An argument for becoming a hybrid athlete
I started very late on my fitness journey, no sports, or weight lifting in High school. Writing for the school paper and working in AV club consumed much of my time. The first truly physical activity, was when I was hired to work for UPS as an unloader and eventually a UPS package driver. Many years and injuries later, I learned from my PT that the body needs maintenance, no matter how physical demanding your job is and sometimes more so because of it.
Then I found obstacle course racing.
So first let’s talk about how Warrior Dash changed my ideas about fitness. I’m not a huge fan of running, and although I have competed successfully as a physique level bodybuilder, it’s not a passion. My thoughts about fitness have always centered around being able to perform what you would call activities of daily living. A way of thinking about it is, whether you’re doing yard work, playing with the kids or a full day or walking around downtown, can you do any of that without needing Advil the next day?
What are obstacle course races?
For those not in the know Warrior Dash was lifting, climbing, running, jumping and a lot of fooling around in the mud for a charity. A fun and healthy mix of physical challenges with a total of about 5K of running. The race brought out all types, from your weekend warriors, to the groups that would dress up in costumes and just try to get through it. At the end, you got a medal, a silly hat and a beer. It was a pretty good way to test your fitness. Although it wasn’t a race that you needed to take too seriously, it did require a little training to look confident when doing it and almost all of the skills tested in the race translate to real life. It’s good to be able to run for a short distance say to catch the bus, or maybe you have to run for a flight carrying a kid and some luggage. It tested grip, balance, hand-eye coordination and a measure of physical endurance. I was hooked, and it was the start of many, more serious races to come.
Battle Frog, Savage Race, Tough Mudder, Spartan Race, and the toughest of all Hyrox!
I have done all of these races and most are still around and some have gone to the way-side, sadly. The less popular races just didn’t survive Covid and the new sanitary restrictions that two or three thousand sweaty, dirty people all touching the same things made impossible. For the purpose of this discussion I’m going to be focusing on the last two, Spartan race and Hyrox. Hyrox was different. It was well laid out and judged, clean, very intense and focused on the new term “hybrid athlete” coined by an Alex Viada in 2015. It reffered to someone who would train in multiple sports and athletic disciplines, that combine strength, endurance and skill base sports to become proficient in a variety of physical capacities. Now for those of you part of this community, you’re probably thinking CrossFit. CrossFit does build incredible athletes, but also does require some gymnastics and Olympic lifting that not everyone wants to specialize in. All of these new types of races were accessible by the weekend warrior. If you could run, push and lift heavy things you where good to go.
Hyrox
Hyrox was first held in Hamburg Germany in 2017, invented by an endurance, racing junkie, and a former German Olympic field hockey champion. It was invented and designed to be accessible to people of all abilities, including those who may not be able to do more difficult exercises as in CrossFit. Designed to be a standardized competition that could be held with large numbers of competitors, combining, running and functional exercise to improve cardiovascular endurance, strength, and agility. As with all of these races, the amount of time spent on course dictates the amount of difficulty applied. Slow down and just do your best and the race can be accomplish by almost everyone. Go for first place and you have better trained hard. Now although they say that this event is for everyone, in their mind, you should be able to complete a half marathon, and some of the exercise exercises require a pretty moderate to high level of strength.
Spartan Deka
Deka races were created to make a standardized and accessible competition, functional fitness for people of all fitness levels, essentially acting as a decathlon of fitness. Unlike Hyrox these Spartan races can be held at smaller gyms and do not require the large venues of the other race. The 10 different functional zones allow people to participate, track their ability and improve over time. The goal was to promote a well-rounded fitness challenge with Spartans focus on pushing limits and achieving personal bests. With the shortest of the races, the Deka Strong, the aerobic benefits of running isn’t necessary, but would be helpful. If a more rounded approach is what you’re looking for they also have a Deka Mile and a Deka Fit. Which as the name suggests requires a mile of total running or in the case of the Fit a total of 5K or 500m between every exercise. Spartan Deka has got my undivided attention, anyone can participate in their first Strong. And as they progress in their fitness, they can move up to increase both ability and skills. Deka has so many locations and a quarter of the sign up price of the bigger Hyrox, you could actually do a race almost every month in your area.
So why does it matter?
If you are going to invest in training, gains should be measurable. The other key to success is having something to train for to keep you accountable. If you tell a bunch of people that you’re going to do a thing, more often than that not you’ll train hard for it. Not to mention the psychological benefits of competition in a friendly environment, can help in all aspects of your life. My training partner, Rosa will tell you she was never more nervous at the starting line, never more confident at the finish and it made every other task in her life feel easier.
Running is a great exercise and it is incredibly accessible, but it does leave a vast amount of the body untrained. And although my brothers and sisters in the running community might not like to hear it, there are a lot of repetitive injuries in running. Being a more well-rounded athlete prevents some of these injuries. Specificity in exercise is a really important concept. If you bench press weight you will get better at bench pressing, if you run you will get better at running. The fitness community has come to the conclusion that weight training alone or running alone is not enough. A hybrid of these two things is required for optimization of the human body. Honestly for me, the diversity of it is more fun. A little running, sprinting, lifting, pushing, and pulling makes the time go faster and yields amazing results. Another amazing part is it can be done in a group or by yourself, with a lot of equipment or just a few pieces, at home or at a gym.
