Fuel The Flow

HYROX Taught Me This About Pushing Limits

• Valerie Feghali • Season 1 • Episode 35

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0:00 | 15:16

Adopting a true HYROX Mindset isn't just about surviving an intense fitness race; it is the exact mental framework you need to break past the invisible barriers holding your coaching business back. When I signed up for my first race, I realized very quickly that the physical challenge was only half the battle. The real test happened entirely in my head. As health and wellness professionals, we constantly coach our clients on how to push past their perceived limits, yet we are incredibly quick to accept artificial ceilings in our own businesses.

In this episode of Fuel The Flow, we take you inside the "Rozzone"—that critical, uncomfortable moment of friction where you must decide whether to retreat or elevate your standards. We are diving deep into how to leverage competitive fitness lessons to unlock sustainable business growth for coaches. Scaling an online business requires the same pacing, endurance, and strategic focus as a hybrid race. If you are tired of playing small and are ready to set aggressive stretch goals, this episode is your blueprint for expanding your capacity.

✨ WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER:

  • Why treating your business growth like a hybrid training program prevents burnout.
  • The reality of the "Roxzone" and how to push through moments of severe business friction.
  • How to identify and shatter the artificial limits you've placed on your earning potential.
  • The exact correlation between physical endurance and entrepreneurial resilience.
  • Why setting massive stretch goals demands a completely new baseline standard.

⭐ MEMORABLE QUOTE

"You're not limited by your capacity or what you've done in the past. You're limited by the belief in your capacity."  Valerie Feghali

Resources Mentioned:

Detailed Chapters:

00:00 - Intro & The Choice to Readjust Standards: The decision every entrepreneur faces when hitting a wall.

01:17 - What Exactly is HYROX?: A quick breakdown of the hybrid fitness race sweeping the industry.

02:40 - The Reality of Signing Up for the Race: Why the physical challenge is only half the battle.

03:59 - Entering the "Rozzone": Navigating the ultimate test of mental and physical endurance.

05:09 - Strategy Shifts for Reaching Stretch Goals: Adjusting your approach when aiming for massive targets.

06:24 - The Correlation Between Racing and Business: How fitness lessons translate directly to entrepreneurial success.

08:56 - Elevating Your Coaching Content: A quick look at streamlining your resources with Wellness Vault.

09:25 - Race Day Execution and Unexpected Hurdles: Dealing with the friction that occurs on launch days.

11:49 - Translating the Race Experience to Business Scaling: Pushing past perceived capacity limits as a health coach.

13:54 - Final Words on Committing to Bigger Goals: A challenge to step into the stretch goals you've been avoiding.

If this episode helped you rethink your business capacity, please leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify! It helps us reach more health and wellness c

SPEAKER_00

I had a choice to make at that moment. I could say, I think I need to readjust my goal, or I readjust my standards and my expectations. The result wasn't just about fitness, it was about my capacity, just like it did for me with training for this race. So I'm gonna leave you with this. Welcome to the Fuel Your Flow podcast. I am your host, Valerie Figali, physical therapist, turned software CEO and business coach for health and wellness coaches. We are going to be talking about all things health and business. They might be more closely related than you think. So let's go ahead and get into it. What's up, everyone, and welcome to the show. Today's episode is going to be a little different because I'm going to take you inside of my recent experience competing in HYROCs. And more importantly, I want to talk to you about the lessons that I learned about potential, capacity, and the way that we set goals, not just in fitness, but in our business and in our lives. So if you haven't heard of HYROX before, I want to first give you a quick breakdown because this is a competition that's really blowing up the fitness industry right now. And if you're in wellness, you're going to be hearing more and more about it. Similarly to a marathon, CrossFit competition, 5K. It's going to be one of those things that you'll hear more and more about. So HyROX is a race in which there's eight kilometers of running that are break up into one kilometer each with a strength station in between each one kilometer of running. The strength stations are things like sled pushes, sled pulls, burpee broad jumps, rowing, sandbag lunges, farmers carry, and they're always the same. Now, just to give you some context, the top elite athletes in the world finish high rocks in under 60 minutes. So it's an endurance race and it takes a lot of pacing. It's not just something you should go out and do one day. It takes training. You've got to be ready for it. But people of all sizes, all different levels can compete in this race. It's open to the public. Now, when I first signed up, I did not know a whole lot about Hyrux. I had a general idea of the format. So I knew people who had done it. I had done some research on what exactly the race entails. And I saw some social media posts of what exactly it looked like, but I had never really been to a race or known the details of what it would take to train in order to get the result that I wanted to get from the race. So what happened next completely shifted the way I think about setting goals, performance, and what we're actually capable of. So when I first signed up for High Rocks, I had a goal in mind, but I did not base this goal on deep analysis. I based it on what I saw other people doing, who I thought I kind of compared to in that space, and what I actually wanted to see on the scoreboard when I crossed the finish line. And I think this is how a lot of us operate. We set our goals based on what we've done in the past, which I didn't have that experience at the time. So I couldn't use that. What people around us are doing. So I did use that research to set my goal and what feels somewhat within reach. So again, I use that kind of belief system, what I believed I was possible of to set my goal. But what happened next surprised me because I did my basic calculations. And on paper, it really felt doable. But the problem is that I didn't yet have the full picture of the race. So once I started digging deeper into the race format, I realized that there were a lot of factors that I initially had not accounted for. So this is where things got interesting. There was something called the rock zone. And this is the space between your workout station and the next run. So in my mind, I had visualized being done with the strength station and then the run immediately starting from there. But in reality, you first have to get cleared by a judge, and then you have to run out from that station, kind of around that station and the next station to get to where the track begins and where the running actually starts. So there's this extra little bit of distance that adds up and the time adds up in that area that I hadn't accounted for. So getting cleared by the judge, going through the rock zone. So that distance you have to clear to get to the run. And then even just small things like starting burp bees behind a specific line, maintaining a specific standard or form for each rep that you're doing, you know, navigating the layout of the course mentally takes a lot of effort. So these are things that I hadn't accounted for when I had initially set my goal. And collectively, these things add up. They cost time, they cost energy, and they cost mental focus too. So when I went back and I started recalculating everything, it hit me that I would need to run a just over a seven minute mile pace for all eight kilometers in order to reach that goal that I had set of 75 minutes for crossing the finish line. And with that in mind, this is not on fresh legs. So it's not just a running pace for your one mile running pace. It's for eight kilometers after you've done things such as a heavy sled push, a ton of lunges, a ton of burpees, right? And I still realize that I had to run that just over seven-minute mile pace. And that for me suddenly was like, whoa, I'm not sure if I can do that. A seven-minute mile is very fast on fresh legs for me. That's not something I've run since like high school. So I had a choice to make at that moment. I could say, you know what, I think I need to readjust my goal, or I readjust my standards and my expectations. And what I chose to do was to readjust my standards and expectations. I started realizing that, hey, if I can actually visualize this, if I can manifest this, I know that I am capable of this. And this moment shows up for us, not just in races, fitness competitions, but it shows up for us in business. It shows up for us in life when we have a certain vision in mind. And then suddenly we realize all the things that it's going to take to get there. And we scale down the goal, right? A lot of times we end up setting, visualizing kind of a stretch goal and then realizing that, oh wow, it's going to take a lot of effort to get there. And instead of putting in that effort, we decide to scale down the goal. But instead, what we could do, rather than making it more logical, making it more reasonable, we can scale up our expectations of ourselves. We can scale up our standards, is exactly what I did. So with this, I really want to tie it back to manifestation. And a lot of people, when they hear the word manifestation, think of it as almost like luck or hope. But that's not what manifestation actually is. Manifestation is when you can clearly visualize something and you can see yourself in those scenarios. You can see yourself achieving that goal and you create the vision towards it. Now, with that vision comes the milestones that you need to hit. You start envisioning the daily habits that you need to implement in order to actually reach that goal. And that's what manifestation is all about. It's creating the vision, understanding the milestones that need to be hit, understanding the habits that need to be put in place, and then getting after it and doing the work. That's what manifestation is. And it creates incredible, incredible results. So, with this, for me, as I started manifesting this goal of 75 minutes through the finish line, I realized that I needed to push harder in my sessions. I needed to be more disciplined in my recovery. I essentially stopped drinking all alcohol during training. I made sure that I really took recovery, active recovery days, that I was staying well hydrated, which is something that I oftentimes have a hard time with. I adjusted my nutrition in order to match my goals as well. And the vision created the structure for the training. And this is where I think a lot of people get wrong. They wait to feel ready before they actually set the goal. But in reality, the goal is what creates readiness. Hey, sorry to interrupt, but if you are a health or wellness professional and you haven't yet checked out the wellness vault, you're missing out. The wellness vault is a content hub for coaches who create their own plans and programs for their clients, run workshops, create digital guides, and so much more. You can now do all of this in a fraction of the time so you can focus on your clients and grow your business faster than ever with more U time. The link to the wellness vault is in the show notes. So go sign up for your free trial today. So let's fast forward to race day for me. So everything that we talked about, it all showed up. The rock zone was there. The judges were there that I needed to get clarity from. I couldn't, you know, in any way shortcut, shortcut this. I had to make sure that each move was done with intention. The little efficiencies were there, the mental fatigue of thinking about the laps, counting down, you know, every single thing that I was doing, make sure making sure that I was behind the line, in front of the line, that my hands were six feet from my feet when I was doing burpees. All of that was there. But I was able to stay locked in on my pace and on the intention. So one kilometer at a time, one station at a time. And then when I crossed the finish line, I crossed the finish line at 75 minutes on the dot to the second. The clock said one hour and 15 minutes.00, which is the exact time that I had wanted to cross the finish line. So not any faster, not any slower, but exactly on the dot to the point where it didn't even feel real. But just weeks earlier, this number was a stretch for me and I wasn't sure if I could actually do it. But because I trained with intention and I set that stretch goal and I just hit those milestones, the it, the result happened. So the real takeaway is that the result wasn't just about fitness, it was about my capacity. Most people set goals based on their current identity, who they believe they are, what they believe they're capable of. And those beliefs are usually built on our past results, our past failures, and our past environments. But the problem is your past is not your ceiling. It's only a reference point. You can absolutely go beyond that. And if you continue to set goals based on your reference point, you'll keep recreating the same outcomes rather than creating new and better outcomes. So what this experience showed me is that when you set a goal based on what you actually want and not what feels safe or realistic to you, you unlock a completely different level of performance for yourself. Now you have your habits changing, your standards changing, and your efforts all changing and moving up with you. And ultimately, with that, your results too are going to change. So let's kind of tie this back into running a business because this is where it really matters for all of you listening. And also for coaching, for with your clients. When you're coaching your clients on their goals, it's important for them to keep this in mind and understand their true potential and try to kind of push past those beliefs that they have about themselves and what they're capable of. So, how many times have you set your either business revenue goal or your clients have set their health goal based on what they did last month, based on what they're seeing their peers doing, based on what they think feels reasonable, instead of asking what you actually want? What would it look like if you were able to say double your revenue, to launch a product and scale something bigger, to scale faster, not because you've done it before, but because you're willing to become the person who is capable of doing that. So when the goal is bigger, it forces better systems, better time management, better decision making, just like it did for me with training for this race. The bigger goal required a different version of you. So when you set your goal high, you become that person who is capable of achieving it. And for those of you who are coaching clients on the day to day, this is everything. Your clients are doing the same thing. They're setting their goals based on what they've weighed in the past, based on what they've tried and didn't work or did work, based on what they've been able to lift at the gym, what they believe about themselves. And your job isn't just to give them a plan, it's to expand their perception of what is possible, to help them see that they're capable of more. They can move faster, they can go further, they can reach that goal that they truly desire. Not the thing that they think they can do, but the thing that they want if there were nothing standing in their ways, but only if they're willing to believe it first. So I'm gonna leave you with this. What goal are you currently holding back on? Is it a number? Is it an outcome? Is it a standard? And what have you been kind of pushing away or avoiding because you think it's too big? It feels too big for you. What would happen if you committed to it anyways? Not recklessly, but intentionally, with the understanding that that goal will demand a new level from you. You're more, you're not limited by your capacity or what you've done in the past. You're limited by the belief in your capacity. And once you are able to shift that belief, everything changes. So much more is available to you. So if you got value from this episode, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you're stepping into a bigger goal for yourself right now, I'd love to hear what it is. I'll see you on the next one. I hope you enjoyed our conversation from today. Any links we discussed will be in the show notes below. Also, we would be incredibly grateful if you would leave us a five star review. This helps us keep the podcast going so that we can continue to provide value for all of you. I hope we see you on the next one.