Coaching the Mind
Sarah Vanier Geiger on the psychology of performance and the art of sustainable training
Sarah Vanier Geiger approaches hybrid training with the precision of an athlete and the insight of a psychologist. A competitor and coach, she blends structure with empathy—helping athletes turn potential into performance while staying grounded in the process. Her philosophy goes beyond programming and metrics, emphasizing mindset, motivation, and the daily habits that build lasting progress. At Geiger Coaching, that approach has grown into a community defined as much by connection as competition.
The Hybrid Letter spoke with Geiger about the mental skills that sustain high performance, the balance between ambition and recovery, and what it takes to build a culture of genuine support in a competitive sport.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Hybrid Letter: Where did your fitness journey start?
Sarah Vanier Geiger: I actually began in a pretty unexpected sport—competitive fencing—which isn’t something you typically find in the middle of Kansas. But it sparked my love for high-intensity training and competition early on. I went on to study psychology in college and later in grad school, and that background has played a huge role in my success as both a coach and an athlete. It gave me a deep understanding of motivation—how to encourage the right behaviors, navigate setbacks, and bring out the best in people.
Interestingly, my career didn’t start in fitness at all. I worked in recruitment, helping people prepare for job interviews and matching candidates to what clients were really looking for. Then I met Ryan—and that’s when everything shifted.
THL: How did you find your way into hybrid training as an athlete?
SVG: I once heard that people who do CrossFit or hybrid sports often love the training even more than the competition, and that really resonates with me. For a while, I wasn’t doing much structured fitness—just playing soccer a couple of days a week with a club team. But when I started training again, I realized how much I missed that sense of intensity and purpose.
There was a time when I’d run track, play soccer, and fence, sometimes all in the same day. I craved that feeling again—that push toward something bigger. One day, I watched one of the CrossFit Games documentaries that the Buttery Bros made, and it just clicked. That was exactly the kind of direction and intensity I’d been missing.
At the time, Ryan was mostly coaching cyclists, triathletes, and a few runners, with just a couple of hybrid athletes on his roster. I loved what he was doing, so I asked him, “Can you help me?” And that’s really where it all began.
THL: What drew you to coaching?
SVG: It’s funny—I actually coach several athletes I also compete against. Three of them, in fact, are racing this weekend. People always ask how I balance that, how I can train someone and then race them. Honestly, I see it as the biggest compliment—to them and to me. If I can coach someone to be better than me, that’s proof I’m doing my job well and that I truly have their best interests at heart.
My psychology background definitely shapes how I coach. I’ve always been fascinated by why people make the choices they do—even small things, like why someone cuts you off in traffic. That curiosity carries into my coaching. I love helping athletes understand what drives them and channel that into tangible results, whether in competition or personal growth.
We have a really diverse team, but I tend to spend a lot of time diving deep with my athletes—sometimes even philosophizing on the phone—to get to the root of what motivates them.
THL: Why do people benefit from having a coach?
SVG: Every coaching relationship is unique. Some athletes come to me with no idea where to start, and that’s great—we get to build everything from the ground up. Others are former collegiate athletes who already know how to train and what hard work looks like. What they often lack is structure and organization. That’s where I come in.
I remind my athletes that while I may organize the training, they’re the ones executing it. My job is to ensure the sessions happen on the right days, under the right conditions, in a way that sets them up to perform their best. Coaching, at its core, is about helping each athlete get the most out of themselves on any given day—and that’s where it becomes essential.
THL: What are some common misconceptions about hybrid training?
SVG: Overtraining is a big one. In hybrid sports, there are so many elements to train that athletes often feel they need to do it all, every day. That mindset leads to burnout. There are only 24 hours in a day—you can’t fit everything in without something breaking down. The key is identifying an athlete’s strengths, keeping those sharp, and bringing up their weaker areas to match.
Many athletes think progress comes from adding volume, but real progress comes from smart structure and balance—how you organize training, manage intensity, and allow for recovery. There are times when higher volume and intensity make sense, but those periods are intentional and built into a broader plan that includes rest and recalibration. That’s what drives sustainable progress.
THL: What mental strategies do you share with your athletes?
SVG: I lean into principles of positive psychology—focusing on what makes us feel good and intentionally weaving that into daily life. That means emphasizing positive self-talk and pairing it with specific physical intentions.
When I was doing the HybridCon Games qualifier a couple of years ago, I looked at one event—a run into a dumbbell workout—and told myself, “I’m a hard worker.” That became my affirmation. I reminded myself that I had trained hardest on my running, so I could trust it. My plan was simple: hit the run at the pace I trained for, then attack the dumbbells, which I knew were a strength.
That mindset eliminated hesitation and second-guessing. I wasn’t thinking—I was just executing. I also talk a lot about intention setting: deciding in advance how you want to feel during and after an event, then aligning your effort and mindset to make that happen. When you combine clear intention with affirmation and presence, you build a mental framework that supports peak performance rather than undermines it.
THL: How do you help athletes bounce back from a bad race or result?
SVG: That’s something we navigate a lot—helping athletes see progress beyond just the final result. The great thing about Hyrox and other standardized races is that they let us analyze specific elements of performance. Even if an overall time isn’t faster, we can often point to improvements like a quicker run pace or stronger sled push. Those are real wins.
It’s easy to get caught up in total times or placements, but performance is multi-layered—progress doesn’t always show up as a PR. I’ve had to remind myself of that too. During the HybridCon qualifier this year, I wasn’t thrilled with my time. But when I looked closer, I realized I’d handled a squat volume I couldn’t have managed a year ago. That changed everything.
We track workouts in TrainingPeaks, which helps make that progress visible. Sometimes I’ll bookmark a tough session so that months later, when an athlete crushes something similar, we can look back and say, “Remember when that used to crush you?” Having a coach provides that outside lens—someone to remind you how far you’ve come, even when the leaderboard doesn’t.
THL: Tell us about the community of women you’ve built on your team.
SVG: It wasn’t intentional to have a majority-female coaching team or slightly more women athletes—it just evolved that way. But it makes sense. Women often have a process-oriented approach to training, which aligns perfectly with our philosophy. Our methods are rooted in structure, consistency, and self-awareness, and that mindset resonates with many of our female athletes.
Hybrid training can be solitary. Many of our athletes train alone, especially those in one-on-one programs. That isolation can be tough. Originally, our setup was “hub and spoke”—each coach communicated with their athletes, but the athletes weren’t connected to each other. We wanted to change that.
So we created the Ladies of Geiger Coaching Discord, a space for connection and support. It’s grown into a vibrant hub with channels for training advice, funny moments, recipes, even “Pets of Geiger Coaching.” What used to be a solitary pursuit now feels communal. We’re seeing meetups pop up in Austin, San Diego, D.C.—and before big race weekends, the Discord lights up with messages like “Go kick ass!” and “How can we watch the livestream?” It’s become more than coaching—it’s a family.
THL: How have you carried that community spirit into the workouts themselves?
SVG: We recently launched a new leaderboard through Competition Corner. Every so often we program leaderboard workouts for our athletes—it’s a great session and a chance to compare performances. The leaderboard brings together athletes of all levels in a motivating environment.
It’s also fun. It gives people a competitive edge without the pressure of race day. We call it the GPP—General Physical Preparedness—Leaderboard, and it’s quickly become a favorite. There’s even some lighthearted trash talk now and then. Watching athletes climb the rankings over time really highlights the effort and growth that define our community.
You can follow Sarah and Geiger Coaching on Instagram.
The business of Hyrox
Hyrox co-founder Christian Toetzke appeared on the Opening Bid Unfiltered and revealed some interesting details about the business side of the booming sport. Key takeaways:
Hyrox has not had any outside investment since 2019. From that point on, its growth has been self-funded.
In the 2025-26 season, Hyrox will put on 125 events for 1.5 million people.
Hyrox’s goal is to hold 150 events in the 150 biggest metropolitan areas in the world. So it has 25 more to go. After that, it will not expand to other locations, limiting its footprint to “tier one locations.”
Expansion will then involve expanding the number of days for each event. Toetzke describes the future of Hyrox as a combination of the New York City Marathon, the U.S. Open, and Coachella.
Toetzke suggests that live TV broadcasts of Hyrox events will be available within the next 12 months.
Hyrox is expected to generate at least $165 million in ticket sales this season. It makes additional revenue from sponsorships and merchandise.
You can watch the whole interview here:
Hybrid Athlete of the Week: Jack Woolsey
Name: Jack Woolsey
Age: 31
Hometown: Great Yarmouth, England
When did you start hybrid training? Since 2018, but Hyrox has been my main focus since June 2024. Growing up, I was a soccer player, so I’ve always been around HIIT, functional, or hybrid-style training—even before it was called that. I love the balance of strength, conditioning, cardio, and mobility. Getting better at all of those together is how I truly measure fitness—not just “I can lift a million pounds but can’t run a mile if my life depended on it.”
Favorite race to date? The 2025 Houston Hyrox Relay. It was my first time doing a relay, and I raced it with some close friends. It was a blast—and we even ended up winning!
Do you have a race goal? Right now, my focus is Hyrox Dallas. But next year I’m shifting gears into marathon and Ironman training. My top goal is completing my first 70.3.
Favorite station? The last one—always. Whether it’s RAM burpees in Spartan DEKA or wall balls in Hyrox, that’s where you find out how much grit you really have.
Least favorite station? The sled push. Somehow, my leg days always turn into a bicep workout.
Something you wish you knew before you started racing? Be kind to yourself. It’s easy to be overly critical and train from a dark place—I’ve done that plenty of times, and my results always suffered. Be happy and enjoy the ride.