How do you perform?
Recently, I put out a poll on my Instagram page asking my followers what mental state they perform best in when racing HYROX. The poll options were:
I perform best when I’m racing angry
I perform best when I’m racing for fun
I perform best when I’m racing under pressure
The reason I did this poll was to try and understand what makes people tick—and what might be holding them back.
Personally, I tend to underperform when I’m angry. I can sometimes perform well under pressure, but my best races have usually come when the pressure is off, and I’m just out there enjoying it. Some of my top results have come from races where I put zero pressure on myself, didn’t care much about the outcome, and ended up walking away with the win.
The results of the poll were very clear (keeping in mind this is just based on my Instagram following):
65% of people said they perform best when racing for fun
35% said they perform best under pressure
0% said they perform best when racing angry
My questions off the back of this are: Why do people get so angry when racing? Why do we let pressure creep in, even when we know we don’t perform our best under it? And how do we practice simply enjoying ourselves on race day? After all, we’re paying actual money to go through the challenges of a HYROX race.
HYROX has made it incredibly easy to look up anyone’s name and see their results. With just a few taps, you can view someone’s full race breakdown. This transparency makes the sport very trainable and trackable—but does it also add to the pressure? Does knowing that anyone with internet access can see your performance add an extra layer of stress?
It’s an interesting thought. Should HYROX make race results private? Or at least offer the option for athletes to keep their data private? Maybe this could help those who struggle under pressure to feel a bit more relaxed and ultimately perform better.
What do you think?
Cheers, George
