market and selling stuff but my business partner just messing me one day I said oh mate if you had seen this high rock stuff um I was like nah well satan he just sent me a little link because I reckon we should crack on and go and do one of them um I don't like saying no to anything I just I think if someone's gonna say oh do you want to go and do this you know 99 times over 100 I'm saying yeah so I was like cool yeah all right let's get on it let's get that entered um and and that was basically that um so yeah we got that entered he didn't actually end up doing it because he had an issue with his hips kind of ongoing so he couldn't do it by did but that was um that first one it was a London Olympia one I guess last year it must have been like yeah May 23 and that would but that was that was literally four weeks pretty much four weeks to the day after I'd just done the one over again which was that 83 mile run again down here so I didn't I didn't go in into that first high rocks having done I think I did about four training sessions for it in total um and I was yeah I've just done that ultra so I was a bit bad but it's good crack so yeah so basically when I did that and like everything you do that finish you know relatively enjoyed it you know finished the race and then you know I could have done a bit better there but I'd you know then I got that email so now he's qualified for the world championships which I was I think it said more about the maybe the level of competition than it did about performance I don't know but that was it then so I was like oh it was crack on do that and that was kind of four weeks later after that when when was when was your first one Mel a little bit later actually it was the December last what's they last year it was the it was the London event after the one that Andy's talked about um and yeah and we did exactly the same so we didn't have any expectations run the guy I was doing with with his is I was just saying those group is me he is a builder I trade and he is quite fit uh especially strong he's he's pretty strong but he's not a runner at all um so running is not his his background but we were really surprised when we qualified for the world championships so we went we went terrible but I think as Andy said you know it feels like it's very participatory you know it's encouraging everybody to go and it and there is a huge difference between the levels the levels of skill and ability on the on the course so we were quite surprised to come out third but um but yeah but I saw exactly the same you know I thought my thoughts were well yeah let's let's go to least because that'll be fantastic and give it a crack and I also thought I could do much better I could run faster I could certainly do more training and get stronger um because I haven't really done anything like this and so I quite like to do singles unfortunately I didn't I didn't manage to do that but um but I've got one lined up for London nothing in December okay so that's quite interesting and Mel you're when you're talking about Ron doing that with you that's that's the relay thing so we'll come on to that in a minute because there's a relay format where you're doing pairs isn't there and then Andy you're talking about doing the the solo right yeah I've only done those so far yeah although we just ended a couple of doubles written um in Poland in a couple of months as well so but yeah just the singles of them okay so let's let's just go back a couple of steps then um you've talked about running and you've both talked about being strong so um let's see if we can outline the various events so my recollection is you have to do eight times one kilometer runs is that right yeah that's the one and in between each of those one kilometer runs there is a um a different activity that takes place in the center of the arena is that right that's it in the rock zone okay right so i'm going to let you talk talk me through in um in the order do they come in the same order all the time yeah standard ones like every single race is same yeah okay Mel so how about you do the odd numbered events and and do you do the even number events so what's what comes first so the first thing is a thousand meters on the skier okay so you've seen a skier before it's like an upright rowing a gometer but maybe it's kind of holes in cross-country skiing and just as painful no doubt as a as a normal rowing a gometer yeah okay so so actually that that's quite interesting those rowing a gometers aren't as don't seem to be as easily available in gyms as a concept to or that some of the some of the other variants that are available now so how would you train for that um do you need to join a high-rock gym to go and do that well i thought about 96 kids i actually didn't have one in the gym i actually just remember at the moment of the of the local council and gyms down the road and they don't have one um so i just i think there's lots of things that try to mimic that kind of activity and then lots of hard aerobic stuff which i knew was going to kill me um rowing rowing i've i've never did you like but actually that's you know that's good but i did lots of lap pull downs lots of lots of high reps no weights to try and mimic that kind of movement but to be honest it's it's such a because it's a 16th of of what you're doing i'm not quite sure about time-wise you know if you if you can do it and you can get it done and for me actually my first outing of doing that i was doing that as a mixed pair um and whilst you have to do the run together at the same time you can split the functional activities and that includes the spear whichever way you like so i could have done none of that and let rond do the whole thing if i'd wanted to as it happens because he's a uh a less fit uh less capable runner at the moment or where he's improved massively i did the first 250 meters so that he could recover from his run then he did the middle 500 meters and then i did the last 250 meters so that he could recover on the pair for the next run and we did that quite a lot but i don't want to i don't know you might want to talk about that later but um but yeah so it's a lot it was a lot easier for me and i when i was training i knew that i wasn't going to have to be a thousand meters anyway and it proportionately was quite a small bit so i didn't worry too much about not having that bit of key in the gym. Skiogue first Andy what's the next so you do after skiogue then as you said you do another kilometer run yeah so does the skiogue come is that the very first discipline or do you run first before that so you run and then run first okay so you do the skiogue back for another kilometer run and then Andy what comes next yeah then you got like a 50 meter sled push so um you got like a like a i think it's like a 12 and a half meter length so to speak so you got to push it up and back um total four lengths and then and that's weighted with i think the the i think then maybe the ladies like about a hundred kilos maybe and then i think the um the like the the open men is the 150 and then ish and then the the pro men is like 200 or 202 is ish about that i don't know what the pro woman is maybe that's 150 as well but um yes that's us yeah that's relatively hard work um but it can be very much dependent on like i think the conditions and humidity and stuff and then the the i mean the carpet i think is pretty much standardized but that it's definitely a a variation event to event in how hard it is yeah so but yes yes you got that's that's second one anyway and then you run again you run again right well back to you uh yeah and then you go back to the sled but this time you pull it uh okay same thing so 12 and a half meters it sounds when you look at it on paper and it's actually 50 meters it looks like that's going to be hard but actually it's it's really hard because you're basically pulling the sled i'm pulling it to a dead stop turning around and doing the same thing again so it is it is pretty hard and i did in the mixed doubles um you have to be the men's uh the men's weight so i'm just talking about sled push it's about 152 kilograms i think including the sled and for the pull it's 103 kilograms so it's not an insignificant amount of weight especially if you're if you're female it's um not all females obviously but it's it's quite a lot of weight do does the push generally feel harder than the pull or the other way around or does it does it does it just differ for individuals i'd say the other way around but if you look at the times the pull is always quite a lot slower than than the push yeah and when you're pulling do you hold the handles and walk backwards pulling it towards you or do you have a harness and you walk forwards pulling it behind you like like you have a rope yeah so this the sled pull yeah yeah you have you have a rope um the ropes attached to the to the sled you basically are are at the opposite end of the 12 and a half meter course for the sled and you basically just pull the rope and there is a small amount of uh so you have to be in within a box when you're pulling it you're not allowed outside of the box so people have various different techniques they might involve hand over hand or they might involve just just one and pull yeah just grouping it and pulling it but some people do a mixture and quite a few people will go to the front of the box grab hold of the rope and then move themselves holding the that holding the rope to the back of the box and then go forwards again so um there's a bit of technique involved in that but right i've got you now that in the in the um local sports gym i go to they have got this little area where they've got a sled and i thought the pulling was where you hold on to those vertical handles and you just walk backwards now i see i see now why the pull will be harder because the pull is essentially fixing with your legs and using your upper body whereas the push is more of a hip and leg driver isn't it? yeah okay falling and a killing driver as i've found out after my killing is decided to get quite angry as well i guess after the after the sled push um running feels a bit wobbly doesn't it because your legs will probably take a um a battering that you're not quite realising as you do in the push yeah i mean to be fair most of them are pretty much like i think i think there are a few athletes i know that have been into it thinking because it's proportionately more running you know it's 50% running there are a lot of people that that go in it from a triathlon running background thinking it'll be easy i don't know what Andy thinks the Andy's on his bigger and stronger but but even though i'm fairly strong my immediate sense was it's actually hard it's pretty it's pretty hard it's hard going and it's hard to do that and then and then get back on the on the running thing i think the worst one is the lunges for me it is hard work it's kind of like if you like yeah i kind of liken it to like um you know if you're jumping off that if you look at a triathlon you jump get off the bike after a Ironman it's kind of like that first kind of like i 100 meters of running where you're just like want to kill yourself uh yeah so your legs feel pretty trashed but i think with most of them you know you're certainly for me once i've done like i know 100 100 meters that that yeah it's too bad then but i think it kind of does that when you when you used to having done a load of hard stuff previously anyway um it used to have that naughty kind of feeling in your legs that you kind of used to it so people come from a triathlon background maybe it's not it's no bad thing for sure yeah so yeah so after the sled pull then Andy what's another kilometer another kilometer running then back to the high rocks the rocks zone yeah then you've got this it's 80 meters of burpee broad jumps which are pretty hideous so that's if you imagine like you know you start behind the line hands behind the line um chest to floor up you come jump forwards repeat that's that's some bolts that so you've got to do 80 meters of that um and there's cut there's different techniques that people are doing that you know whether they're gonna you jump out jump in or step out step in and jump forward you know it's cut different ways but yeah that that's a relatively naughty one that's certainly one i've suffered with when you do the burpees do you feet have to stay together because i see a lot of people go in legs back one at a time no they can say again different techniques but i think the main thing is you once your hands are down and when i think when you jump your feet in they can only be a certain distance from your handle something um yeah there's a few like standards with it and that but you don't need to have your legs your feet touching them all together anything so when you're doing i'm i'm going to put the burpee broad jump um might be quite difficult for some folks to visualize i'm going to put a link to that one because i think there's a few high rocks training videos isn't when they've got some of their experts outlining how to do each exercise and demonstrating it um is it better to do a long jump which takes more energy and more more landing skill or do you do a short jump and commit to doing more burpees i'll let you know when i've done a decent set i guess jump gets smaller and smaller as you get tired don't they i think the key is just trying to isn't again if you liken it to like a triathlon it's not battering yourself on the in the first bit you know i think you bet you know if you can do a consistent speed and not completely trash yourself early doors because it is quite a long way to be fair you know you can be down there anything from you know two and a half to five minutes probably um well you're going to do what i reckon you're going to do at least if you jumping a meter is quite a long jump from a standing start when you're tired so you're going to do at least 80 burpees somewhere between 1800 if anyone's trying to do 80 burpees and just do a little side jump and then do another one and then a little side jump there's quite a lot of anaerobic ways and say anaerobic it feels anaerobic your heart rate will be high but it's gone past anaerobic then isn't it yeah yeah it's quite naughty i'd say probably on average you probably you do anything from kind of like maybe 50 to 80 or it would probably be about it i'd i'd okay if you've got a stall looks like me it is a few more so okay so we do broad jump burpee broad jumps another kilometer run their mouth then what's next after that oh no now you're testing me i think it is rowing after that so it's a thousand meters on a on an erg you get to sit down that probably feels like a bit relief does it you do and i think i have a feeling that a damper is set so you are allowed to move the damper so you're allowed to move the resistance but i have a feeling that it's set somewhere around six or seven so you can't whack it whack it right up but again i mean i'm he's referred to this already it is just a question of pace here because i think most people will comfortably say you know most traffic that i've ever rode before so i can bang out a rowing you know a kilometer in 130 140 whatever but actually you know you need to you need to pace that that's kind of you get into the middle point there and it's kind of the it is potentially i say recovery in inverted promise but yeah still still hard to do that and then to bowl up to bowl up and and run again okay you get you get back that just these runs these the events are indoors aren't they yeah so you're not running around a track necessarily you're running around quite a small circuit how many laps do you do to get a kilometer so i have a two or three yeah i'm two or three okay so does that because this sharp turns is it like a square that you're running with a sharp 90 degree turn at each corner is it actually an oval that they've instructed there is i did want to trim not so long ago that was pretty much just like it wasn't an athletic track but that sort of design i can open then i think the one i did in it was just like all sorts of different turns and that's it or maybe it's not more than the London one i did not so i can't but some of them there's just a room zigzaggy so you know you find some a quicker courses than others just because if you're obviously having to do a few turns and that's going to slow down quite a bit and does that take a greater toll on your legs because you're having to decelerate and then do a sharp turn and then accelerate again and you've got that you know if you've got three laps for every kilometer that's 25 laps that's a lot of slowing down and speeding up again there's a lot of laps to try and count as well yeah and are you responsible for counting your own laps yeah although there's locker there's like um like an electronic order up there as well um but yeah i did manage to do an extra one and i raised the... do you have to wear it do you have to wear a timing chip that tells you at the end if you've done enough so you get to the end thinking you're doing a good result then it says you only ran 800 meters on that fifth lap and then what happens to just give you a penalty so do you get a time penalty i think i can't remember how long it is it might be it might be as much as three minutes oh wow it's more enough a lot of penalties better learning to count yeah i think on the on the last lap it will say it will say on the board in front of you that your next activity is whatever so you've got an idea so you just need to but even if it is it can be a little bit of a fun fight because there's lots of people off in waves and it is really popular so there are a lot of people at any one time with a lot of different age groups so i mean i was picking out when i did mine um it becomes as like a sprint distance or any other triathlon it comes quite difficult to kick out the people that are in your age group as you get older it's a lot easier because i was looking for bald heads and grey hair and then it not the women mostly the men but it becomes a lot easier to sort of quickly about but actually you get overtaken by but in this uh the mixed doubles 50 59 was followed by the men's i don't think it was men's coat it was the men's open and they set off not long after we'd started so we were being lapped by these guys that were going pretty fast so yeah it can be a bit of a fun fight do you when you get back to your stations then in the rock zone um is there ever any sort of queuing for the bits of equipment now that's the gist of the street like that so now you know yeah do you have your own little station or do you just um do you just have to find a rowing machine or a skier that's free yeah they they filter you down so they're all sorted up so they just filter from the far end then yeah so they're just it's a bit it's a bit like an ironman car park yeah there are people in yellow that's pointing you to okay okay where to go and i'm pointing you to a bit of equipment to start on oh i'm starting to get i'm starting to get excited about this if i hadn't if i knackered my knee i think that that that this might be quite interesting but this i've ruptured my ACL not long ago and i'm thinking all the running first these is out the question at the moment and then even when i can when i'm thinking all those tight turns might not be very good for it um anyway right so we've done the row so Andy's back to you then what we're back in the rock zone and what's next yeah you've got a farmers carry so you just basically got a kettle better than each hand and then you just got a zigzag up and back for 200 meters on like a little little course i imagine if you're like queuing at alton towers just like that um kettlebells in each hand yeah yeah i think the weights for that and the male like the pro men is like 32 in each hand wow the open men's 24 and then same for the next 15 i think is it 16 i think and the women's maybe yeah and that's and that's 32 kilos not 32 pounds yeah kilos yes whatever so that's that's um what's that 32 64 yeah that's 70 odd pounds most people won't have been used to carrying a 70 pound suitcase no often these days yeah so that um i've had dan jon on i don't know if you've no dan jon he's a strength coach from the states but he's he one of his favorite exercises that he likes to recommend for every strength program is a loaded carry of some sort so farmers walks are uh he he thinks farmers walks are a must for every athlete um for strong hips and legs and posture so um but most people i know that go at the gym have never even heard of a loaded carry so uh it'll be new for some people that yeah yeah yeah yeah they're quite hard work as well great strength yeah great grip strength as much anything and i guess at that point you've you've done five different events and run 5k you'll be sweating a lot so um holding on to a kettlebell with metal handles when your hands are slippy and it's 30 odd kilos um you can have to keep putting it down and wiping your shirt or do your leg gloves and use chalk you don't have chalk yeah okay yeah that's that's a must really because um in the kind of events when they maybe haven't had chalk or people haven't found or something and yes if you're a child carrying every cat bow with sweaty eyes it's not a really fun experience like Andy i um i don't know actually how much he's swept he was salty he sounds like a salty sweat around the salty sweat like a piece of shit hold on a minute shouldn't you both shouldn't you both know this if you know anti-blow you should both be like up on all your numbers i don't know i don't know how salty Andy is but i'm so sorry i think i'm about a thousand milligrams micrograms a hour or whatever it is or polita yeah i'm about i'm about 1500 so i'm like i'm properly salty and i'm like Andy i'm also a symptomatic falcon sweater so i get terrible cramp um which is believed by taking sodium for me um and taking it in the right concentrations but um but yeah that that's sweat i mean there's a lot of sweat about at that point especially if you were later on in the day i think the first race i did is mixed doubles they put the old people on later um so my first race was at 8 40 on a Sunday evening oh then yeah which and obviously everyone else has been around the course by that stage so it's all pre yeah chalk is an absolute must otherwise it'd be something way good like and does that mean that the run circuits quite slippery then if it's on an indoor arena it can be in places yeah yeah i used a long time ago i used to run um circuit training classes in a big sports hall and in the winter when everybody was sweating and it was cold outside it used to get it was terrible indoors and um but we used to do you know when you're when you're talking about the exercises that you're doing here and in between the running we used to have um circuit stations and people running in pairs and one person would run for a minute any other person would be on the station and we'd do that for three minutes and then move to the different stations so it's very sort of um similarities between that and the way hyrule seems to be run which is uh which is good okay right um Mel it's back to you so we've done the farms carrying and we've done another kilometer of walk and it's all getting a bit it's all getting a bit blurry now i guess yeah well so just when you think your legs are not going to take any more battering um you've got some sandbag lunges so it's a hundred meters the sandbag lunges so sandbag on your shoulders but for me in mixed doubles uh it was 20 kilograms um i think i can't remember how much it is for the women i think it might be 10 i want to play thanks yeah and it makes a huge difference uh in the gym that i work out in the only half 15 kilogram that's the heaviest one that i've got and the difference between 15 and 20 for me is is quite similar to them i can not struggle at all with 15 but 20 is quite challenging on my legs and and they're really quite strict um so you have to have me down every time um wow i can that yeah that could be you could easily damage yourself there getting tired and bashing your knee on the floor yeah yeah i haven't done that yet but um but yeah so that's quite a that's quite a challenging one so a hundred meters that's at least 80 lunches isn't it 200 yeah 50 on each leg yeah and it's another one where pacing is just absolutely you know if you if you set yourself off with a rhythm that you can maintain you know you can you can get through but uh it's quite it's quite a hard one i don't know how i'm defined it but um i find that one that uncorro reverting your mind and my heart is pretty naughty so that and then it's all it's all it's all um relative isn't it like the weights and that you're using but like so when i do that the quote-unquote pro one it's like so it's which does get quite a bit after a couple of lunges um yeah like Mel said they're like pacing it so is a key the best you can you've both said that you're salty sweaters and you both you both mentioned getting cramp at any point during any of these um movements are you feeling the cramp setting in like i guess a hundred lunges is gonna bring cramp on if um if you haven't had it already i've i've luckily enough been able to escape it mostly but then the race i did in Turin a little while ago i was like i started cramping after the frickin on the second run so it didn't end up a very nice day but um i've got me strategy kind of dialled dialled in relatively well and i actually carried some like salt caps with me and that as well so i kind of it's the individual in it but i kind of deal with it as i know so it's yeah same with me i've i'm so well used to making sure that i don't if if at all possible i mean there are lots of different causes of cramp um and doing that kind of repetitive movement is with that kind of fatigue is is holding you up to doing that that you know to potentially getting cramp and even if you're even if you're nailing your sodium intake you can still pretend to be get cramp and i think there is an element in all of these races where people say that they are getting cramp and you know arguably that could be the electric imbalance but it all could also be a huge amount of fatigue and the recurrence movements so yeah but yeah i've managed to i've managed to avoid it not not too luck but just by making sure that i'm on prepare really so i made that seven so what's the eighth and final movement Andy they finally wall balls that is so if you imagine if you just hold on to like a big leather ball um basically you've got squat down so you have your hips go just below parallel so you've got brake parallel and then you're going you're going up and throwing it like um i think the ladies is like maybe nine feet and the blokes targets just to touch it above that and then you do i think the ladies open you do like 75 reps and everyone else is weirdly it's the only thing where the number of repetitions and the weight differs from men and women it is weird i'm not quite sure why that is but um but it's um it's one of those things that seems like it's going to be really easy and it's one of those things that you just know it's going to be your downfall at the end of the race if you haven't got your pacing right and you're completely so i did in the i said as we run round our last lap was run in the niche championships i said i'll do the first 25 um because he was putting effort after doing the the last run and the first 10 i threw into the air without hitting the target at all like it was stay incredibly i knew what i was supposed to be hitting but by that stage you're kind of a bit garter so seems like an easy task but isn't what happens if you don't hit the target then no really yeah someone you have someone counting um behind you oh so even if so even if does that mean you the ball was too short or you were just inaccurate with you throw i was just tired and just not yeah it was just an inaccuracy so literally just throwing up to the right height but not actually throwing it oh wow so you end up doing a hundred instead of or whatever you end up doing a you end up doing a lot more oh wow yeah and i guess at that point there with the exhaustion cognitive functions going a bit it's easy to be a little inaccurate isn't it yeah well absolutely yeah all these things that you haven't thought of yeah yeah so is there um is there a run to do after you finish the wall ball so and then is that take you to the finish just just let it finish then so like the the wall ball stations literally right at the end and then you just jog up the line there and then that's it and then if you really talks then you see people collapsing and laying on the floor and not standing up for a minute so just just to go through this order again so it's run skier run sled push run sled pull run burpees run row run farms carry run sandbag lunges run wall ball and then get to the finish finish okay and roughly how long does that take i mean let's how long does it take the pro athletes at the fastest bit a bit shy then how uh okay andy how long is it rough to take you in and what i'm what am i i was one oh one okay with this one yeah male what does it take you or as a team at the team we did ours in 112 i think i want to say okay and um roughly what are the what the slowest finishes um coming in at i'm sure i've seen in the male pro it's all like three hours or something um three yeah i'm i'm sure i've seen them that that because you you matter what it's like we try from you get all different levels of people all different injury states is whatever um and you do get people who will you know they'll walk all the runs i guess you know maybe they've got truss knees truss whatever or they're just tapping me well yeah you get get out of there um but yeah no so could could be anything anything up to that you know two yeah three hours um i guess the average maybe it's like an hour and a half or something yeah i think so okay and does it cost a lot to enter this like is it compatible with triathlon or a lot more economical not compared to doing a freaking iron man i don't know it depends if you're doing it as a rate per hour yeah yes as a Yorkshireman and iron man's good if you take 17 hours right i think i think the last i can't remember i've just entered the singles for London for the first time actually the second time i've entered for the first time i'm going to hopefully compete and it's i think it was 115 pounds i think i'm doing 20 pounds with an admin fee something like that the ones in europe are a bit less i mean i don't have one in pola the other day and that that was quite a bit cheaper when we did that one in Italy that was short but it's about 70 quid or something so that's that's the pricing and standardised i think the the english ones seem to be the the top end but you know they'll sell out in not that long at all supply and demand maybe maybe you do like sort of 10, 12,000 spaces in a cut a day sort of thing maybe they've got one of those maybe they've got one of those algorithms like ryan air so the more popular the prices go up you know well yeah and there's definitely a black market for tickets really yeah absolutely so 12,000 people taking part in in an event is that is that the norm or no they're the biggest ones over in it i think it's biggest in the UK so they're like the biggest events i could think that London one this is like the biggest one they've had so far like the maybe the last one um and but you know the other ones maybe this i don't know could benefit three to six eight i don't know but quite but certainly biggest in the UK and not quite so many and they do them over like kind of like two or three days as well okay okay um typically are they just in major city centre around europe basically yeah yeah okay yeah they've definitely made it the kind of uh high rocks tourism kind of it's okay well there's a balance or or niece or you know Sydney or something yeah well that's a good that was the reason i did triathlon for the tourism part isn't that why you did it yeah what about your partner well um i one of the guys i coach he always used to try and find races where um there was some nice restaurants and shopping opportunities for his wife so when they when they had one in monoco she she would give a okay to that they did one in Barcelona that was okay um yeah blag and vert was a good one for the Ironman because it wasn't particularly good shopping but it was a nice location to go and you could pop you could pop over to the Alps and um down into Italy so you know there's always there's always good reasons to go isn't there um is it is there a season then for high rocks or does it go on all year round there is a season um like i think the UK is maybe like was it like May through to November or something maybe yeah i'll be talking about my arse but then i was in i mean it's just just going over top Australia more so now as well so maybe there's two or three race over there now so i think you could pretty much race ball year if you could be asked to travel any way you wanted to but yeah there is there is like a season so one of the questions i had was um yeah we'll come back to your training and how it's different from when you were training from triathlon but if you were trying to combine high rocks and triathlon the fact that the seasons are on at the same time we made that quite difficult wouldn't it you can get one in at the back end of the season like if you thought if you were gonna do like your last triathlon maybe you got arse end of August or maybe in September sometime then you've got i mean there's a race in October for instance in Birmingham and then you got like November and then December and then maybe even January and that so you could fit when in kind like at the end of the season for sure yep i agree i hope you're enjoying the show so far and learning a lot if you aren't already a regular listener i hope you feel you might come back please make sure to hit this subscribe button so you know whenever a new episode arrives i published these twice a week ad-free and with the mission of improving the health and performance of endurance athletes around the world and to help me i'd love it if you could share the episode with one person you think could benefit if you have a couple more minutes perhaps you could leave me a review on your chosen platform once you've finished listening to this episode okay let's get back to the show i've either of you tried combining triathlons and high rocks in the same season i've tried entering a triathlon and right but no not yet okay is it would you do you think it would be possible to get a training weekend which allowed you to do enough swimming biking and running and spend enough time in the gym or would you get just too exhausted do you think for me it kind of very much varies on like would depend on like the the level of that athlete and and what they wanted to do you know if someone if someone put it this way if someone wants to be like real good at triathlon or they don't really want to be pissing around my high rocks really certainly in the season if someone's more of a completer than a competitor then you know they can they maybe they they're quite happy to you know distribute some some more their time to to maybe doing a cut of high rocks based sessions a week but so i think it would kind of depend on your level also i've been funny high rocks i mean the way i look at that it's just going to do and work out of a load of other people so like you know 90% of triathlons probably gonna bang one out anyway so right not maybe maybe not like the pro level weights because you know i guess quite a lot of triathletes may be quite whatever but i think most maybe it's general like most like relatively in shape people which you'd expect most triathletes to be could probably just go and rat one out i mean it might take a little while longer they might hurt a bit more but if they want to just get one done you can probably just go bang out tomorrow they're not going to be going for a run the day after though are they maybe maybe give a minute yeah i saw that i saw last year um last winter that Joe Skipper was busy preparing for high rocks he might have been doing the London one in now i saw i saw not that yeah and i did i did i did think cool you know i wonder how that how how that um compliments or interferes with his training for Ironman because did you see his results no i thought that thing he did very well i thank you for having struggled about it i saw well most of the time in his in his video he seemed to be messing around with his friend and having a laugh rather than getting up with serious training but um i just found it quite interesting that it was in the winter but as we probably all know that the typical professional triathlon season doesn't really have an end these days as it keeps going particularly if you're trying to get points and qualifications and you know pto rankings um i think i think as as Andy says it's kind of um it depends on what level you want to do it's up because if you if you i'm against the world championships was a completely different kind of fish to doing the qualification in terms of the range of ability that was that was there so the championships you know i look like a puny weed compared to some of the hybrid updates that were there male and female that were stacked and clearly you know designed to do high rocks or designed to do sort of cross fit type activities um if you if you are triathlete if you're a lean endurance based long course triathlete to to go to do high rocks and expect to do really really well if you've not trained for it i think is it's going to be difficult but if you want to do it to to you know as a bit of cross training or or just to get it done then now that you have any trouble issues expectations and you both talked about how many people are entered for some of these races is it is it quite a welcoming community you know if um if i turned up and i wasn't really sure what i was doing would i be able to just talk to the person next to me say oh you know i'm completing you to this what's going on here would they be quite welcoming as everybody really zoned and focused yeah i think so yes it is it's a great affair i mean it's done about even i mean for me it's um i don't know for some for some people i think probably going into the event there is might be a little bit intimidating in the first instance it's got a load of champs running around with a tops off looking absolutely shredded um and sometimes people just focus on that like how everyone is in incredible shape but it's like it's like a triathlon um you've got people with ship bikes and people with real good bikes the same same sort of thing now whether they got people with incredible rigs and then and then more normal looking human beings but so some people might go in there and feel a bit intimidated but until they actually start looking and see that different shapes and ability levels there like ranging from the you know 56 57 minutes through to the people going to be there for like two or three hours like so and and i i haven't met any knobs there like everyone's real friend good crack yeah it's good vibe and you meld you said that um i was asking you about the percentage of female participants it seems quite high compared to um triathlon for instance yeah i i could honestly put my own on hot and so i know exactly it's bigger but i did have a quick look and i think it is in the high 40s so um and certainly when you when you look at that when you actually look at the event you can see you know um what appears to be a decent proportion of women but it's a lot um so yeah it's great and i my experience there are some high rocks gyms so there's like affiliated gyms um which have sprung up they get a sort of priority access to kits which is you know great high rocks and but actually you know it does lend itself to that kind of training as a group um and and yeah it is really i found it really fantastic to sort of to be in that environment you're in there for a so it's like a concentrated triathlon if you like you know more people more often in a more confined space um yeah it's it's i didn't find it intimidating you'll probably cut the uh i felt like the first event i went to it was very very humid atmosphere and i kind of felt like i was cut through the testosterone with a knife um but actually it's it's it's not really that it's just humanly hopefully that just wasn't those stacked females that you talked about although it's probably a bit more of that than they already tried but yeah well so CrossFit has been very popular and they've done a really good job at marketing it and you have the CrossFit games on there and i mean when you're talking about stacked individuals both male and female there's some fantastic examples there they you know they're not far off bodybuilder some of them are they um you talked about um earlier male about the differences with CrossFit and you said or because at least i don't have to do a handstand to do high rocks and so for somebody who might have seen CrossFit and thinking well what they what melonandia described as the event sound very similar what what are the differences um between CrossFit and high rocks that are the most apparent yeah i don't i don't know that i'm the only to be fair to CrossFit i don't have a background in CrossFit i've never actually been to a CrossFit training session i've only seen what i've seen online and what i've read but um but i've always shied away from it because my understanding is that it involves Olympic lifting which um i'm not i think you need technique and i always worry that doing Olympic lifts in a short amount of time which often you know there are some sort of time limited is a mistake for me um i'd certainly need to be very very comfortable i'm sure there are lots of CrossFit games where they actually the tuition on how to how to do Olympic lifts is is good um but i always worry for me that i'll i'll choose weights that are just beyond my ability and then and then do something from my back so um yeah i i guess a lot of people would say and if you redo i talk about high rocks the activities the functional activities and they are pretty functional they're pretty accessible you can obviously speed up and and be quicker if you learn technique and if you practice technique but actually you know you'd be hard push the front and front and front to find someone that can't push a sled or pull it um you know that can't row or can't sort of do similar vertically with a ski erg you know all throw a ball against the wall so so you know you don't need any real technique like say i can't do a handstand so i think i'll be out i'll be out of CrossFit but i don't know it only might know more than me i that kind of also can't do a handstand i think you know CrossFit um you know CrossFit is a lot more varied you know high rocks is obviously standardized not even alluded to them it's like um the simple movements you know it's nothing you're not trying to do a snatch or anything right you know CrossFit yes like um yes definitely more more varied um you got you know a mixture of you know you guess some Olympic lifting and like some gymnastics based exercises would be in there as well um i think generally like a lot of the wads so speak kind of like shorter sharper higher intensity CrossFit uh sorry um high rocks is much more endurance based it's uh i would suggest to suck a runner's gain yeah if you're if you're a strong runner and you and and and you know you certainly not piss weak in your your legs and your upper body you'd be decent enough at high rocks to be fair um yeah you know that that strength the movements again are quite simple so if you if you're relatively strong anyway you'd be able to pick them up get a bit trained and and do right high rocks to be fair yeah i think that's right i mean i think that's probably the most important distinction is that high rock to the is a runners game and and you think the people that can run the people that can run well and hold their own in the weights be really really well um unlike CrossFit and having the other thing is that CrossFit my understanding of CrossFit games and CrossFit championships is that you don't necessarily know until just before what is you going to be doing or at least with high rocks you know it's going to be exactly the same format i think i mentioned to you both that i had a lady on called jess towel who used to be a pretty good triathlete in her in her earlier days you know when she was a 18 19 right it's under 23 um but then she she took up CrossFit and had to teach herself how to do snatch lifts and clean them proper clean and jerk type things yeah um squat to press but she says oh i'm always in my element when i see that they've got a swimming section to it or a run with a weighted vest or something you know i or or one of those um air dine type bikes they're salt bikes yes because i have a much better aerobic capacity than a lot of the guys and girls do yeah whereas when it comes to the pure powerlifting she's done bit bit out of my league with some of them yeah well that's really interesting yeah and i mean there there is a big community of CrossFit gyms around the places and you mentioned that there are high rocks and high rocks affiliated gyms but is it but is it if there isn't a high rock gym near you is it important to be going somewhere like that to work out or could you really be doing a lot of this stuff in you know in your local community gym well to be fair like i said i'm doing i'm doing most of my stuff in my means you know there is there's no sled um there's no skierg uh what i do wall balls i have to kind of uh find a find a spare bit of wall to uh right against the plan up to drop it on in one's head um but yeah i think i think it's perfectly possible clearly you need i think it was probably only the week before um the first high rock event i did i have actually touched the sled at all um and that was a bit of an eye because it it was a lot it was a lot heavier than i thought it was going to be um so it you need to have that kind of familiarity and and there is like i said there is a little bit of technique um but you can watch what people do um there's plenty of youtube clips and plenty of videos to see how people handle that kind of technique but um obviously having your hands on the equipment is a good thing but i think you can you can pretty much get away with it without without meaning to have a gym that has all of those things i'd kind of go along with that as well um certainly to again it comes to levels as well doesn't it like people who just want to if you want to just like complete one and get one get one done then you maybe don't necessarily need to get your hands and all all the key and stuff but obviously if you want to go and absolutely you know kill it and um you know maybe progress of it whatever then there's no two ways about you wouldn't be able to i think that you know the thing that most people kind of brick themselves but i want to go into it um and i was in the normal brick myself but i was in the same camp in terms of thing that you think about god that's going to be odd it's like the sled stuff um because it's not sort of done anyway and everyone's always like oh man sled's gonna absolutely kill me um so it's definitely a good idea that if you can go and train someone that does have those sorts of things to be able to do it but again it's like yeah all right been funny if you if you you know hitting like your heavy squats and and your deadlifts and your lunges and that you hit the same musk grips there's no reason you ain't gonna be able to move a bloody sled um and similar with the pulls as well you know if you're doing like your lap pull downs you pull up you're seated row whatever else like you know underhand rows and stuff that you still train the muscles yeah yeah it's to me i mean when i'm looking at it here skier gear that's a bit specialist but there is ways of um there is ways of working on that the sled push and pull but yeah i mean let's face it if you if you live on a farm you could just get a big bag full of sand couldn't you and just drag it behind you and pull it and push it and and adapt yourself um burpees farmers carry sandbag lunges wall ball that you can adapt and find ways to do most of those i mean for goodness sake farmers carry you just have to instead of getting the car to the supermarket go and get your weekly shop and walk home with two heavy shopping bags you half well you're halfway there i entered i did it myself the other day and my wife said do you want me to carry that i'm not no this is my farmers carry for the day yeah i say i was delighted i'm delighted when i did my first competition because although kettlebells are everywhere these days i haven't actually used kettlebells for farmers carry i'd use some really big disc weights in the gym which i find i really struggle with a lot of small hands i really struggle to actually hold physically in my hands um so when we actually got to the competition i rocketed off with these kettlebells because for once i could actually put my hand around but then yeah i'm flipping out my hands like pull around had to chase me around the uh around the course expecting a wreck we didn't get one well he probably trains on the building site holding a couple of breeze blocks which is what i used to do when i was 18 yeah so let's just talk about your training then um mel what was your training um what did it look like when you were training for triathlon in terms of um how many swim back and run sessions did you do a week what was the total volume and how much of that would have been strength training i suppose i mean to be fair i come up from i my way which is quite a special thing for me a difficult time of my life so i probably didn't do as much training as i could have done or should have done um i've always spent it barely evenly swim bike run um but i've always been interested and i've always thought that it it pays in a triathlete's favor to be strong um you know to have that that vascular endurance and to have just you know you've got to manage your weight you've got to get out of water you're going to it's not just sitting on a bike it's not just running and it's i know we discussed this before but you know the tail end of the marathon where you know aerobically you're fine but actually your legs are starting to break down i think it's really really important to have that so i've always had no not a huge amount but i've always had an absolute risk on being a bit of a fan of Les Mills don't judge me um so i've always done body pump and all those kinds of things it's almost like um i know i shouldn't say this because it should be part of the routine but it's been it's been an add-on for me so i've done what you would expect most triathletes to do in terms of swim sessions bike sessions run sessions in a week but um but i've always added some some statement that it's always been an addition but it's always been a welcome addition to me this one i've never had any trouble doing on top of everything else um so yeah and so yeah i wasn't training like that anyway so my time commitment wasn't great i mean i guess fireman whales was doing up to you know 15 hours a week not much more than that um a couple of long longer bricks most of which sadly were done inside just for convenience and um not the running bit but the um on Zwift uh so i've not done anywhere near that amount training for high rocks um but i have just i suppose the most important thing we've kind of touched on this already um is is running i've kind of kept the running that i would do for triathlon not necessarily i own non triathlon but i've kept you know my longer run on the sunday you still got to be able to go i mean different for randy but you still ought to be able to go for you know put you an hour and a half and being really pretty robust after that so doing a longer run of 90 minutes a couple of hours is still for me a good thing to be able to do i don't need to be able i don't need to push it beyond that because i'm starting to risk injuring but also then doing interval sessions you know ideal because since i've paid the kind of thing that you're you're going to be doing in high rock and handling oh sorry yeah i've got to say because running is such an important part of it then then being running for it is is important i'll come back to what your current training looks like in a minute um mel andy what what did your triathlon training program look like and what component of that was uh what percentage of strength training yeah i was kind of dipped in and out with doing his strength training really just for my time distribution um i'd yeah it was kind of irregular at best i'd suggest but i guess my you know normal week would be i'd look to swim sort of like three times so i was when i was like say at my best be like religiously swimming every like monday wednesday friday and then occasionally on a weekend in the summer because i live well looking lame if you're just going to see and stuff so i'd swim kind of three times a week um bike sessions i generally do four sessions a week maybe five depending um that'll be a mix of kind of shorter sessions or not the turbo and then some um like outdoors like if i'm training for i-man i'd always get a long ride on the weekend sort of three five hours um and then running again i'd probably hit that look to try and get sort of like four runs a weekend well there about this would be about the norm i guess my i'd cap out at like i mean i was maybe on average 12 hours a week all in maybe up up towards maybe 14 15 on like a real good week for me that had been yeah that was the nuts and bolts of that when i was doing the triathons yeah you've both mentioned you've both mentioned there that you you have some element of strength training in it you know i've i've been a strength coach for 30 odd years um and it always surprises me the level of resistance that i get from endurance athletes to get into the gym because they're you know typically they'll say i haven't got enough time for that because i need to spend the time swimming biking and running but to your point Mel and you need the resilient frame to enable you to turn up regularly and you need a um you need a strong body work that's going to support the engine and you can see how that fails for a lot of people in the latter stages of um long distance triathons and ultra runs and everything and even cycle races where people's shoulder slump so um it seems like when you were talking about the qualities for somebody who might be good at high rocks is obviously having a good strength in the run but but probably some elements of gym focus so those triathletes who have spent time in the gym while they were training for triathlon would probably be better prepared for high rocks don't you think yeah i think so i i would agree with that i just think it's i think it's important i think it's important to be strong i think if nothing else to avoid injury um and i think injury i don't i don't know how Andy's heard but i certainly had a flare up with that over the kiddies problem which i've haven't had before for years probably a combination like most injuries it was simply overlaking it with not just high rock stuff but actually just doing some hard treadmill sets but um i just think it's really important to you know as a triathlete that strength thing to avoid to avoid getting that injury which which you'll get you know from a repetitive strain but actually that repetitive strain will probably happen if you're just not really in the rock what's coming up to keep me alone so what does your current week look like now do you still swim and bike on a regular basis yeah i do i've done less biking that's maybe a subject for another for a little podcast because i'm not i actually had some surgery a while back and haven't done an awful lot of regular cycling since then um but i've been doing it's some recumbent biking it's similar thing just not so long um so similar thing to my triathlon training i think most people who are not actively competing in triathlon probably follow a follow a similar routine just in case a triathlon should come up because they might have to enter it so you know two or three swims a week three or three bike sessions a week three or three one sessions a week and then and then obviously the strength training and and for me i guess now i don't know if you want to talk about what i'm doing now but i do i do please go on the running the running thing is is probably the most important thing to me so i've got a long run i've got an interval run so um and also i'm doing a not the huge amount of high rocks training but i'm doing it out and out strength session that really mimics the high rocks kind of movements but also a set at least one swim session i mean you've had to dip on this morning where i'm kind of stimulating in some way the kind of things that i'm going to be expected to do in high rocks so aside from doing all of the strength type stuff that mimics the functional movements that you're doing in higher rocks i'm actually doing the um you know thousand meter run go off do something funny bad please on repeat i don't know whether any probably will do something fairly similar just sorry before before you jump in Andy so Mel you're just you're really just doing one specific strength session a week is that right i'm doing one specific high rock strength session a week so i'm still doing all of the things that i would have done otherwise so i'm doing you know maybe half an hour 15 minutes of core after after sort i guess after most workouts other than swimming i tend to do about 30 minutes of some kind of strength and conditioning not necessarily really really pointy so not huge weights but some kind of core um do a lot for my biceps because i like to keep on top of those you need to go up you need to you need to be matching Andy there i'll stay ahead of him um it would be it would be a place in your weekly routine for just um a general strength session including things like deadlifts and squats and those basic exercise basic sort of primal movements if you like hip hinge push pull type stuff yeah to be honest that's the one thing that's lacking in my routine at the moment with the things that now i've signed up for a single event it's one of the things that i'm quite keen to do so yeah i mean let's mill's body pump only goes so far so so yeah Andy what about what about your routine how much high rocks training do you fit into your week now yeah so my train's varied very much over the over the year really in terms of i guess the the intensity and the type like my first couple of high rocks is i'm okay i think i literally have at four or five workouts before that first one and i think i'd ended about another six between then and doing a well chapped chips that that first time but um as it is at the moment quite i've got a bit of a goal of looking at cross locker relatively quick marathon at the kind of arse end of the the summer slash in autumn next like septembert's over time so i'm kind of going to have a bit of a run folks at a minute but all in i guess at the minute i run kind of maybe five times a week capping out about sort of 40 45 miles max a week that'll be a you know mix of some kind of like some threshold based stuff some above threshold based stuff so like short shot like a lot of like 1k repeats which i quite like doing and then some steady stuff as well and um like a longer run on the weekend maybe uptoing with it 10 miles every day which is quite long but maybe up to about an hour and a half i guess that's that's that's kind of it for the running and then my like strength stuff where i'm like like most of the world relatively time poor and i'm gonna go you know go on my business heads other shit stuff um i'm not super time rich so when it comes to like the strength element i do like three kind of strength based sessions a week i'll always focus those predominantly around the movements that we're doing in the high rock tree so i'll always make sure i'm hitting all of those not not all not all of the movements every session but every week each one i get crushed a couple times i.e one day we kind of like um a session that focuses on like the sled like push and then the pool for instance another day i might have one where i'm just smashing the arse off a load of burpees and walking lunges for instance another day might be the wall ball so i'll kind of focus on those those movements i'll add in some other bits i maybe some like heavier squats or something like that as well maybe some emergency bench press on a monday that's the emergency bench press didn't come out from chest in it on monday so yeah so i do a bit that and then i'll try and do like two erg sessions a week so like a um like a ski in a row session without like twice a week so one i guess stable session i might literally do like x number of like 1k reps on each off leaving off a certain time for instance or another one might be like um you know a bunch of 500s or another one i i do sort of like um you know two fifties but well above race pace i quite and say what i quite like doing on the erks to be fair i think it's quite strong it's like you're doing a turbo for like you know like you get over under sessions i do that on like the erk which is quite cool so you know you might do like a minute above your race pace a minute below it and kind of blast out load of rounds like that so um that's my week four or five runs three strength sessions cut out of the sessions zero school i'm not surprised you time poor under you in the gym all the time well i'll tell you what's funny about that a big week for me is like eight hours nine hours that's like a big week right yeah yeah that's and that last like the i don't know a lot of the top the top guys in my high walks they're doing like 15 20 hours a week or so i got out of time um i'll get eight nine hours a week and that's that's my cap i watched one of the um one of the crossfit documentaries about one of the guys he was one of the superstars from a few years back and he lives he's got a farm and he's got this barn that's all set up for his crossfit training and he seemed it's like a full-time thing you know he seemed to be doing five or six hours a week and i'm thinking how does his body cope with all of that you know i can see how you can do um sorry five or six hours a day i can see how you can do five or six hours a day of cardio stuff but five or six hours a day of strength based stuff would um i guess you would adapt but uh well i suggest you there might be some extra curriculum involved than anyone is able to train five or six hours a day for something like that yeah maybe maybe that that's that's probably a it's that's always one of those controversial subjects isn't it but do you get do you get drug tested if that's what you're talking about it is the drug testing in high rocks they just brought it in for like the elite level racing they've got some because there used to be an anti-doping policy tool but they just brought it in i think this year so i think like the top like maybe like i don't cry on it because i don't know enough about it but i think maybe like the top handful maybe get tested or something i don't really know but there's there's um yeah there's not a great deal what it looks like yeah one this podcast is called the high performance human podcast and the two of the things that are well that i really like about what we've discussed this a lot of the high rock stuff seems very functional i think you've both mentioned that on occasion is that there are elements of all of those um exercises and movements which mimic what you have to do in your everyday life isn't it um do either of you have particularly high performance human habits that you used to to stay on top of your health you know are you super sleepers are you really fastidious about you know nutrition or are you just living life and enjoying yourselves good land the answer that was first yeah well i i guess i mean sleep wise i'm real crap with like i'm like a good night for me it's like maybe six hours general right yeah if i'm if i'm the same yeah if i'm lucky i might get maybe i'm getting seven hours in so sleepwise and like that my nutrition i'm relatively bang on point with most of the time i don't i don't really ever miss out on anything but you know my my staple diet i guess is like eggs beef whatever kind of carbohydrate so i quite want to eat chicken um you know like and a bit chocolate i guess that's that's kind of like my typical staple but i don't like miss out on anything food wise and stuff but i keep it relatively good and i'm never more than like i probably say i'm never more than like two weeks of turning the screw on the nutrition before i mean like as good a shape as i'd ever been so i kind of like that's a that's the benet you're you're a young man aren't you Andy how old are you yeah 39 yeah that's the benefit of being young it takes a bit longer when you get older i was gonna say it certainly certainly is for me it takes about two years and for me to turn this ship around Mel you you were sort of waving you were waving your hand and nodding your head and shaking your head so um sleep do you say you're not so good at oh i've been always terrible at sleep and i i feel terrible actually working in this environment in the F&H and working with young fit athletes and they are young fit athletes they work hard and they're train hard but they're all really good at looking after themselves um they actually all just come back from western states endurance runs so they've all had pretty much asleep this weekend but um but they're all pretty good and i'm terrible at certainly at sleep it's just one of those i just go off everything in so um six hours for me is probably a staple but like Andy i do try i'm a vegetarian so i'm not so much a beef kind of girl but um you know i do try and keep my nutrition on point but as i get older i do find it more difficult certainly find it more difficult to keep weight off and that's partly a whole modal thing as well so a menopausal thing but it's um yeah it's just more difficult more difficult to do that and it's more difficult to define the time and maintain the focus to do that but i do at least try and do that and that is helped by working in this environment we've got kitchen here which is which is great i'm the sourdough baker so um yeah uh yeah i don't know but i don't think i'd count as a high performance human but i certainly try my best to keep on top of the of the bits that i can control at the moment well i i'm going to give you a bit of a big up here mouth because whilst you say that all these kids you know they're training hard and they're super fit they'll all be looking at you and thinking i'd like to be doing that when i'm 53 right so you you are the person that they're all aspiring to be because it's easy uh to be fitter when you're younger um to continue that for another 20 years and still have the same enthusiasm and um and the ability to train is something different so well done for you to keep you know to continue to do that and keep keep keep inspiring those youngers to aspire to be like you i like to take well i mean it's you both seem to be highly motivated when it comes to looking after yourselves um with exercise and uh you both got like enthusiasm so that as long as you don't you know get beset by some catastrophic injury there's no reason why you were why you shouldn't be doing it really is there no they're not so keen on my 1980s music though you need to educate them if you were if you were the same age as me male you'd be playing punk rock for them and they'd be even less impressed and he's like well we're talking a different language for him now because he what what was your ability to come young at 39 well you are you've got you've got 21 years on me okay listen Mel and Andy speaking great thank you for educating me and the listeners on high rocks i hope that we get lots of people writing and say i'm going to try that next year and i'm going to dedicate some of my winter to training in the gym Simon like you've been bending my ear about for the last seven or eight years um and uh if my knee injury heals up sufficiently maybe we'll maybe we'll all be able to get on the start line at an event together i know my wife's quite interested in um doing the pairs event as well so maybe that will be our first foray into that is them trying that one the question is there does that mean i get to lift the lighter weights for the females or does she have to lift the heavier weights for the males she has to lift the heavier weights unfortunately so i don't get a better deal she gets a raw deal okay what's um male what's next for you you said you're doing an individual event when's that uh that is in i think it's the first of december in london um in london yeah and i'm quite keen actually to just to try i've got a decent amount of time now to try and train properly for that unfortunately i was injured i did actually enter the singles i can't remember now but it would have been just before nieces just before the world championships but i had to duck out of that because i've got an Achilles problem but that's all settled so i'm quite keen to just see how far i can go with the singles actually uh i don't know actually it's a bit of an unknown because it's um it's very easy i say easy comparatively easy to do the doubles because i know that um only going to be doing a certain amount of the bit in between the running and i actually am i'm comfortable with my running um so but doing it all is going to be a bit of a challenge so i'll look at Andy for advice yeah just gives a shot it's no stress what are you doing there what came in for next Sunday yeah i saw apart from that marathon you mentioned yeah i want to get one of those rattled off sort of like september time um and then high rocks wise i'm doing the one in Birmingham which is October sometime maybe the back end of that and then we just remember business part i just sent that the both of the male doubles ones actually so the pro doubles and then the open one for in posanan just planted it which is the following weekend after last we've got those and then um yeah see what happens we are i couldn't get a slot for the one in London and whenever that is but if i can manage to wangle one of those from summer which i'd probably be able to think um hopefully get on that and then probably do the UK once next year and we'll be working off the world championships whether that is and uh i hope you have a bit of a bit of crack out of this time nice well good luck to both of you for those um be interested to catch up with you later on in the year and find out how you get on with your pursuits um but finally and Andy Sloan and Mel Varval thank you so much for being here today i really enjoyed the conversation thank you thank you thank you thank you again to Andy and Mel for being my guests on the show this week they were so enthusiastic about high racks events weren't they i just wonder whether it's peak your interest to have a go i must say that once my knees back to full strength i've definitely going to consider trying one of the races maybe one of the doubles with Beth um how about you if you're interested please drop me a line maybe we could train together if you check out the show notes you'll find links to all the topics we chatted about and you can also find links to that free daily mobility plan that i mentioned in my intro to make sure you don't miss any future episodes please go to iTunes search for high performance human try off on podcast and click subscribe and if you could share this episode with just one person who you think could benefit that'd be awesome and what will be doubly awesome is if you've got a couple more minutes and you can leave me a review on your chosen platform once you've finished listening to this episode that's all for this week of course i will have another great guest in seven days time and i hope you'll be able to join me bye for now you
