Diary of Words (11)
Hyrox
My friends are always a little confused when I tell them about my fitness activities. Especially the name “Hyrox“Triggers guesswork. And again and again I have to explain what you’re doing, e.g. in the Pro Men category:
1km run – 1000m ski erg (this is a kind of cross-country skiing simulation in which you pull on ropes) – 1km run – 175kg sled push 50m (i.e. push a sled with weights on it) – 1km run – 125 sled pull 50m (i.e. one Pulling a sled weighing 125 kg towards you on a rope) – 1km run – 80m burpee broad jump (burpees are push-up stretch jumps combined with a forward jump) – 1km run – 1000m rowing (i.e. on the rowing machine, as we know it) – 1km run – 200m Farmer`s Carry 2 × 32 kg (with two so-called “kettlebell” weights on each arm 200m run) – 1km run – 30kg sandbag lunges 100m (i.e. 30kg as a sack on the back, then one alternating stretching step forward, whereby the knee must touch the ground) – 1km run – 100 wall balls 9kg (i.e. throw a 9kg heavy ball at a high target after crouching down) – finish
You have to imagine the whole thing like this: The participants run a running route (typically in a large exhibition hall) around the so-called “Roxzone”, into which one then has to run after every kilometer to complete the exercises. The idea of such combined running and fitness competitions comes from the so-called “CrossfitMovement “, which is very popular especially in the USA and which also holds competitions. “Hyrox” is basically a variation that is supposed to appeal to an audience that can’t do endless pull-ups or weights like a crossfitter. So it’s similarly tough and competitive, but more accessible. The idea is that you develop a kind of holistic fitness, because only if you are good at all exercises (you don’t have to be top in all of them, but at a high level) can you break something. There are, for example, absolute bodybuilding giants who then simply run too slowly and have no chance (and vice versa). The goal for beginners is to even manage the course, because at the latest at the wall balls most of them run out of breath, it can take an incredible willpower to even complete this exercise at the end. And otherwise, the thing is pretty sweaty.
The best athletes manage the course in under an hour, are incredibly fast runners and are extremely trained, in the so-called “elite” wave there are real stars of the scene, for example my incredibly fit training partner Viola Oberländer (who, by the way, is also TSV’s press officer 1860 is Munich). She has just finished 2nd in the women’s world championship elite, a great achievement.
What is it that fascinates me about it? I got into this whole scene by chance, because first of all the whole thing appeals more to triathletes or bodybuilders, which I don’t necessarily count myself to now. But this mixture of competition and total exhaustion attracts me for some reason, probably because I don’t like anything by halves in music or in real life, I’m always interested in extremes. In a way, Hyrox is a continuation of my hammer piano pieces, which are also about total exhaustion. In “Hämmerklavier IX: Jerusalem”, for example, you run around a grand piano as fast as possible while the music gets faster and faster. The fact that at some point I was barely able to play this piece because I weighed too much was one of the reasons why I began to occupy myself with running and fitness!
Perhaps at some point I will write a hammered piano in which I combine fitness exercises with piano playing. That would have something. An “ultramarathon” piano piece is already in the works, but it may be years before I finish the planned 12 hours of music.
What I also love about Hyrox, however, is that you are sometimes with completely different people than with those from the culture or music business, namely with people who practice a kind of time-consuming and ephemeral body art. When do you talk to tattooed bodybuilders, experienced triathletes or American Spartan race champions who travel from competition to competition and only live from hand to mouth (or rather from prize money to mouth)? These people are often extremely crazy, but also extremely personable, enthusiastic, passionate, warm. You have to constantly revise your prejudices, I like that a lot.
Because if there is one thing that interests me in art, it is the constant change of perspective, the immersion in other worlds that you may not yet know. For me, this includes sport on the one hand, but also all people who do something completely different from music and pursue completely different activities.
If we, as composers, want to compose music for everyone as much as possible, then we have to be interested in everyone. In any case, I would like to maintain this fundamental curiosity for a long time to come.
Leipzig, 11.9.2021
I was qualified for the World Cup by winning many preliminary rounds (thank God there are age groups, otherwise I wouldn’t have a chance), but since the date was set at incredibly short notice due to multiple corona postponements, it was too late to fundamentally change my already planned running training for some running competitions. Therefore, when I started today, I was very fit in terms of running, but the disciplines that required arm strength in particular were draining me. In the Farmer’s Carry exercise, which was not very difficult in itself, I also forgot to make my hands non-slip with lime, so that the damned kettle bells kept slipping away from me and I got bad time penalties. This meant that my previous lead was gone after the 6th round and I had to be content with 4th place after very tough wall balls, but hey, at least 4th place in the world class in my age group, you have to say that to yourself . And of course there is also a next year. The next World Cup is to take place in Las Vegas, by the way. Another world that I’ve always wanted to see.
Moritz Eggert
Photo gallery: with Viola Oberländer (2nd place Elite Women WC), Florian Gast / Fritz Grobien (World Champion Men’s Double 31-39), Stephan Muggli, Resi Streng (3rd place Age Group qualification)
