Chris Hemsworth's trainer Luke Zocchi shaved minutes off his Hyrox time in just five weeks – here's how

Independent

21-05-2025

Anyone who has signed up for a race, particularly a Hyrox race, knows the months leading up to the event can make or break your performance. And for celebrity trainer Luke Zocchi, these crucial months didn't exactly go to plan.
Nose surgery left him unable to train until just five weeks out, then the Australian flew half-way around the world with long-time client and friend Chris Hemsworth to shoot the upcoming Avengers film.
Yet, come race day at the London Olympia, a jet-lagged Zocchi snagged something on thousands of fitness fans' wish lists: a new Hyrox PB. The Centr trainer crossed the finish line in 1:17:43 in the pro division.
This was his fifth time competing in the fitness industry's most modish event – a gruelling combination of eight 1km running intervals, each separated by a different functional fitness station such as rowing, sled pushes and burpee broad jumps – and it was his best performance to date.
So after surgery, a string of nights proffering poor sleep and a busy work schedule which involved bulking up a bona fide superhero, how did he do it?
Focussing on running
Hyrox is a tricky competition to train for because the demands are so varied. Over the course of a race you'll be running, rowing, skiing (on a machine at least), pushing, pulling, jumping, lunging, carrying and more.
However, while there are 16 total work stations in a Hyrox race, Zocchi points out that half of them are 1km runs. For this reason, he focussed on improving his running ahead of the event, and recommends that others do the same.
'Make sure you're incorporating jogging in some capacity into your training at least three times each week, with at least one dedicated running day,' he says. But Zocchi also warns against going too hard, too early.
'I've injured myself so many times in the past by increasing the amount of running I'm doing way too fast,' he explains.
For beginners, he recommends starting with this 30-minute session:
Brisk walk x5min
10 rounds of brisk walk x1min, jog x1min
Walking cool-down x5min
Over time, you can skew the ratio of jogging to walking until you are able to run for the entire workout.
For the other running days, he did a mixture of tempo runs, long runs and interval sessions. Come race day, this approach allowed him to hold an average pace of 4min 40sec per kilometre.
Practising compromised running
'Compromised running' is a trendy term in Hyrox, and simply refers to the act of running on tired legs. Given a race will take you straight from a heavy sled push to a 1km run, this is a key skill in any successful athlete's armoury, so Zocchi became acquainted with the sensation in the lead-up to the event.
'You can be a good runner, but it's a whole different ball game when you've just pushed that sled or done some burpees or lunges – your legs go to jelly,' he says. 'When it gets closer to race day, you have to learn to run compromised, where you're fatiguing your legs and then going for a run.'
A simple way he did this was including running as one of the stations in a circuit workout, alongside taxing full-body moves. These can be recognised Hyrox exercises or – if you don't have access to equipment like sleds – a dumbbell squat, lunge or thruster will also do the trick.
Following a plan
A lot of people make the mistake of taking a running plan and a strength training plan, smushing them together, then having this as their Hyrox preparations.
The problem is, if both plans are designed to exist in isolation, it's likely doing them side by side is going to leave your body burnt out by race day.
For the five weeks he had to train, Zocchi opted to follow Centr's Hyrox-approved 'accelerator' programme, which comprises five weekly workouts structured to help seasoned athletes push for a PB. The brand also has a 'Hyrox Starter' plan for those newer to the sport.
'I got a quicker time than last time and I only did the programme for five weeks because I had a few things going on; I had nose surgery and I couldn't train,' he says. 'But it all worked out, so all good.'
Sticking to a plan allows you to systematically progress your training, leading to incremental improvements which will help you peak on race day, provided you're fuelling and recovering adequately.
Building full-body strength
If the running portions go awry during a Hyrox race, you can always walk. But if you can't move the sled, you're stuck (unless you take the hefty 24-minute penalty for skipping both the sled push and pull). For this reason, building a decent base layer of strength is always a good idea.
Having trained Hemsworth for years and regularly jumped in on his workouts, Zocchi is no stranger to strength training. However, even he came unstuck against the 153kg sled pull during his first outing in the pro division in Brisbane last year.
'I couldn't move it at first, it was too heavy,' he says. 'It took me about seven minutes in the end.'
He recommends prioritising compound (or multi-muscle) exercises in your pre–Hyrox strength training sessions to avoid this fate.
'Going for full-body movements is so important because everything in Hyrox is basically a full-body movement,' says Zocchi. 'Then, getting closer to the race, I got a bit more specific and worked on techniques and little improvements I could make. You're dialling in the exercises themselves and getting more efficient at them.'
'If you don't have a sled handy, dumbbell lunges are another way to practice for sled pushes, while dumbbell rows are an alternative for pulls.'