Hyrox
What a HYROX race is
HYROX is a fitness race with one format, used at every event anywhere in the world. You run 1km, complete one workout station, and repeat that eight times. The same eight stations, in the same order, every race. It is held indoors in exhibition halls, there is no time limit, and the weights and repetitions change depending on which division you enter.
That fixed format is the reason it is straightforward to train for. You know exactly what you will face on the day, which means a gym either has the equipment for a station or it does not.
The eight stations, in order
| # | Station | The race | What a gym needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SkiErg | 1000m | A SkiErg |
| 2 | Sled push | 4 x 12.5m | A weighted sled and a run of floor it will slide on |
| 3 | Sled pull | 4 x 12.5m | The same sled, plus a rope |
| 4 | Burpee broad jumps | 80m | Floor space, and nothing else |
| 5 | Row | 1000m | A rowing machine |
| 6 | Farmers carry | 200m | A pair of heavy kettlebells |
| 7 | Sandbag lunges | 100m | A sandbag you can carry across your shoulders |
| 8 | Wall balls | 100 reps | A wall ball and a solid wall to throw it at |
There is a 1km run before every one of those, so eight runs in all. Most people find the running decides their finishing time rather than the stations, which is worth knowing before you spend every session on the sled.
Training for it in an ordinary gym
Very few gyms have all eight. Most have four or five, and the rest you approximate. None of these substitutions is perfect, but all of them are better than skipping the station:
- No SkiErg. Row instead. It trains the same pull and the same energy system, and rowing appears in the race anyway.
- No sled. A heavy leg press builds the same drive, though it will not teach you the body position. A loaded push on any surface that will take it is closer still.
- No rope for the sled pull. Heavy seated rows, or a rope handle on a cable stack pulled hand over hand.
- No sandbag. A barbell across the back, or a dumbbell in each hand, loads the same lunge.
- No wall ball. A medicine ball against a solid wall. Where no wall will take it, dumbbell thrusters are the nearest movement.
The one thing not worth substituting is the running. Eight kilometres broken into eight pieces, each one started on tired legs, is a specific skill, and a treadmill is fine for building it.
Finding somewhere to train
Gym listings on this site show which of the eight stations a gym has the equipment for, wherever we hold an equipment list for that gym. You can also browse by the kit itself: SkiErg, weight sled, wall ball, or use the gym finder to filter by equipment and location.
If you know a gym that is set up for this and it is not listed, you can add it. Some of the terms above are explained in the gym glossary.
HYROX is a trademark of its owner. GymDirectory is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by HYROX. Nothing on this site indicates that a gym is an official HYROX affiliate or training club. Where a gym is described here as suitable for HYROX training, that describes the equipment listed for it and nothing more. The official list of affiliated gyms is on hyrox.com.
Benefits Of Gym Training
Almost all of a HYROX race is ordinary gym work done while tired. That is good news: you do not need a specialist facility to get most of the way there, and the training carries over into general fitness rather than away from it.
Strength that still works at the end
The sleds and the sandbag are the two places a race is won or lost by strength rather than fitness. Both reward heavy leg work done in a normal gym: squats, lunges, leg press, deadlifts. What matters is not your best single lift but how much of it survives to the sixth kilometre, which is why the strength work is worth doing on days you have already run.
Running on legs that have just been loaded
Eight runs, each started straight after a station, is a specific skill and the main thing that separates finishing times. It is trainable anywhere with a treadmill: run a kilometre, do a hard set of something, run another. Gyms with an indoor track or a long enough floor can do it with the sled itself.
Grip, which is usually the first thing to go
The farmers carry, the sled pull and the wall balls all tax the hands, and they come late in the race. Loaded carries, heavy dumbbell holds and rowing all build it, and none of them needs equipment beyond what most gyms already have.
Two ergometers rather than one
The race uses a SkiErg and a rower, and the two are not interchangeable in what they train even though either will stand in for the other. A gym with both is a genuine advantage. A gym with a rower alone still covers the more important of the two.
Space, which is easy to overlook
Burpee broad jumps need 80 metres of clear floor in the race and nothing at all in training beyond somewhere to jump. The sleds are the opposite: they need a surface that will take them and a clear lane to push down, which is the single most common reason an otherwise well equipped gym cannot train the whole race.