Fitness
Fitness Training
Durability is the most underrated skill in HYROX - here’s why
Whether you’re a novice or a pro, split times, pacing and endurance all play a key role in HYROX, but there’s one skill to focus on: durability. HYROX master coach Tiago Lousa shares how to get yours.
It can be easy to get lost in the world of HYROX vernacular and lose sight of what’s important in both your time spent training and grinding through your next race day. How, for example, will you minimise your transition times in the Roxzone? What’s the best way to balance efficient pacing while looking to shave seconds off your run pace, and what’s the most effective way of boosting your grip strength?
Challenges like these make training for HYROX a different beast, especially when compared to different sports, and it pays to know where your time and effort are best spent. There’s one key skill that sits underneath all of this: durability. It’s the hidden currency of HYROX – the ability to stay composed when fatigue stacks up, to keep form when the sled feels twice as heavy, to hold your pace when your legs beg for a reset. It’s not just toughness; it’s the blend of resilience, efficiency, and smart recovery that lets athletes perform the same way in the final wall balls as they did coming out of the start gate.
Few people understand this better than HYROX master coach Tiago Lousa, who, below, breaks down why durability might be the most critical (and overlooked) skill in the sport.
01
What is durability?
“Durability is a term that people use in very different ways, but in HYROX, I look at it with a particular meaning,” says Lousa, who splits the definition down the middle: inside training, and outside of it. For the latter, “durability refers to your overall ability to manage stress and continue functioning despite various challenges, such as long workdays, inadequate sleep and a hectic lifestyle,” he explains. “In real life, it signifies your capacity to remain consistent even when circumstances are not ideal.”
As for HYROX training, “I define durability as the ability to perform under fatigue, not ‘fresh speed’, but ‘fatigued speed,’” he says. So where does it stack up against the other metrics, such as VO2 max or threshold pace? “Most athletes look at VO2max, threshold pace, or isolated benchmark tests,” Lousa says. “Those are useful, but they only show your upper potential when everything is ideal.” HYROX is never ideal, he explains, as “you are always carrying fatigue from the previous station or the previous lap.”
Endurance isn’t just physical – it’s a coached mindset
© Leo Francis/Red Bull Content Pool
Here’s an example: “If you can do 100 burpees for time in four minutes while fresh, that tells me something,” Lousa says. “But, if you do those same 100 burpees after 30 or 40 minutes of work at a relatively high intensity and suddenly it becomes five or six minutes, that gap tells me more about your actual performance capacity”. That gap, as Lousa defines it, is your durability.
02
Why is durability so important in HYROX?
In a sport defined by punishing variety, the key to durability in HYROX lies in the ceaseless, brutal switching between tasks. Lousa explains that this is not a steady effort; but a "constant layering of new stress onto existing, accumulated fatigue." From the immediate shock of a heavy sled push to the muscular toll of the burpee broad jumps, your body is forced to instantly recruit different muscles and energy systems, making the perceived exertion – and the resulting fatigue –change dramatically between stations.
This unique structure constantly tests an athlete's ability to maintain form, pace, and technique when their body is screaming for a halt. Winning in HYROX doesn't go to the athlete who is fastest when fresh, but to the most durable athlete who can sustain their performance and composure under heavy load. As Lousa puts it, "The difference in HYROX is that the variability of the tasks makes durability even more obvious and even more decisive. The sport constantly tests your ability to perform under accumulated fatigue, and that is why durability plays such a central role."
03
Know the signs
Another way of looking at your durability is as the ability to maintain form, pace, technique, and decision-making when your body is feeling tired, and your mind has been working flat-out. “That is what we train for,” says Lousa. “Not just to be fast, but to be fast still when it matters.” So how do we build on it?
Athletes push limits at Red Bull HYROX Coaches Camp Silverstone 2025
© Leo Francis/Red Bull Content Pool
It starts with identifying the signs of low durability. “A clear sign of low durability is a large performance drop once fatigue starts to accumulate,” says Lousa. “That tells me your system struggles to maintain output once fatigue builds.”
To put it into the context of a HYROX race, compare the pace of your first four runs with the pace of your last four. “A drop of more than 10 seconds per kilometre is usually a sign that durability is low,” says Lousa. “It means the body is not yet prepared to sustain work at a high level.” Physical signs also include “strides getting shorter, the shoulders rising and breathing becoming uncontrolled,” Lousa adds. Time and again, the HYROX master coach has seen this happen in the late stages of the race. It’s here, he explains, that the most “durable athletes still look like runners.”
04
How to train durability
It’s here a HYROX race is won and lost – where your lungs are screaming, and your legs feel like lead, but you manage to stay consistent with your splits while simultaneously processing what’s happening around you with a level head.
“Every improvement you make in strength, capacity or threshold will make you look more durable because fatigue arrives later,” warns Lousa. “If you are stronger, move better, and have a higher threshold, you can maintain quality for longer. But that alone is not durability. That is specific preparation.”
Here lies the magic. “However, durability itself is trained under fatigue,” he says. “It comes from exposing the body to relatively hard efforts after you have already done sub-maximal or threshold work”.
“When your legs are loaded, and your breathing is elevated, that is when durability is built. It’s the ability to produce quality reps or hold a strong pace when the system is already carrying work.”
Lousa points to wall balls and sled pushes – two exercises now synonymous with HYROX – as benchmarks to monitor your durability against. “If your body has rehearsed clean wall balls, or a consistent sled pull stance, or efficient running mechanics thousands of times, it will default to those patterns even when you are tired,” he explains. “That is the hidden part of durability, not just having the capacity, but having a movement that holds up under stress.”
05
Durability at the top
Lucy Procter powering through the Ski Erg station
© HYROX/Red Bull Content Pool
When fatigue stacks up, the difference between a mid-pack finish and an elite performance comes down to control. Lousa, who coaches HYROX World Champion Alexander Rončević, highlights that durability is as much about mindset and emotional management as it is about physical conditioning.
Experience brings a better understanding of pacing, of how effort should feel, and of how to manage emotions when things get uncomfortable
Athletes with low durability betray their fatigue through hesitation. They "start to look around, let others dictate their pace, take small pauses, or hesitate before entering stations." In contrast, durable athletes, like those Lousa trains, do “the opposite, as they keep their own rhythm, stay composed, control their breathing and make deliberate choices."
This composure is often a product of training age. More experienced athletes generally show better durability, and Lousa explains that this isn't just about years of fitness; "experience brings a better understanding of pacing, of how effort should feel, and of how to manage emotions when things get uncomfortable." They know their sustainable pace.
On the flipside, younger or less experienced athletes often have "more raw speed and power and are usually more competitive by nature." This combination leads them to "start too fast, push harder than planned, or ignore early warning signs," resulting in a much bigger drop-off late in the race. They rely on sheer talent, but the winner is always decided by the athlete who maintains control and rhythm under maximal stress.
06
Recovery and durability
Train to stay durable, ready to go the distance
© Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull Content Pool
Something that underpins every single rep during your HYROX training is that for as hard as you train, you need to recover harder. The same applies when you’re working on your durability. “If you’re trying to build your engine or improve your capacity for HYROX, recovery is essential,” says Lousa. “ You need quality sessions, proper rest between intervals, and enough adaptation time to actually improve.”
There is, however, a crucial difference between these training methodologies and those you need to focus on when building durability. Lousa explains: “To build durability, you intentionally remove some of that recovery. You place quality work on top of existing fatigue. The goal is not to be fresh, it is to teach the body how to function when it is not fresh.”
Durability training, he continues, needs to be placed in specific “phases and cycles, not all year long.” Lousa gives an example of an athlete he works with. In the offseason, Lousa has a specific way of testing how functional the athlete is under fatigue. “I might have them run a 10k at an all-out effort in an official road race and, 30 to 45 minutes later, get them into the gym working on sleds or ergs,” he explains, highlighting that “this is where durability is built.” The system, he continues, is already taxed from the 10k, but the athlete needs to “move with intent.”
“Recovery is crucial for development, but controlled lack of recovery is crucial for building durability. The art of coaching is knowing when to use each.”
Mistakes in durability training
Atlet HYROX Elite 15 Alexander Rončević tak takut untuk mengatur kecepatan
© alexander-roncevic-running-hyrox-training
The most damaging durability mistakes usually come from a failure to correctly balance training load and recovery, with pacing errors quickly magnifying the issue. As Lousa notes, a common trap is trying to "train durability all year long" before an athlete has built the necessary speed, strength and technical foundation.
Training constantly under fatigue, he explains, simply reinforces "poor mechanics and slow paces." The opposite extreme is training only under ideal conditions with full rest and recovery, which, while building capacity, fails to prepare the athlete for race-day reality. "HYROX challenges you when you’re fatigued, not when you’re fresh," Lousa states, stressing that durability must be built strategically by adding fatigue at the right time. Pacing errors are the fastest route to failure: athletes often "start too fast, let emotions dictate early effort," causing durability to "disappear immediately" because they haven't "lost fitness; they’ve just spent it too early."
These training and pacing missteps create clear red flags in race-day performance. Lousa identifies key warning signs like inconsistent splits – where an athlete suddenly cannot repeat interval paces – and losing form and technique "earlier than usual." He also points to heavier, uncontrolled breathing and a tendency to mentally check out during rest periods as markers that "the fatigue is not just physical." When an athlete consistently finishes sets lying on the floor, it signals they are pushing far beyond the useful threshold. All these signs indicate the athlete is no longer building conscious durability but is instead "burning through it."
