The Conjugate for Hyrox Blueprint

Why Hybrid Athletes Get Stuck and How to Fix It With a High/Low
Conjugate System

By Ryan Gibney
ryangibney.com | @ryangibneycoaching

You're putting the work in.
Sessions are consistent. Effort isn't the problem.
But progress has slowed. Race times aren't moving. Go too hard on the sleds and
the back half of your race is gone. You're always slightly beaten up going into race
week.
That's not a fitness problem.
That's a structure problem.
Hyrox is growing fast in the UK. Gyms are full of athletes who've found something
that scratches the competitive itch. But the programming most of them are following
is borrowed from endurance sport, random Hyrox-branded circuits, or generic hybrid
templates built for social media, not performance.
The conjugate system has been solving this kind of problem for decades. It just
hasn't been widely applied to this sport yet.

This article is the application.

Hyrox Sits in the Middle. Most Programming Misses It.

Hyrox isn't an endurance sport with some lifting bolted on. It isn't a strength sport
with running thrown in.
It's repeated high-force output under accumulating fatigue:
- Ski erg
- Sled push and pull
- Burpee broad jumps
- Row erg
- Farmers carry
- Lunges
- Wall balls
All of it layered on top of running.

That demands multiple physical qualities developed at the same time, not in blocks.
That's concurrent training. And it works. But only if it's organised properly.

If you've spent any time in strength sport you already understand the principle. You
can't peak everything at once without a plan. Hyrox athletes are learning this the
hard way.

The Real Problem: Everything Lives in the Same Zone

Look at a typical Hyrox training week and you'll often see the same pattern:
- Moderate intensity most days
- Strength work that never truly progresses
- Conditioning that just accumulates fatigue
There's no separation between what drives adaptation and what supports it. When
everything sits in the same intensity zone, nothing develops properly.
That's the interference effect.
Hickson documented it in 1980. The problem isn't concurrent training. It's poorly
organised concurrent training.
Which is exactly the point.

The Fix: Separate the Stress

The solution isn't more work. It's better organisation.
This is where high/low structure comes in.
- High days: high CNS demand, high output
- Low days: aerobic work, recovery, low stress
No middle ground. No blending.
Canadian sprint coach Charlie Francis built this model working with elite sprinters in
the 1970s and 80s. His principle was straightforward: the middle zone creates too
much stress to recover from quickly but not enough intensity to drive real adaptation.
CNS recovery, not just muscular recovery, has to be built into the structure of the
week.
Joel Jamieson later applied the same framework to combat sport athletes in his work
documented in Ultimate MMA Conditioning (2009) and his Fight! Magazine article on
the High/Low method. The logic transfers directly. Hyrox athletes need both
explosive output and aerobic capacity. The interference problem is the same. The
solution is the same.

Where Conjugate Fits

I don't use conjugate instead of concurrent training.
I use it to make concurrent training work.

The conjugate system, adapted and popularised by Louie Simmons from Soviet
periodisation principles, solves the stagnation problem that kills most long-term
Hyrox programming. Instead of running linear phases that eventually plateau, you
rotate qualities and stimuli across the week:
- Max effort: builds absolute strength
- Dynamic effort: develops rate of force and bar speed
- Repeat effort: builds durability and local muscular endurance
For a powerlifter this is standard. For a Hyrox athlete it needs modification. Here's
how it actually runs.

Max Effort: Modified for Non-Strength Sport Athletes

Traditional Westside runs max effort as weekly 1RM work, rotating the exercise
every 1-3 weeks to prevent accommodation.
For Hyrox athletes this needs adjusting. Most don't have the movement quality or
confidence under a true max to make weekly 1RM testing productive. Forcing it
creates breakdown, not adaptation.
The approach that works better:
- Week 1: Work to a top set of 5 (sub-maximal, technique focus)
- Week 2: Top set of 3
- Week 3: Soft 1RM, working to something that's challenging but not a true
grind
- Week 4: Rotate the exercise and reset the cycle
This 3-4 week rotation still prevents accommodation. It still builds absolute strength.
But it builds movement quality and confidence alongside it, which is what non-
strength-sport athletes actually need before they can express that strength in a race.
Exercise selection is athlete-specific and rotated based on what's limiting
performance. There's no universal list. The principle is constant. The application
isn't.

Dynamic Effort: Starting Points for Hybrid Athletes

Traditional Westside dynamic effort runs at 50-60% with accommodating resistance.
For a competitive powerlifter that's appropriate. For a hybrid athlete who may not
have trained with accommodating resistance before, starting there creates technical
noise, not speed.
What works better with this population:
Straight weight approach:
- Start at 50% of 1RM
- Wave up 10% each week
- Focus is bar speed and intent, not load
Accommodating resistance approach:
- Start at 40% bar weight plus appropriate band/chain tension
- Wave up 5% per week
In practice, athletes who start with accommodating resistance from week one often
end up managing the resistance setup rather than focusing on speed. Starting lower
with straight weight, building the pattern and the intent, then introducing
accommodating resistance as a tool once they're expressing proper velocity tends to
produce better outcomes.
The loading percentages are starting points. What you're actually training is the
intent to move fast under load. That can't be coached into an athlete who is grinding
through a dynamic effort set at the wrong percentage.

The Condensed Conjugate Model

A traditional Westside four-day split works for a powerlifter whose only job is to get
stronger. A Hyrox athlete also needs aerobic development, event-specific training,
and recovery capacity. The structure has to compress.
For most athletes this runs as two full body strength sessions per week, pairing
opposing qualities:
- Dynamic upper paired with max effort lower
- Dynamic lower paired with max effort upper
- Repeat effort accessories in both sessions
This allows strength, power, and durability to develop in the same week without
excessive volume or recovery debt going into the aerobic work.
When strength is a clear limiting factor, typically off-season or early in a training
block, this shifts to a three-day rotation:
- Day 1: Max effort lower
- Day 2: Max effort upper
- Day 3: Full body dynamic effort
The structure stays the same. Only the emphasis changes.

What This Actually Looks Like

A weekly structure using the high/low model:
Day 1 - High
AM: Intervals | PM: Dynamic Effort Upper + Max Effort Lower + Repeat Effort
accessories
Day 2 - Low
Zone 2 aerobic + recovery
Day 3 - High
AM: Intervals | PM: Dynamic Effort Lower + Max Effort Upper + Repeat Effort
accessories
Day 4 - Low
Aerobic / recovery
Day 5 - High
Hyrox-specific session / sled work / simulation
Day 6 - Low
Easy aerobic / recovery
Day 7 - Off or complete recovery
Intervals are placed before strength on high days to prioritise output quality and
avoid compromised mechanics under accumulated fatigue. Every session has a role.
Nothing is random.

Sled Work Isn't Conditioning

This is where most Hyrox programming gets it completely wrong, and where anyone
from a strength background will immediately see the issue.
Sled work gets thrown into circuits and treated like conditioning. It isn't. It's a strength
movement under fatigue. The sled station breaks down in races because athletes
haven't built the strength to handle it, not because they haven't practised suffering
through it.
The approach that actually moves the sled station:
- Start at approximately 80% of competition weight
- Progress over the training block to 10-20% above competition weight
- Form and intent are the non-negotiables at every load
Treat the sled like a strength movement, with progressive load and deliberate
execution, and it transfers directly into race performance. Treat it like conditioning
and it just becomes expensive fatigue.
That distinction alone changes outcomes for athletes who've been stuck at the same
sled time for months.

Conditioning: Programmed, Not Added

Conditioning isn't something you tack on at the end of a session. It's placed
deliberately:
- Intervals on high days
- Aerobic work on low days
- Longer efforts separated from strength work
Even finishers are controlled: short, structured, and optional based on fatigue on the
day. The decision to add or remove a finisher isn't weakness. It's programming.
A lot of athletes go wrong here. They add more work instead of organising what's
already there. The training week gets heavier and heavier in the middle zone.
Nothing drives adaptation. Everything just creates fatigue.

The Takeaway

Hyrox doesn't need more work. It needs a better structure.
- Separate stress
- Develop multiple qualities together
- Avoid interference through organisation
- Programme recovery with the same intent as training
Under-recovering from poorly organised training is the real issue for most athletes
who feel stuck. Not overtraining.
Concurrent training works. The conjugate system works. The combination of the two,
properly organised, is how you stop surviving Hyrox and start racing it.

References

Hickson, R.C. (1980). Interference of strength development by simultaneously training for strength
and endurance. European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology, 45(2-3), 255-
263. doi: 10.1007/BF00421333
Francis, C. (1992). Speed Trap. St. Martin's Press.
Jamieson, J. (2009). Ultimate MMA Conditioning. Performance Sports Inc.
Jamieson, J. (2011). The High Low Mix Up. Fight! Magazine. Reprinted at 8weeksout.com
Simmons, L. (2007). Westside Barbell Book of Methods. Westside Barbell.

About the Author
Ryan Gibney is a strength and conditioning coach with 25 years of experience across
professional rugby league and international rugby union.
He holds a BSc Hons in S&C, CSCS, Westside Barbell Certified, BioForce CCC (Joel Jamieson), PPSC (Dr John Rusin), PN1, and CPSC (Joe DeFranco) credentials.
He now applies conjugate methodology to Hyrox athletes through Ryan Gibney Coaching.
Website: ryangibney.com 
Instagram: @ryangibneycoaching