How to train for HYROX when your gym only has half the kit
Almost nobody trains for HYROX in a gym that has all eight stations. Most commercial gyms have four or five, and the rest you work around. That is less of a problem than it sounds, because the parts of the race that decide your time are the parts an ordinary gym is best equipped for.
What actually decides your finishing time
There are eight 1km runs in a HYROX race, one before each station. That is 8km of running, every kilometre of it started on legs that have just done something hard. For most people it accounts for more of the total time than the stations do, and it is the single most trainable thing on the list.
The other quiet time sink is the transition area, the Roxzone. The clock does not stop while you walk to the next station, find your kettlebells or get your breath back, and recreational racers routinely lose three minutes or more there across a race. Neither of those needs specialist equipment to train. Both need you to practise being tired and moving anyway.
A training week you can actually run
Three sessions is enough to make real progress. Four is better if you have the time. The order matters more than the exact contents: put the compromised running first in the week when you are fresh, because it is the session that transfers most.
Session 1: running on tired legs
This is the one that matters. The pattern is simple and you can run it on a treadmill with a single piece of equipment beside you:
- 1km run at a pace you could hold for 8km
- One hard station effort, roughly 3 to 4 minutes of work
- Straight back onto the run, no rest
- Repeat four to six times
Use whatever station your gym has. A rower, a sled, a set of walking lunges with dumbbells, wall balls against a wall that will take them. The specific movement matters far less than the transition, which is the thing you are actually rehearsing. Walk the ten steps between treadmill and station briskly, the way you would on race day, rather than strolling.
Session 2: strength for the sleds and the sandbag
The sleds and the sandbag lunges are where raw leg strength shows up, and where people with none of it stall completely. This session is ordinary gym work:
- Back squats or leg press, heavy, 4 sets of 5 to 8
- Walking lunges loaded across the back or held at the sides, 4 lengths of 20 metres
- Romanian deadlifts, 3 sets of 8
- Finish with a hard 500m on whichever ergometer you have
If your gym does have a sled, replace the squats with sled work every second week and push it heavier than race weight for short distances. Nothing prepares you for a sled like a sled.
Session 3: engine and grip
The farmers carry, the sled pull and the wall balls all tax the hands, and all three come in the second half of the race when your grip has already been working for half an hour.
- 1000m row, hard, then 1000m on the SkiErg if you have one, or a second row
- Loaded carries, as heavy as you can hold for 40 metres, 6 rounds
- Wall balls or dumbbell thrusters, 5 sets of 20
- Dead hangs or heavy dumbbell holds to finish, 3 sets to near failure
Session 4, optional: half a race
Once a fortnight, run four rounds of 1km plus a station using whatever four stations you can assemble. Do not do a full simulation often. It takes more out of you than it teaches, and the useful lesson from a simulation is almost always about pacing rather than fitness.
Substituting the stations you cannot do
None of these is perfect. All of them are better than skipping the station entirely.
| Missing | Use instead |
|---|---|
| SkiErg | A rower. Same pull, same energy system, and rowing is a station in its own right. |
| Sled | Heavy leg press for the drive, or a loaded push on any surface that will take it. |
| Rope for the sled pull | Heavy seated rows, or a rope handle on a cable stack pulled hand over hand. |
| Sandbag | A barbell across the back, or a dumbbell in each hand. |
| Wall ball | A medicine ball against a solid wall. Where no wall will take it, dumbbell thrusters. |
The full list of stations and what each one needs is in the HYROX training guide.
The weights you are training toward
Open division, which is where almost everyone starts. Pro and doubles differ, and the standards are reviewed between seasons, so confirm the current numbers before you build a plan around them.
| Station | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| Sled push (total, including the sled) | 152kg | 102kg |
| Kettlebell farmers carry | 2 x 24kg | 2 x 16kg |
| Sandbag lunges | 20kg | 10kg |
| Wall balls | 6kg | 4kg |
None of these is heavy in isolation. All of them are heavy after 5km of running, which is the point and the reason the strength work belongs at the end of a session rather than the start.
Five things people get wrong
- Training the stations and neglecting the runs. The stations are more fun. The runs are more of your time.
- Practising every station fresh. Doing wall balls at the start of a session tells you nothing about doing them after seven runs.
- Ignoring transitions. Three minutes is a large chunk of a finishing time, and it is free to fix.
- Going out too fast on the first run. There is no time limit and no prize for the first kilometre.
- Full simulations every week. They are a test, not training, and they cost more than they teach.
Finding a gym with more of the kit
Gym listings on this site show which of the eight stations a gym has the equipment for, based on the equipment recorded for it. You can start from the HYROX training guide, look up a specific piece of kit like a SkiErg, weight sled or wall ball, or use the gym finder to filter by equipment near you.
If you train somewhere that is set up for this and it is not listed, you can add it.
HYROX is a trademark of its owner. GymDirectory is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by HYROX, and nothing here indicates that a gym is an official HYROX affiliate or training club. Weights and standards are those published for the Open division at the time of writing and are subject to change; check hyrox.com for the current rules. This is general training information, not individual coaching or medical advice.