HCP #81 - HYROX New Points System discussion with Sports Director, Mat Lock!

**Anthony** (0:08)
In this very special episode of the Hybrid Coaching Podcast, I get to sit down with Director of Sport from HYROX, Mat Lock. Mat and I together worked on the new points qualification system, along with the rest of the elite working group, to come up with how elites will qualify in the 2026-2027 HYROX season number nine.

**Anthony** (0:31)
In this episode, we're gonna take you through all the details, the nitty gritty, and some of the decision bases behind why and how this system was set up, as well as some examples, and what are the current standards. Let's make Hybrid Fitness work for you. How's it going today, Mat?

**Mat Lock** (0:52)
I am good, thank you. Coming to you from a very warm and sunny down, and it's summer where I am.

**Anthony** (0:58)
It is not summer here in Las Vegas. It is cool and possibly rainy over the next couple of days.

**Mat Lock** (1:06)
It doesn't rain in Vegas, does it?

**Anthony** (1:08)
Well, not often. Over 300 days of sun shine a year here.

**Mat Lock** (1:13)
Not bad. You win.

**Anthony** (1:16)
So I'm really excited. We're going to talk about the point system today. The point system that HYROX is releasing that begins the rankings for the majors and elite qualification system in the 2026-2027 season. So everybody can be aware at least nine months, maybe even 10 months out from the first major of that season, how they can qualify for it. We don't actually know yet when the first major is, but we know we have several months before it'll drop. So you have time to collect a bunch of races. And I'm talking with Mat Lock, who is, I don't want to get your title wrong, but it's the Director of Sport for HYROX.

**Mat Lock** (2:02)
Yeah, absolutely.

**Anthony** (2:04)
So we interact a lot as the Elite Working Group, and Mat leads that from the HYROX side. And we were able to collaborate on how to resolve several, not issues, but how to improve the qualification around the Elite side of the sport this past summer. And this fall, and into the winter, about how can we listen to the requests of the athletes and the coaches, and make it more equal in terms of how people are qualifying.

**Mat Lock** (2:45)
Yeah, 100%. And look, I mean, the points-based system, which has been jointly developed with the Elite Working Group, and therefore the Elite Community at large, is ultimately was at the, this time was at the request of the Elite Working Group. It was certainly an idea, a version of what has resulted was considered a couple of years ago. But for various reasons, which we'll get into, it wasn't the right time.
The sport wasn't mature enough globally, let's say, and well represented enough globally. But now we believe it is, and now is really the perfect time to introduce such a new evolutionary and robust system frankly. So we're excited to share it here.

**Anthony** (3:29)
Yeah, we actually, and that's one of the things we looked at too, is there are now athletes that have qualified for the Elite 15 out of multiple countries within each region, including APAC, including, we saw South American athletes, or sorry, South African athletes in the last major and the first two this year. It really has just expanded, and so I believe we both agree that this can address some, not necessarily issues, like I said, but improvements for the qualification.

**Mat Lock** (4:03)
I love that we're bouncing around the word, oh, they're not issues. Yeah, elephant in the room. I mean, let's talk about what it is that this, I guess, the ongoing discussion that's been had from day dot, I guess, about having a time-based measure of performance in different venues and so on. I mean, that's where we're headed, I think, as a starting point, right?

**Anthony** (4:23)
Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing we want to ask is, if we're going to change something, what are the problems we're trying to solve? Let's lay out those. That's where we started out with this. So what are the problems we're trying to solve and why?

**Mat Lock** (4:36)
Yeah, sure. This is going to be very much a conversation.

**Anthony** (4:39)
Yes.

**Mat Lock** (4:39)
Because we've been as involved as I have. So I appreciate that we can bring both viewpoints to it, I guess, from a HYROX side, from inside the sport side, but also then from the elite side, from a coaching and athlete perspective. I think that's really valuable for your listener or viewer, depending on where they're consuming this. But to answer your question, as you know, there were three, I guess, three main topics that we felt this would resolve. The first is the main one, I suppose, which is all of the variables, the inevitable variables that we have at every different race venue on the planet. Those can be race course layout, how many laps is the run, how many corners are there, but also the environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, altitude. They inevitably make it hard to compare athlete performance comparatively across all races with using a purely time-based approach. That's the main one.