Overcome Hyrox Nerves & Cue On-Demand Confidence

HYROX Birmingham is here!

Between the wall balls, sleds, and that ever-haunting burpee broad jump, it’s natural for nerves to creep in.

However, the athletes who will perform best this week won’t just have trained their bodies, they’ll have trained their minds.

We recently ran a mindset workshop with ROX QUEENS helping their athletes to overcome Hyrox nerves on race day. Below are two mental workouts straight from that session, designed to help you race calmer, sharper, and more confident.

Confidence Pairs: Neutralise Your Worries

Every athlete has “that” station, the one they secretly dread. Maybe it’s sled push flashbacks or the burn of the lunges. Whatever it is, that worry can quietly drain your confidence before the race even begins.

Step 1: Identify the Worry

We spend most of our time suppressing this worry, but now is the time to thrust it into the spotlight, where it cannot hide. Bring to mind the part of the race you’re most anxious about.

Now, think about the narrative you’re normally telling yourself as you approach this part of the race. What usually runs through your mind in that moment?

• “I’ll be exhausted by then.”

• “Everyone will overtake me.”

• “I’ll lose my rhythm.”

Next, what emotions begin to bubble to the surface as this scenario plays out?

• Anxiety

• Stress

• Embarrassment

Finally, play the scenario through in your mind from start to finish. What is the worst that could happen?

• I make a fool of myself

• I don’t hit my time

• I injure myself and have to stop racing

Hopefully you have now fully surfaced the thought, emotion, and potential outcome attached to it.

Step 2: Turn Over the Confidence Card

Now build it’s neutraliser, your confidence card.

Collect the psychological evidence that specifically negates that worry and proves you can handle the challenge.

Use the three science-backed sources of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977):

• Mastery Experience: Recall past achievements, a tough session, PB, or training win.

• Verbal Persuasion: Remember what your coach or training partner said that fuelled belief.

• Vicarious Experience: Think of someone like you who’s crushed that same obstacle, because if they can, so too can you.

When you pair your worry with this confidence card, you rewire your brain’s prediction. You’re no longer stepping into that station expecting struggle, you’re primed to find proof you can handle it.

💡 Try this:

Before race day, write both cards side by side. On race day, mentally “flip” the worry card into its confidence neutraliser the moment doubt appears.

Cue Words: Compress Confidence into a Single Word

Now that you’ve explored your biggest race-day worries and built a confidence card full of evidence, it’s time to distill all of that into something you can use under pressure.

Because by the time you’re on your 5th run (maybe 3rd for some), your brain’s processing power is running on fumes. That’s when elite performers will rely on cue words, single words or phrases that act like mental shortcuts.

In psychology, this taps into cognitive economy, simplifying complex focus cues into concise triggers that preserve attention under fatigue. The word anchors meaning, emotion, and confidence, all in one syllable.

Let’s not reduce a word to the number of characters that take up space on a page. Instead, let’s empower a word with the meaning and impact of a hundred words!

Step 1: Build Meaning First

Before choosing a word, look back at the evidence you gathered in your confidence card.

• What themes stand out?

• What did your coach or training partner say that stuck with you?

• How did you talk to yourself when you last felt unstoppable?

Your keyword should emerge from these stories, not be picked at random.

Step 2: Distil It Down

Once those themes are clear, find a single word or short phrase that captures their essence.

It could represent:

• Strength → “Power,” “Drive,” “Hold.”

• Composure → “Calm,” “Steady,” “Trust.”

• Resilience → “Push,” “Still,” “Capable.”

That one word now becomes a mental compression file, storing everything you’ve just built.

Step 3: Practise Retrieval

Race week is here, so you may not have much time to practice this, but use visualisation to imagine your worrying scenario in its entirety, followed by you using this word, flipping over your confidence card, and handling the situation like a pro!

Why These Work

Both tools are built on cognitive and self-efficacy principles:

Confidence Pairs help retrain anticipatory thinking, shifting your mental prediction from threat to capability.

Confidence Cue Words reduce cognitive load, improving attentional control and emotional regulation when fatigue sets in.

Together, they make confidence retrievable, not just a feeling, but a system you can use under pressure.

Take These Into Your Race

Before your race:

✅ Write your worry + confidence card pair

✅ Choose your cue word

✅ Practise flipping the worry card and repeating your word in your warm-ups

Train your brain like an athlete.

If you want to be guided through this process, then download the Getahead app today. It’s the mental training ground for your mind!

Match the Mindset, Confidence Highlight Reel, and Power Words are all workouts in the app that will help you shift nerves into confidence ahead of your race this week.

Good luck in Birmingham!

Robin

Head of Mental Fitness