Functional Nutrition: HYROX

You’ve trained hard for months, with countless wall balls, burpee broad jumps and kilometres in the bank. It’s almost race day, and time to make sure your nutrition is on point to support your best Hyrox performance! As always when discussing nutrition, it’s important to highlight it’s unique to each of us and some things may work better for some then others.

This blog is designed to give evidence-based advice, covering nutrition for the week of your race, carbohydrate loading, hydration, and FAQs from our JWPT community. Before we go any further, the most important take home message, NEVER DO ANYTHING NEW WHICH YOU HAVEN’T PRACTICED BEFORE ON RACE DAY!

Whatever nutrition protocol you choose to follow, it is vital you understand how your body reacts to it. Never, under any circumstances, consume food(s) or supplement(s) that you haven’t tried before on the day of your event! Now we are all on the same page, let’s get into it, starting with your nutrition plan for the week of the race.

NUTRITION FOR RACE WEEK

The week of your race is a critical time, and the right nutrition can support improved performance. You will be tapering, so the temptation may to reduce your food intake as your physical activity levels are lower than your usual training week. In fact, it’s the exact opposite and you want to be gradually increasing your food intake as the week goes on, primarily focusing on carbohydrates.

Assuming your Hyrox race is a Saturday, the first few days of your week can look “normal” with Monday and Tuesday consuming your regular, well-balanced diet. By Wednesday your focus should start to shift towards increased carbohydrate intake, with your evening meal representing a higher than usual carbohydrate content. Thursday it’s time to crank it up, with two carbohydrate rich meals during your day, before Friday whereyou ensure that you are topped up to your max with enough carbohydrate to fuel your performance, this should come in the form of three carbohydrate rich meals.

Alongside side your food intake and equally important is your hydration status. Endurance performance is negatively impacted by body water loses of >2% (1). For an individual who is 70kg, it takes just -1.4kg of body water loses to occur to have a significant impact on exercise capacity. Your hydration is important every day, regardless of an event and guideline suggest consuming 1.2-2L of fluid per day (2) to ensure adequate hydration.

Race day hydration is discussed in more detail later in this blog.

WHAT IS CARBOHYDRATE LOADING?

Carbohydrate loading or “carb loading” is a common practice amongst athletes, but what does it mean and why do it? Carb loading is designed to ensure that an individual saturates their endogenous stores of muscle glycogen before an event that will typically deplete their glycogen stores (3).

In more simpler terms, it’s making sure that your body is topped up with as much fuel as possible to prevent it from running on empty during your event. Think about taking your car on a long journey, you would make sure you had a full tank before leaving to ensure you didn’t break down… the same applies for our bodies, we want to make sure we have enough carbohydrate for our event, with carbohydrates being the primary fuel source that supports endurance performance.

The table above demonstrates how carb loading protocol works.It’s a gradual process and should not be done solely on the day prior to the event but increased gradually across 3-4 days. You should aim for complex carbohydrates, examples included:

• Oats
• Brown rice
• Brown pasta
• Buckwheat
• Beans
• Pulses
• Lentils
• Sweet potato
• Butternut squash
• Potatoes

THE DAY OF YOUR RACE: FOOD

By the day of your race, you should be focusing on the final steps to ensure your body is ready to perform. Race day nutrition is hugely individual, with many factors that can impact how one person approaches nutrition to another. Again, practice practice, practice! During your training is the perfect time to learn how your body responses to certain meals and the timing of those meals. General guidelines for athletic performance are to consume your last full meal 2-4 hours prior to the start of your event, this should be a meal that contains moderate carbohydrate and nothing too “heavy” which is going to cause you stomach issues. Avoid high volumes of fruit or vegetables as fibre can typically cause difficulties with digestion prior to a race. Example meals include:

• Oats with handful of berries
• Omelette with wholegrain toast
• Small portion of brown rice with chicken/vegetarian alternative
• Bagels
• Sandwich with wholemeal bread
• Low sugar breakfast cereal

An hour before your race is your final eating window and by this point, we should be thinking about quick release or “simple” carbohydrates. These are foods which are going to work quickly through the digesting process and provide an instant impact on your circulating blood glucose levels. Example food include:

• Muller rice
• Soreen bar
• Rice krispies square
• Rice cakes
• Banana
• ½ Bagel with jam

THE DAY OF YOUR RACE: HYDRATION

On race day, the temptation can be to drink excessive amountsdue to the fear of dehydration. Whilst this may seem sensible, excessive fluid intake can result in stomach issues, increased urinary output and the potential for worse exercise performance. Guidelines recommend consuming 400-600ml of 6-8% isotonic fluid in the 2 hours prior to your race, something like a Lucozade sport should do the trick. Whilst specific fluid volumes and guidelines are useful, often the best indicator for your hydration status is to listen to your body. Drink to thirst, avoid getting a dry mouth, monitor your concentration and avoid headaches. Your urine is a great indicator of your hydration status and on race day the use of a simple urine colour chart (example below) can point out if you are hydrated or in need of more fluids.

I hope you find this useful and thanks for reading, Josh Henry, Nutritionist.

References:

1 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4672008/

2 – https://www.nutrition.org.uk/healthy-sustainable-diets/hydration/?level=Health%20professional#adults

3 – https://www.nsca.com/education/articles/kinetic-select/carbohydrate-loading/#:~:text=Carbohydrate%20loading%20is%20a%20practice,to%20depletion%20of%20glycogen%20stores.