How to train, fuel, and recover for HYROX like Jake Dearden

Originally published on August 5, 2025

HYROX training demands running speed, strength under fatigue, smart fueling, and recovery habits that hold up under travel and late race starts. In Episode 335 of the WHOOP Podcast, Jeremy Powers speaks with Jake Dearden, a 25 year old HYROX athlete, HYROX Master Trainer, doubles world champion, and Elite 15 competitor about how he balances all four.

Dearden brings a useful mix of experience to the conversation. He has raced ultra distances, run a 2:28 Berlin Marathon, coached people in the gym, and learned through injury what hybrid training can punish when recovery falls behind. This article breaks down the most useful lessons from that discussion, including what HYROX actually rewards, how Dearden fuels race day, and how WHOOP data helps him decide when to push and when to back off.

To listen to Episode 335 of the WHOOP Podcast in full, head to the WHOOP Podcast on Spotify.

What makes HYROX training different from pure endurance or pure strength work?

The first thing to understand is that HYROX rewards hybrid capacity. Dearden describes the format as eight 1 kilometer runs broken up by eight stations, including SkiErg, sled push, sled pull, rowing, burpee broad jumps, farmer's carry, walking lunges, and wall balls.

That structure creates a different problem than marathon training or gym-only training. A runner can have a strong aerobic base and still lose time at the stations. A strong lifter can move load well and still struggle to repeat hard run efforts eight times. Dearden sees that mix as the reason the sport has grown so quickly: the movements are accessible, the race format is fixed, and the training sits in the middle ground between pure endurance and pure strength.

Dearden told Jeremy Powers that HYROX succeeds because it gives people a clear target without demanding high-skill gymnastics or barbell work. That also makes it easier to build a community around group sessions, race-specific classes, and shared benchmarks.

“It’s an endurance race at heart, but it requires strength. So it’s not just pure endurance. It does require you to be in the gym and to be lifting weights to get strong.”

What you should take away

• HYROX training works best when running pace and station strength are built together.
• The race format is fixed, which makes pacing and skill practice easier to plan than open-ended functional fitness events.
• Low-skill movements widen access to the sport and help explain its fast community growth.

If you want to hear Dearden unpack why HYROX feels different from standard gym training, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

Do you need an elite VO2 max to perform well in HYROX?

Once the hybrid demand is clear, the next question is how much pure engine matters. Dearden's answer is practical: a higher VO2 max helps, but HYROX performance is still shaped by body size, strength, pacing, and how well you can repeat hard efforts after loaded work.

He points out that elite male HYROX athletes often sit in a heavier range than top marathoners or triathletes. In the episode, Dearden says many male elites weigh 75 to 85 kilograms, with some closer to 90. That changes the profile. These athletes still need a strong aerobic system, yet they also carry the muscle needed to move sleds, lunges, and wall balls efficiently.

Dearden used marathon training to raise his HYROX ceiling. He ran the Berlin Marathon in 2:28 with a specific goal in mind: he needed roughly 3:30 per kilometer pace to compete at the Elite 15 level, so he built a marathon block around making that speed more repeatable. For more on how endurance coaches think about aerobic development and recovery, see Episode 143 of the WHOOP Podcast with Chris Hinshaw.

“For a male, they’re weighing anywhere between 75 and 85 kg, some even closer to 90 kg, which, when you’re lean, is quite a bit of muscle and quite heavy.”

What you should take away

• VO2 max helps in HYROX, but it is only one part of performance.
• HYROX rewards a different body profile than sports built around pure endurance economy.
• Dearden used marathon training to improve the exact run speed he needed inside HYROX racing.

If you want to hear Dearden go deeper on VO2 max, pacing, and the Elite 15 standard, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

How should HYROX athletes fuel before and during a race?

From there, the fueling plan has to match the event's intensity. Dearden draws a sharp line between ultra-endurance fueling and HYROX fueling.

For long races, he starts with whole foods for as long as possible, including simple items such as sandwiches, then moves to gels or liquid carbohydrate if digestion becomes an issue. HYROX is different because the effort sits much higher. Dearden says athletes are working around 80 to 90 percent of max for about an hour, which makes carbohydrate the priority fuel.

His race-day approach is simple. Carb load with familiar foods, stop eating about 3 hours before the event, and consider a small fast carbohydrate close to the start or halfway through. Dearden specifically warns against treating carb loading as an excuse to eat entirely different meals the night before. He would rather double the rice in a normal meal or increase the oats at breakfast than surprise the gut with restaurant food. That matches the broader principle that race nutrition should be practiced in training first.

“With HYROX, you’re working between 80 to 90% of your max for the entire thing, so you need carbohydrates. If you do a low-carb diet and you’re just relying on fats, they just can’t be converted fast enough to energy.”

What you should take away

• HYROX fueling centers on familiar carbohydrates, not dramatic pre-race meals.
• A 3 hour gap before the start gives food time to clear while glycogen stores stay topped up.
• Practice gels, timing, and meal choices in training so race day stays predictable.

If you want to hear Dearden unpack how he changes fueling between ultras and HYROX, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

What sleep habits help HYROX athletes handle late race starts and travel?

Fueling gets athletes to the line, but Dearden treats sleep as the bigger recovery input. He aims for about 8 hours per night year round and pushes that to 8 to 9 hours during race week, often adding naps while training volume comes down.

That approach showed up in his Glasgow build. Jeremy Powers notes in the episode that Dearden logged three straight 100% Sleep scores before the event. Dearden also said late workouts tend to hurt his recovery, and WHOOP data showed about a 4% drop in recovery after those sessions. He still practices some evening training close to races because the pro field starts late, and he wants the timing to feel familiar.

Travel complicates the plan. Dearden said his recovery scores often fall when time zones shift, even when sleep duration looks good on paper. For a broader explanation of why Sleep timing affects Recovery, Global Head of Human Performance, Principal Scientist at WHOOP Kristen Holmes and Senior Vice President of Research, Algorithms, and Data at WHOOP Emily Capodilupo break down the metric in Episode 40 of the WHOOP Podcast. Holmes also expands on sleep timing, hydration, and sleep pressure in Episode 21 of the WHOOP Podcast.

“Going from being good at a sport to then trying to become better and as good as you can be at the sport requires you to recover more. And that means switching it around from getting up at 6 AM to train to staying in bed till 7, 8 AM.”

What you should take away

• Extra sleep in race week can be a performance decision, not downtime.
• Late training may be worth rehearsing before late-start races, even if it hurts next-day recovery.
• Time-zone shifts can lower Recovery even when total sleep duration still looks solid.

If you want to hear Dearden go deeper on sleep, caffeine, and travel during race week, listen to the full episode on Spotify.

How can WHOOP data help HYROX athletes spot overtraining before it becomes a bigger problem?

Once recovery habits are in place, WHOOP data becomes the check on whether the plan is still working. Dearden says he looks at the WHOOP app daily and weekly, not just after standout sessions.

If he wakes up in the red, he reviews the previous few days, checks for illness or heavy fatigue, and talks with his coach before deciding whether to keep the session hard or pull back. The bigger review happens across the week. If there are very few green recoveries, he takes that as a signal to deload, remove volume, lower intensity, or tighten up recovery habits.

Jeremy Powers framed some of Dearden's baseline numbers early in the episode: an average WHOOP day Strain of 15.7 versus 10.2 for the average 25 year old male on WHOOP, resting heart rate of 44 beats per minute versus 57, and a 465 minute high-stress day during Glasgow week. Those numbers are useful because they give context. Dearden is not reacting to one score in isolation. He is comparing today's response with his own normal. If you want a clear refresher on what WHOOP tracks across Sleep, Recovery, and Strain, see Episode 51 of the WHOOP Podcast.

“If I don’t have many greens over a week, so if I don’t have any good recovery scores over a week, I start to think what’s going on.”

What you should take away

• WHOOP data becomes more useful when athletes review weekly patterns instead of one bad morning.
• Red recoveries can be a prompt to assess sleep, travel, illness, and training load before forcing intensity.
• Personal baselines matter more than comparison with someone else's numbers.

How should hybrid athletes think about injury setbacks and long-term progress?

That same weekly check matters even more when training starts to break down. Dearden says his ultra-endurance background taught him to ignore pain signals, which helped in long races but created problems once he started chasing HYROX performance.

He shared the biggest setback of his career in the episode: two herniated discs at L4-L5 and L5-S1 after racing with a back that had already been stressed. Dearden said he could not walk for a month and needed 6 months before he returned to the start line. The injury forced him to reassess his training, work, and recovery habits. He now treats symptoms such as back soreness as warning signs instead of noise.

That shift reflects a larger lesson for hybrid athletes. Two hard programs stacked together do not automatically make one smart hybrid program. Training has to be integrated. For another performance-focused discussion of injuries, tissue tolerance, and rehab thinking, see Episode 41 of the WHOOP Podcast with Jordan Shallow.

“It was that severe that I couldn’t walk for a month, couldn’t work, couldn’t do anything for a month. And it took me 6 months to recover, to get back on that start line.”

What you should take away

• Hybrid athletes can carry unhelpful endurance habits into performance training, especially the habit of ignoring pain signals.
• A major injury can expose where training, recovery, and lifestyle lost alignment.
• Warning signs are more useful when they are treated as data, not brushed aside.

The bottom line

• HYROX training works best when running speed and functional strength are built as one system, because the race alternates eight 1 kilometer runs with eight stations.
• A bigger VO2 max helps in HYROX, but body size, repeatability under fatigue, and station efficiency still shape race results.
• Dearden used marathon training to improve the exact pace he needed inside HYROX rather than chasing endurance for its own sake.
• HYROX fueling usually centers on familiar high-carbohydrate meals, a 3 hour pre-race gap without food, and optional fast carbohydrate close to or during the event.
• Sleep can be a training input, and Dearden treats extra time in bed during race week as part of performance preparation.
• WHOOP data becomes more useful when athletes look for weekly patterns in Recovery, Sleep, and Strain instead of reacting to one low score.
• Dearden's six month comeback from two herniated discs changed how he responds to pain, fatigue, and training volume.

Frequently asked questions about things discussed in this episode

How does WHOOP help HYROX athletes manage recovery?

WHOOP shows daily Recovery, Sleep, Strain, and resting heart rate trends in one place, which can help HYROX athletes decide when to push, when to hold steady, and when to deload.

What does WHOOP show after a high-strain race weekend?

WHOOP often shows the cost of race output through lower Recovery, elevated strain, and changes in sleep quality after competition, which can make post-race pacing and travel decisions easier to judge.

How does WHOOP make sleep timing useful for HYROX training?

WHOOP makes sleep timing useful by showing how late workouts, caffeine, and time-zone shifts affect next-day Recovery even when total sleep duration still looks acceptable.

What does WHOOP track that can help spot overtraining?

WHOOP tracks signals such as Recovery, Sleep, Strain, and resting heart rate trends, which can help athletes catch a bad training week before it turns into a longer setback.

How does WHOOP fit into fueling prep for HYROX?

WHOOP fits into fueling prep by giving athletes context on how race-week habits affect Recovery, so meal timing and carbohydrate strategy can be practiced alongside training instead of guessed on race day.

What does WHOOP do for athletes who travel across time zones?

WHOOP helps athletes see when travel is changing sleep timing and next-day Recovery, even if total sleep hours stay close to normal.

For HYROX athletes balancing hard run work, strength sessions, travel, and late start times, WHOOP data can show when a heavy block is building race fitness and when it is starting to drain recovery.