WHOOP Podcast - Inside HYROX: Training, Fueling, and Recovery with Jake Dearden

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

On this episode of the WHOOP Podcast, WHOOP Director of Sports Marketing, Jeremy Powers, sits down with Jake Dearden, Hybrid Athlete and Social Media Personality, to explore the world of HYROX. Jake shares his journey from civil engineering to elite fitness, opening up about his bouts with injury, journey toward mental toughness, and growing in endurance sport. Jake and Jeremy break down HYROX training and fueling strategies, reflect on the rise of hybrid training and offer insights on recovery, VO2 Max, sleep hygiene, and injury prevention. (00:26) Introduction to Jake Dearden(01:14) Icebreaker: T or F Questions(03:27) Jake’s Journey From Marathons to Hyrox(05:39) Breaking Down Hyrox: What Is It and How To Compete(06:34) Building Community Through Hyrox(07:34) Jake’s Guide To Ultra-Marathons(10:55) Mental Toughness and Motivating A Community(12:11) The Rise of Hybrid Athletics and What It Means For Fitness(15:01) Importance of VO2 Max For Fitness and Competition(17:39) Growth in Sport: Prep, Pressure, and Setbacks(25:18) Recovery and Sleep Hygiene’s Effects on Performance(30:48) Jake’s Competition Prep and Fueling Strategy(34:52) Jake’s WHOOP Data at Hyrox World Championships(39:31) Learning From Injury: Jake’s Recovery Advice(43:34) Performance Improvements To Achieve Goals(45:07) Building a Platform: Experience, Advice, and Messaging on Jake’s Social MediaJake Dearden:InstagramYouTubeTiktokSupport the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

Going from being good at a sport to then trying to become better and as good as you can be at the sport requires you to recover more. And that means switching it around from getting up at 6 a.m. to train to staying in bed until 7, 8 a.m. People are like, well, you don't work hard. You're not getting up at 5 a.m. But it's another form of working hard. And that's, for me, that's sleep. And every elite athlete will tell you that that sleep is the most important thing. Hey everyone. I'm Jeremy Powers. Welcome back to the Woop podcast. Today, I'm really excited to be sitting across from Jake Dearden, a former ultra marathon runner with a big passion for functional fitness, who's been able to combine these passions and become one of the top high rocks athletes

in the world. Jake's only 25 years old, but has already locked up a handful of individual high rocks competition wins, as well as a handful of doubles wins, including the high rocks world championship title last summer with the doubles. He's also a high rock. He's also a high rock. High Rocks Master Trainer, and he's competed as one of the Elite 15, which we're going to get all into, which is some of the top high rocks athletes going head to head in their biggest competitions. So Jake is regarded as one of the top athletes in this new and extremely fun and fast-growing community of High Rocks competition. So Jake, welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you for having me on. So I guess right away, the first thing that we're going to do is go into some

icebreaker, some fast break questions. Are you ready for this? You're just going to answer yes or no or true or false? Okay. All right, you ready for this? So here we go. So first off, true or false, your average whoop day strain of 15.7 is over 40% higher than the average 25-year-old male on whoop. True or false?

True. Good. Jake's strain is 15.7 versus 10.2. Not surprising. Not surprising. But anyone that's following a lawn that's a woo fan is going to know that that's, those are big numbers. All right. So yes or no.

Did you hit three consecutive one-on-old? 100% sleep scores leading into your Hirox Glasgow event. I'm going to have to say no. You did. I did? I did. You did? Yeah, leading into it, 312, 313, 314, you had three perfect sleep scores.

Oh, right. Okay. So I was thinking about the full recovery. I think I'm 100% recovery. True or false, you logged over 450 minutes of daily stress on your first day of glass go as well. I'm not too sure. Stress. Stress is like also like intensity like when you're working out. Is that true? It is. Yes, true. 465 minutes on 312, which is seven and a half hours. Wow. It's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah, yeah. You were moving and shaking on that day.

Yes or no. Do you avoid working out late because it negatively impacts your recovery? Yes, I really struggled to sleep. After I've worked out, I really struggled to sleep. So I normally train first thing in the morning and then in an afternoon. So that's that's also here. But as late workouts also impacted your recovery when you did them by about 4%. Which is very, very hard because, as people know, like the pro category of high rocks is in an evening. So when we get close to competition, I do practice training at that time just to kind of, so there's no surprises on race day. True or false, your resting heart rate, which whoop has is 44BPM, is 25% lower than your age group's average? I'd say yes.

You're right. Yes, ding, ding, ding. 44 versus 57 beats per minute, which is about almost 25% lower. Let's go back a little bit. So that's just fun. That's just to get things kicked off to, like, give some data and some stuff around, kind of the person that you are on the Woop metrics that go along with it. But take us back a little bit into your story about how you came into this space and to high rocks.

I had read that you were going to school. I think you went to school for civil engineering. Is this right? Yes. Yeah. So I started off. Did six years doing civil engineering. Realized that wasn't my passion.

And I think because of that, because it wasn't my passion, I wasn't very good. at it and I just didn't put the time into it and I thought I was very lazy that's what I thought but then I did have a passion in nutrition and kind of helping people to get to that next level within fitness so changed careers to become a personal trainer did that and I still coach to this day just because I love it so I coach every morning when I'm back in the UK then high rucks came along always had kind of like a love of running a love of being in the gym and trying to get strong. Before High Rocks,

yes, there was CrossFit, but there wasn't really much else. That combined the two. So when Harrox came along, it was like the perfect thing. So I managed to become all right at it. And this is kind of transitioned.

So I do a little bit of coaching, but my full-time career is becoming the best at High Rocks. Well, hopefully. Trying to get there, trying to get there. Being a high-rox athlete, yeah.

There's something that I read where you bought, well, I don't know how the exact, timeline of it went, but that like kind of went together where you might have quit your job and bought a ticket to a Hirox event like five hours away off of Facebook and you entered? Yes, yes, I did. Yes. So there's a couple of occurrences that happened. You know, the first, first time I actually ever did a high rock that happened. But then there was a second time a little bit later where I did it and then I actually bought one five hours before and then did a four-hour

drive from Manchester to London to compete. Silly idea, because I was sat in the car for four hours. I then went straight onto the start line, competed, and ended up slipping two discs in my back. So it wasn't the best of competitions. I definitely learnt from that. Yeah, crazy story. But for anyone that doesn't know about high rocks, can you just tell us what is high rocks,

like exactly 60 minutes, kind of all out, but like all these different things. Can you tell us a little bit about? Yeah, so the actual whole goal of a Hieroxy is a fitness race. So there's eight runs and eight stations, and these stations are different. Every single one's different. They're all functional fitness exercises, so there's ski, there's sled push, sled pull, there's row, burpees, farmers carry, walking lunges and war balls. And they're all split up by one kilometer run.

So I think the average time is one hour 32 at the moment for it to be completed. the elites are doing it in under one hour it's kind of this race that's it's an endurance race at heart but it requires strength so it's not just pure endurance it does require you to be in the gym and to be lifting weights to get strong to move certain objects yeah what about the community aspect because when I see online there's a lot of people doing this all together which I think is you know gym gym always is like that like hey I got a spot for you I got to do this but but the high rocks thing feels like it's definitely got a real community community vibe. Yeah, for sure. It's so accessible as well. So if you look at all the exercise of

high rocks, like they're very easy to learn and they're very low skill, which invites a lot of people in. Do you know, after a bit of practice, you get good at it. And this kind of can create a base for almost anyone to compete at a high rock. And then the community element just has to it. I think that's what gyms were potentially missing a couple of years ago. Obviously, there was specific gyms like crossfit gyms and group training you know you've got your barry's boot camp and things like that but um in regular gyms there wasn't any community aspects like you'd walk into a gym everyone had their headphones on no one would speak and they just lift weights whereas now like there's these high rocks classes going on where you know it's loud music everyone's working out

together and it's just a good vibe and atmosphere and it's a very efficient workout like you know high rocks workout like you're getting stronger you're getting fitter within the hour so it's it's really good for kind of like the everyday person and that's what's built this community i think yeah and i was saying in the intro like it seems like it combines the things that you love because the ultra marathoning stuff like i'm curious about that how you got into that because that's not for the faint of heart that's that's that's hard hard business yeah yeah and i think it it definitely has its place in in building mental strength i think i got into it how everyone kind of gets into it at my age is, you know, listening to podcasts and, you know, hearing about the likes of

David Goggins and stuff like that. Yeah. And just thinking, you know, it's just a crazy challenge to see how far you can run. So, you know, when I was younger, especially, I love to do ultra-manathans and try and test the mind. Recent years, I've switched more to performance. I think that's where I'd like to be. And that's where I enjoy a little bit more. I think, you know, I wake up and I don't feel as old. You know, it's like, you know, doing ultra-endurance sports, like you're hobbling down the stairs in the morning

because at the end of the day, like, you're pushing your body so extreme. Like, it's going beyond just getting fit and healthy. It's like, it's so taxing on the body, and it can lead to big injuries. So I prefer to go more down the performance route now and try and just get good times in the sports that I'm doing. I read that you did the Berlin Marathon.

Yeah. Did you, you ran it in under, I think 228, it said. Yeah, 228, I managed to run the Berlin Marathon last year. And that, the sole focus was that, was to actually get better at running for Hirox. So I decided to have a goal of sub-230 because this worked out at, in kilometers it worked out as a 3.30 kilometer pace, which is what I needed to run my runs in high rocks to get into the elite 15, which is kind of like the best tier of high.

So I thought, well, instead of just being able to run an hour at this, I'll try and run a marathon at that and somehow managed to pull it off. But yeah, a lot of work went into that, a lot of skill practice and just kind of like science as well. As you know, dropping weight is super beneficial when it comes to power to weight ratio and looking at the science behind it. Yeah. This is not your first foray into this kind of thing because I was saying the ultramarathons, but you also, I read that you did like something insane where you did like a hundred kilometer run. And I think is it, is it right? And you also said it was like one of the hardest things you did. Yeah. So I've done 100 kilometers quite a few times. I've done 100 miles and 100 miles was tough. Yeah, that was very tough. And then I also

did 10 marathons in five days. So two marathons a day for five days, all for kind of like charity. But I think the hardest thing I have ever done is the 100 mile, which ended up being 116 miles. And I think that's probably why it was harder than what I thought, because I got into it thinking I was only going to run 100. And then it was self-navigation. So we got lost quite a few times, and it ended up being 116 miles. So, yeah, it was tough. But we got through it. Yeah, we're here to tell the tale.

You said something there that I also kept kind of coming back to. And it seems like one of the things that really makes you tick with both of these sports is inspiring people. Like, I kept gathering that from what you were saying in some of your other interviews and some of the other stuff that you had written, like that this is the inspiration for other people and for doing stuff for charity and things like that is a big thing that makes you go. Like what's that coming from? Yeah, I think, I think fitness is a very powerful thing and you don't just get fitter. Like it improves your whole life. Someone getting fitter might improve their health, for one. It might improve how they look, which then improves their confidence. They then do better in their life, you know, and they're a happier person. So

fitness is this kind of door to something so much bigger and i think everyone should feel it like you know yourself from from being a professional athlete like how good does it feel when you are the fittest you've ever been like it there's nothing that beats it in the world you know people say you know health is priceless and and so is fitness um so if if i can document my journey and show not just the wins but the mistakes and the losses and kind of like the hard learnings and it inspires someone just a little bit on their own journey. And I'm happy. How about like combining these things? Because now you're taking really like that mental toughness of doing these ultras, doing these very long and like really intense runs and like all

of the stuff that's come together for you. And then we're now taking all the strength work and we're combining that. You're a bit of like a warrior in this way. You know, old school athletes would just say, hey, I'm just a bike rider. I'm, I'm only doing, you know, rowing or I only do this. You're kind of like tearing up the script. And I think we're seeing a lot of this, like MMA fighters, but we're also seeing it now and like things like high rocks and such, you're combining cardio, endurance, like V-O-2 max and strength. What's your take on that? Like, is that, is this the new way forward? Or is this, like, something that's completely unique and probably not going to be replicated? I've kind of witnessed, like, to a little extent, everything that you've just said there

where, you know, you just focus on strength work, but then you get tired walking up the stairs. Yeah, you feel super strong, but you get tired walking up the stairs. Then, you know, you just focus on running and then you feel frail and weak. So there's always like downsides where I've found like training for things which includes strength and fitness. Like it is the best of both worlds. I have had my challenges along the way. Like as you know, like doing ultra endurance stuff and pushing your body so hard, you're

learning to ignore the warning signs that your body tells you. You're running through pain. literally running through, do you know, if your, if your knees hurting, you just ignore it and you learn to ignore it. And, you know, then something else hurts and then something else hurts. You're battering your body where as training for performance and you've got to be so in tune with your body, it's kind of like a struggle because you've been, I spent so long teaching my body to ignore the signs. And then now I need to take every single sign that I feel and assess that and going forward. It's kind of that that's where I've, I've,

struggled really and that's why I probably have been injured a little bit more than I should be especially at my age but I think it is a way forward as long as you have a solid plan in place and you're not over training because it's so easy to do so much strength and then so much endurance and just think I'm just going to train two training programs it's not like that you've got to you've got to look at it carefully what's up folks if you are enjoying this podcast or if you care about health, performance, fitness, you may really enjoy getting a whoop. That's right.

You can check out whoop at whoop.com. It measures everything around sleep, recovery, strain, and you can now sign up for free for 30 days. So you'll literally get the high performance wearable in the mail for free. You get to try it for 30 days, see whether you want to be a member. And that is just at whoop.com. Back to the guests. Do you think for a high rocks athlete, do you think it's important to have, like, a big V-O-2 max?

Like, do you think that, because I was reading a lot about high rocks and just this idea that running under pressure in the sport that I did, cyclocross, you often have to go through like really heavy, muddy sections. And then you have to carry like a 35, you know, could be 25 to 35-pound bike on your shoulder and run and then get back on and go back again to your like, you know, functional threshold. And I think a lot about like this kind of running aspect of high rocks, which is different than any of the sports that have really come before. There's this cardio and kind of VO2 Max element

that really makes it a unique beast that's like doing this type of thing. So I don't know, what do you think? Do you think it's important to have a big VO2 for Hirex or does it help? It couldn't hurt. Yeah, it definitely couldn't hurt. Like the higher it is, the better, obviously.

But I'd like to ask you this question, actually, because whenever I've done the research and into VO2 Max, because Hirex athletes aren't, they are very lean, but they're not the lightest people on the planet I generally find, like, endurance athletes that are lighter have a better V-O-2 max than the guys that are hitting the gym and have a little bit of weight behind them. So just for anyone that doesn't know, like a Hierox athlete in the elite field for a male,

they're weighing anywhere between 75 and 85 KG, some even closer to 90 KG, which, you know, when you're lean, it is quite a bit of muscle and quite heavy, especially compared to, like, the best, people with the best field two maxes in the world. You know, when you're looking at, like, triathletes and stuff like that, they're a lot leaner and they're a lot lighter than that. So it's interesting, but, like, I've not got the best VL2 Max. I know quite a lot of other people in the Elite 15 haven't got the best VL2 Max, and there's a lot of people that have better VL2 Maxes that don't do as well at Hirox.

So it's a very hard one. Yeah, yeah, there's all kinds of stuff in there, too, like lactate buffering, and then, like, what's your lactate capacity? Like, how much lactate can you take on? Like, you know, like your mental training, like, how much pain can you sit in? Like, there's a lot that goes into it. And it's super interesting to, you know, go to the other end where, like, you see CrossFit athletes where it's a lot more strength-oriented, like see what their VL2 max is, and there's

probably less than high-rox athletes. But wherever you are at with your V-O-2 max, it doesn't hurt to increase it and to get better at it. That is a measure of fitness. And if you can improve it, then your times are going to come down. Yeah, I was just trying to think about all the endurance junkies that might think about high-rock says, like, I can't do this anymore to my body. I need to get stronger for my longevity and they're like, want to come over. So you heard of here, Jake said, you don't need to have a crazy V-O-2 max get into high rocks and you can still have fun with it. How about mentally, like the prep for this?

I'm sure, like, for these events, they have to have like a ton of, I don't know, as a competitor, like I had to do all kinds of work with sports psychologists and just like getting into things. But what's been your experience with this new sport? Like, Hirox has been coming on like a freight train. So fast, so many new things are coming. Like, if we ask 20 people on the road, a bunch of them probably won't even know what high rocks is.

Like it's just, it's that new, but it's coming. But like for you, what's it been to experience this level of like notoriety and success? And also like going into the competitions, what's it, what's it been like to get into this? Like this is a pretty well publicized now. I mean, they're doing like live streams. We've got a lot of content around it. I'm sure there's a lot of anxiety and pressure that goes into these events. Yeah, it is blowing up. And everything has skyrocketed, you know, the amount of people doing it, the amount of people watching. So when you're on that big stage, you're at the majors or the world championships. and you've got so many people tuning in or watching your live, it is a lot of pressure. But for me, I always just try and keep to the same routine, the day of the race, and then just take it in because you never know how long you're going to be here. And every, I think that's what's great about High Rocks.

Like, everyone is so happy for you. And no one, like, no one wants anyone to lose. Like, everyone just wants everyone to do well, which is pretty cool. Like, even the guys that you're racing, like, we all want fast times. The person next to me, whatever he gets,

it doesn't really affect me unless he's come a higher place. Like, it's a pretty cool sport. And I think that takes off the pressure a little bit. But, yeah, just taking it in, you know, visualizing the race beforehand. Yeah, I'm curious about it.

Just because you're coming from a sport where it's like very bike riding is the same. Like, you're pretty introverted. You can put your headphones in and go in and just be like in your own little world for a very long time. Like, hey, I'm going to go do a six hour ride. I'm going to knock.

out 100 miles and 10,000 via climbing and I'll see you later. And they're like, you don't need to talk to a single person. You don't need to wait a car. You don't need to do anything. You can just go away. And that's like kind of how I envision like marathoning to a certain extent and some of these other ones. But like in high racks, it's more arena style. There's people watching you. There's like, you know, different people that are making sure you're doing things the right way. Like it's a little bit of a different sport in that regard. For sure. And I think it's the way that you look at pressure and the way that you perceive pressure has a massive impact on how you actually perform. You know, if you think pressure is negative, then you're never going to perform well.

You're going to crumble under it because there is someone watching you at all times within a hierarchs. There's no breaks from the spotlight. If you then turn that around and think, you know, it's a privilege to be under pressure, you know, and think pressure is a good thing. Like, if I'm not nervous, then what's the point in doing it? And if you think, you know, just be grateful for being there and being in that position, then I think that just gives you confidence. for me anyway. What about yourself? How do you deal with pressure? I mean, like a decade of sports psych, to be honest. Yeah, I don't know. It's a tough one because you're always, you know, you're always trying to evolve. Always trying to become better. It's never that easy to just think

that it's a one-day thing. It starts weeks before and you really got to, you got to learn it. I always said you need to be in a position to be able to win a big event or a big title or whatever before you actually win one. And that was true for most of my friends. Like, you know, the really talented ones that kind of had more talent in one finger. They, you know, they were working with something different. So they might have been stressed, but they were still really good. I think for some of the more, you know, mortal people, they had to be in that position like staring at a championship or a world championship or a title. And then they came back and they won it again after that. But I think it's something that you grow into. You know, no one's really, I think

very few people are born with that killer instinct of like, oh, I can take this on and nothing bothers me. Like, you're either green to it and you make mistakes or you grow into it and you learn how to deal with the pressure and you, you know, you do realize that it's a privilege to be in that position. On that note, how have you dealt with setbacks? Like, you must have had some setbacks within your career. Yeah, there's always, those are always the hardest ones, aren't they? But that's also kind of like where you dig in and learn, you know, the people that really can support you. I think, I think in my experience was always like, I had quite a few injuries, especially, like, when I first got going, not enough base, big volume, and, you know, bilateral

tendonitis. I got valley fever when I was young, which is like a fungus in my chest. It really made me super sick. How did you get back from that? Because you can't even help that. Yeah. You just kind of get that. Just time.

Time. Is it gutting when you can't compete and you've got to pull out of competitions or you, you know. When you're, yeah, when you're, I think when you're in that position when you've got like a bilateral tendonitis, one that's a little bit more actionable. you know, because I was a pro and I was making a living from it, I called the best person that I had access to. They were in Utah. I was in Massachusetts. I called another person that I knew that was in Utah, and I asked them, could I come stay with you? I don't know the amount of time, but can I come stay with you? You're close to this doctor. I went in, saw the doctors, and they made a program. When I got there, they were like seven, eight doctors. They looked at everything that was going on with me. They made the plan. I was there for a month, and then I was back on my bike. They knocked down all the, all the little gremlins that were in my Achilles. took down all the inflammation, gave me like a good rehab PT daily, like twice a day, and set me on my way.

So, like, it's also about, you know, finding, I think the resources that can help you, whether it's sports psych, or it's a good, it's a good crew, you know? I think it's being proactive as well. Like, you could have just sat back and just felt sorry for his own. Yeah.

But instead, you went and did everything that you can. Like, you literally just went more than out your way. Like, you literally moved in with a friend. Yeah. Well, that's what it is, it is what it takes at the top. You know, if you want to be, If you want to be an outlier, then you've got to do outlier type things. And like, if you want to be the best of something, you know, there's no one that's just

going to like, it's not just going to happen for you, I think. And, you know, it's definitely like the points in your career where there's like certain things that just happened, I think is really like, oh yeah, you didn't, it just doesn't happen that you run a 228 marathon. You know what I mean? Like there's a lot of actions that go into being able to do something like that. Yeah, for sure. And for me, with that, I think it's first believing in it.

Yeah. If you don't believe in it, it's not going to happen. Yeah. Like, you know, for that, I actually. The 228 marathon, I actually got quite a bit of hate when I announced it. Do you know, people like, you know, this kid can't run this? Do you know, he's three to four years off this? He's, you know, he's 10K is only 34 minutes.

So it's impossible, like scientifically, it's impossible. But you've got to kind of take a lot and be positive and, you know, use it as fuel rather than just talking about it. You've got to believe in yourself. Yeah. Or have people around you that believe in you as well. I think that's a big thing. I don't know if you had that, you know, in your career.

like, you know, having a team, like, recently I found the value of having a team around you. If you look at any elite athlete, they've got a team. It's not just a one-man band. No. Everyone's got a team. But that team doesn't have to be, you don't have to be paying everyone. It could just be a friendship circle.

That are really supportive. Yeah. Yeah, it's a bit of a momentum loop is what I always used to call it. Like this idea that once you get a bit of momentum, it starts to funnel behind you and you like start to pick up steam and then, you know, you get a good team and then you get a good team and then you get some more results and the team grows, then you get more confidence. And then, you know, you work on one thing. that thing becomes a weakness, becomes a strength. And then before you know it, you're like

in the high rocks, you know, delete 15 at a major and you're doing really well. It's like these things don't have it on their own. But over time, that's kind of the beauty of a career. Yeah, no, no, it's cool. And I think I'm just at the start of it, hopefully. So yeah, we'll see how it goes in the future. You are, you are at the start of it. So talking about like the events and like the, you know, going into them and stuff like that, you mentioned earlier that you didn't, you're like, it's hard for me to sleep. Like I can imagine with late night also, you know, for for competitions that I was in. Like when we would race at night, we would also do like races in Vegas. They'd start at 8.30 at night. You know, you take caffeine gel before, you know, and then it's like you do

the podium. You know, champagne. It's like you have some food with friends. You know, it's one o'clock when you come back at night. It's like, man, like it's going to be hard to go down. But you guys do them. Like there's like these are multi-day things where you guys come together. So what's it been like for your sleep strategy? You know, we kind of talked about the stress. But what's like, what about your sleep strategy at these events and leading into it? The three days at 100 percent I found to be super cool and I've heard you talk and a lot about like how important sleep is. Yeah, I think although it's boring and it's completely free, like I think that's why people don't prioritize it to be fair. But yeah, sleep is the one, the most important

recovery tool. Like you know, you're only recovering really when you're sleeping. And I truly believe that. So I try and get eight hours every single night and then laying up to an event, I will sleep in, which seems like the opposite of what you should be doing. And I think I've struggled with that a little bit as well. Like going from, you know, just being good at a sport to then trying to become better and as good as you can be at the sport, requires you to recover more. And that means switching it around from getting up at 6 a.m. to train to staying in bed. till 7, 8 a.m. And people are like,

well, you don't work hard. You know, you're not getting up at 5 a.m. You're not doing this, but it's another form of working hard. And that's, for me, that's sleep. And every elite athlete will tell you that. Yeah. That sleep is the most important thing.

So before kind of like competition, I always try and get eight to nine hours like the week of and try and sleep as much as possible. Naps in the day, stuff like that, especially because you're deloading so you're not training as much so you have more time to do that and then when it actually gets to the competition like I said exactly what you said is late at night so you you're having caffeine before because that is probably the only day that sleep goes out the window like you don't care about what you sleep that night because you've got to you've got

to perform and that's what you train for so you'll have your caffeine before you'll then compete and then you'll then why now but it might only be eight hours a half after you've had your caffeine, that you can actually get to sleep, which it normally is for me. So I'm up until 4 a.m. normally, like, which is a struggle. But if I'm competing multiple days in a row, then I'll just try and sleep in as long as possible. Yeah. Yeah, you do a good job because we have your data here. So it says that you get average 85% sleep performance, and you have about an average of, like

you said, seven and a half to eight hours. So it's really good. I mean, that's more than most people, I think. Like a lot of people are trying for that, but they're not able to do it. I guess like off the back of that and what else we saw was that when you did exercise and I talked about this in those fast break questions when you did exercise late at night like you had a poor recovery the next day so it is clearly a thing for you that you've identified and like through some some of the whoop stuff that we have you've been able to say like hey

the metrics this isn't working but also like I just know that it's also not working because I don't sleep well if I work out but in general it sounds like it's a whole thing yeah yeah I definitely uh yeah I'll have a cutoff for when I try not stop exercising like before 6 p.m So then I have a couple of hours, and then I'll probably go to bed, like, half, nine, ten. Do you think nowadays, like, we have a bit of an unfair advantage over previous generations with all the tech and, like, stuff that we can learn from this? Yeah, definitely for sure. But, like, you look back at, like, all the books and, like, bodybuilding blows my mind because, you know, with all the stuff on nutrition at the moment and, you know, with the wearable techs and stuff like that, like, they were doing that back in the day without potentially even knowing about it. Or maybe they did know about it, but do you know that they were doing that and it's,

you know, it does get recirculated. But now we can track everything and we know, you know, black and white, rather than just being that gray area, am I doing the right thing? No one knows because you can't track it. Now you can track it. So it's more black and white than gray. Back in the day when I was in Belgium, they'd just be like, oh, yeah, we're just, you eat horse meat.

Like that was the thing that just like, yeah, you eat horse meat. It's like, why? They don't know. He just, that's what we do. I love that. I don't know why, but we just did. Turns out, it was like probably because we were all. emaciated bike racers and we didn't have any like ferritin or iron in our blood so who knows we still

we still don't we still yeah yeah it's interesting what we were talking about actually with the electrolytes yeah so you know when you when you were younger you'd you'd have some water with some orange juice and a sprinkle of salt and you're like and now that's an electrolyte drink like you know but you didn't know why you was having it you just had it and now like you know all the science is out. You're invited to join the waitlist for Woop Advanced Labs. Advanced Labs delivers clinician reviewed lab results right into your Woop app for the most complete view of your biomarkers and biometrics and the most comprehensive understanding of your health. Unlike other tests, Woop integrates your lab results with your Woop data. See how your habits and behaviors

influence your biomarkers and get clear guidance on what to change to improve your results. To join the wait list, visit our website or the health tab in the Woop app. Let's talk a little bit about like competition prep and I guess like a little bit of fueling because everybody, everybody now has like a way that they're fueling for these events and obviously like what you're doing for the high rocks competition versus maybe like the marathon that you're running or these ultra distance events that you've done is quite a bit different. You've got to have some like metabolic flexibility going on there like some, you know, You'd be able to take on the carbohydrate versus, like, stack, you know, for high rocks.

But I'm curious to know what the difference is in your fueling strategies versus, you know, a big endurance event versus a high racks. So we start with the big endurance event. Because you're going for a long duration, at a low intensity or relatively low, you can consume more food on the go. So if I was to do an ultrathen, I'd actually start off with whole foods for as long as possible. When I say whole foods, I mean like sandwiches, things like that's like not gels. basically and i try and keep to food for as long as possible and then if i was struggling with like digestion issues or anything like or if i just i didn't want anything then i'd switch to gels or like liquid drinks whereas high rocks is completely different you you carve up beforehand

which you probably would do for the long distance uh stuff as well but uh you then don't eat for three hours before the event and then you might have a little bit of carbohydrate right before just to increase the glycogen in your liver and then you go on and you compete and then halfway through you might have a gel you know something just fast acting but generally because it's only an hour event if you fill up your glycogen stores then you can go for the full event without without needing any more carbohydrates if you're thinking about like some stuff that I guess like people would do if someone was going to do a high rocks event for the first time because maybe they'll listen to this they'll be inspired by this what would you say

suggest, hey, don't eat right before it. You know, I know for like, my competition, be like, hey, I got to have at least two hours, like maybe even three. But what's your, what do you typically do for like a routine on the day? I know you're later at night, but you said you coach a ton of people. So maybe you give a little, some tips to people. For sure. So if you're new Tyrox and you want kind of like nutrition strategy, first of all,

practice it within your training. We always say nothing new for race day. You probably did that as well. And that means nutrition. It means clothing. It means footwear. like you need to practice everything beforehand and it's all trial and error so yeah but generally real of thumb is you want something high in carbohydrates um leading up to the event you probably want

to be in lots of carbohydrates up until probably two to three hours before and then you need to let all that digest and then you go on and compete with high rocks you're working at between 80 to 90% of your max for the for the entire thing so you need carbohydrates carbohydrates carbohydrates carbohydrates are go into beer the primary fuel source like if you do a low carb diet and you just relying on fats they just can't be converted fast enough to energy and i think the data says at the moment i think it's 65% of your your max that you can work when you just using fats so we need carbohydrates in the system it's okay so carve it up carb it up yeah how i like to do it it it's nice and simple and it's not probably what you think like when people say carving up they're probably the night before

they might go for a big Italian, they might go for a big pizza, big pasta. In my opinion, don't do that unless you do that regularly. I'd much prefer if you just have the same meals that you normally eat, but you just increase your carb sauce. So say, for example, you have chicken, rice and salad, you just double your rice in that meal and you do that for every single meal. If you're having porridge oats in the morning, then you increase the amount of porridge oats. So you're carving up, but you're eating the same foods. So you're so much not surprised. A little UK language there, a little porridge.

I love that. What did you call it over here? Oatmeal. Oatmeal. We got some oats. Some oatmeal over here. Anyways. So we were looking at the Hi Rocks Glasgow data.

We were kind of digging through this as a little bit of as you came in as a big event that you did a major. And High Rocks, I believe there's four majors that you have to compete at one of them to be able to go on to the World Championships. and you competed at Glasgow, which allowed you to go to the world championships. Yeah. So we're pulling some data, and we noticed that when you went into it, you were in the green, but that, you know, after, of course, a lot of output, you end up in the red, like, over a

couple of days. I'm sure this adds up where you see this. But, like, after the competition, you bounce right back to, like, a 93% recovery. So, like, basically, it's, like, come into the green, hard workout, hard workout, red, and then, like, you know, one day with the mental freshness, with everything, bounce right back to the green. Curious to know, like, how much you put into that, how much you expect that, like, how the whoop data maybe gives you a little bit

of insight into, like, what's going on with your body. And as you use that as, like, someone that's just kind of like a second or third person in the room with you between your coaches and yourself and, like, how do you use the whoop data a little bit to think about what you're putting out and like over-training under-training kind of thing and output. Yeah, for sure. So when it comes to training, like, I will open it up on a daily basis. And I look where I am.

So generally, if I'm in the. the red, I assess and look at what I've done over the past couple of days. You know, I have kind of like a body chat just to see like if I feel like I'm coming down with something and I have an honest conversation with a coach and maybe we just go easy that day if it's meant to be a tough session and hopefully that that kind of clears it and we get back into kind of like the orange slash green. But I like to look at it on like a weekly basis as well and if I don't have many greens over a week. So if I don't have any good recovery scores over a week, I start to think what's going

on. And maybe that's when we need to take a little bit of a delode, or take some volume out, or just, like I say, the intensity or focus on recovery. Maybe I might slack with my recovery. So it kind of just keeps me in check. Like you said, that third person in the room, you know, I've got myself, I've got my coach, but then I've also got the data that can show me if I'm slacking. And for me personally, it just keeps me in check with you know getting enough sleep it's so easy just to stay up that extra hour and watch that extra episode on netflix like it's so easy and that's where we've got to be strict if you want to perform at your best you you know getting that consistent sleep schedule and one thing with

that that i find is super interesting and will affect your recovery scores a lot is the times you go to bed and wake up so if you're traveling a lot generally my my recovery scores in the in because you're moving time zone. And even though you're still getting eight hours, it's not the same eight hours. And that makes you feel sluggish. You get less REM sleep, get less deep sleep. And this puts the recovery score down. So that's where I struggle the most with the traveling. I don't know if you've got any advice for traveling. I would love to hear it. I still live in the airplane. I still live in the airplane. I don't know if anyone's got it nailed fully. But like, yeah, you know, I know for myself like sleeping, you know, going into these flights and

like going to Europe. I've been going to Europe even with like whoop work. I've been going to Europe like twice a month sometimes, which is tough though, because you realize like, man, one night of miss sleep, you know, whatever, but, but yeah, like taking the later flights when I'm already tired and then also slowly trying to get on to that new time zone by, you know, doing like good sleep hygiene, you know, taking it seriously, getting into bed when my kids get into bed. That's like the difference. Like, hey, you know, I say to myself, Jeremy, you could go, you could, you could do this extra two hours of work from right now, from like your kids are in bed 839, you could go and work till 11 p.m. I can do it. But if I go to bed right now, like 8.30 with them,

I'm so much going to be in such a better position when I go to Austria next week or whatever. You know, because I'm like thinking, okay, there's six hours ahead from here where we are in Boston. So I try to think like that a little bit. Like, hey, if can I, can I take care of myself and can I, you know, clear two objectives and like, what's the path of these resistance? The path of resistance is getting into bed now. And I'm trying to get ahead and trying to get on that new sleep time. So yeah, it is discipline though. Like, and like you said, you know, everybody's scrolling on the phone keeping up with their friends just turning to a lot of text messages we're as connected as ever but it's like it's the discipline is in saying no to stuff it's really hard

even for me so hard and as an athlete it's your job like that's what you're getting paid to do it's really hard yeah yeah it is and like uh like you say you know it's it's a crazy world when the hardest thing to do is to relax yeah that is the hardest thing that like like people struggle with is relaxing and sleeping more. We're getting towards the end, but I wanted to ask a couple of quick questions to you about some injuries, some lessons learned, and some like longevity and stuff like this. So I'm curious to know about some of your injuries because you noted them earlier. I want to know like a little bit about the ones you've had and like some of the big ones

and what they were. Yeah, so I've had quite a few injuries in my sporting career, but the biggest one by far, which I probably still not fully, fully recovered from, I honeyated two discs in my back, L4, L5, L5S1, and I was, when I did this, I was actually in a high-ups competition, I was doing war balls, and I slept two discs, and I, it was that severe that I couldn't walk for a month, couldn't work, couldn't do anything for a month, and it took me six months to recover, to get back on that start line. So that was tough, but I got a little bit of advice of someone throughout that kind of experience, and it was

every injury is a blessing because it allows you to reassess your whole life, reassess what wrong. Unless it's a freak accident, you was ignoring the signs for an injury normally. So maybe your life was out of balance, maybe you were training too much, maybe it's just time to reevaluate your whole life. And for me, it was even more than that. It was because I had a month of work, I actually changed careers after that. And I joined a new gym and a new gym and a new kind of line of work and stuff all from this injury. So everything happens for a reason and an injury is our blessing. It's crazy because, yeah, you've done like some pretty serious things. You said like marathons back to back. You've done 100 miles, turned out 116 miles. You know,

you did a 228 marathon and you're doing these high rocks events. And then like, yeah, and that's the injury that gets you. It's kind of weird. But it sounds like maybe there wasn't maybe a foundation and then that gave you a time to reassess. Like, do you think that's a thing of like, your mindset is like you like to push yourself because I I think I remember this was when you tried to do 11 high rocks back to back to back to back so so that was actually what I did to recover so I set that challenge to recover so I did a one off high rocks and before this like say I was running ultramarathans I was doing stupid stuff and I was teaching my body to ignore pain okay and ignore the warning signs and then my body came to a halt and this was when I slept

do this. So from that point onwards, I've been trying to become more in tune with my body and I'd probably say I'm super fragile as kind of like an athlete now. You know, I feel everything every time I'm run down, my back saw. But it's a bit of a warning sign and it teaches me that maybe I'm overtraining, maybe I'm not taking my recovery seriously. Maybe I'm traveling too much all these things add up and now luckily i get warning signs with in the symptom of my back hurts or it aches so it's pretty good but yeah i i i always whenever i get a setback or an injury i always shift that similar to you always shift the focus from trying to compete to trying to get better and healthy from the injury and i think as long as you have that focus and you keep super

consistent it keeps you busy like you know it's it's tough doing two hours of rehab a day plus all the recovery everything else like you've been through it like it's it's still a lot of work and you've got to be consistent with that and if you don't then it's not going to get better so the worst is when you do all the work and then you get to show anything for it and that kind of happen as well but that's that's that's in life isn't it with everything name of the game yeah yeah it's brutal it's brutal like put all that time in and then you go onto the competition floor and it's like it's just yeah it's i hate i hated that and i know a lot athletes I go through this. You know, it's like you go into the big race and Tour de France or whatever,

you know, first day, stage, boom, on the ground. Like, that's it. You know, you put in, you put in a whole season. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe the Olympics is four years. Building a business, it might be 10 years. That's it. It's in every walk of life. I guess with that, like, what do you focus on now? What do you want to improve on? Like, with this idea that I definitely don't think that there's any fragility, but I appreciate, like, very much that you're taking like, hey, I need to really think about every single aspect. So what is it that you really want to work on? Now, what is the focus for you in the next six, 12 months? My focus is fully on trying to become the best high-rox athlete I can be. With that in mind, at the moment, I am suffering a little bit of an

injury. So my aim is to get back healthy and then progress, but progress in a way that I stay healthy. I'm not fatigued all the time, and I'm not on that brink of overtraining, which when you're training for for a multi-discipline sport like high rocks like triathlon like it's it's very hard to not overtrain because you're doing so many things and you feel like you need to do so much volume so that's my challenge at the moment and just trusting that it will be enough and you don't need to do them two hours extra every single day in the gym like you it's a hard one though like you probably suffered with it your whole life to an extent yeah what do you what's coming up for you next obviously getting this and that but what you know you have you have to

cover you have a small like a calf injury or something at the moment right yes so uh after that i'm going to be competing for the first major in hamburg hopefully so that'd be the first kind of like high rocks race when is that next season and that's in the start of october so that'd be quite a next big race yeah so i got fifth left quick question on just like your social media you got like a pretty booming social media presence a lot of cool content on there i guess your hand Your name, Jake Dearden underscore, right? Yes, that's it. What's that been like?

You're talking to kids, man. You're talking to everybody. I mean, everyone's on Instagram, but what's that been like for you coming from, I guess, kind of like civil engineer life into, like, you're a pretty well-known name in the space leading a lot of the people that are following the sport, and you're able to put that up on a pedestal and showcase the sport in a really unique way. What's that been like for you? Oh, it's an absolute honor.

I love doing it. Yeah, I think it holds me accountable as well. Do you know, I think, do you know, a lot of people talk to talk. I think, I feel like you've, you've got to walk the walk as well, you know, and that's what I'm trying to prove. And I love, like you say, documenting the highs, but also the lows and everything in between. Like, I think it's important to do that, you know, today on social media, it's very easy

just to open your phone and see all the good results and you don't see the bad stuff. So it's, yeah, it's important to me that you get both sides. Jake Deernan, ladies gentlemen, thank you very much for coming on the show and wishing all the best and everything to come on. Thank you so much for being on. Thank you so much, mate. If you enjoyed this episode of the WOOP podcast, please leave a rating or review. Check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. If you have a question to us answered on the podcast, email us,

podcast to Woop. Call us 508-443-4952. If you think about joining WOOP, you can visit whoop.com, sign up for a free 30-day trial membership. New members can use the code Will, W-I-L, to get a $60 credit on W-U-accessaries when you enter the code at checkout. That's a wrap, folks. Thank you all for listening. We'll catch you next week. on the WOOP podcast. As always, stay healthy and stay in the green.