What each station taxes, from its standard
Every station has a written standard, and the standard tells you what the station costs. Read it as three questions: what moves, for how long, and against what. A substitute has to answer them the same way. Matching the look is not enough.
- The SkiErg is 1,000 m of pulling with both feet on the platform. Concept2's own cue is that the core and lats drive the power and the arms finish, with a hinge at the hips before the knees bend. It taxes sustained pulling for minutes, not a few heavy reps.
- The sled push is 50 m in four lengths, at 102 kg to 202 kg including the sled. It taxes continuous leg drive at a forward lean. There is no lowering phase, only driving.
- The sled pull is 50 m with a rope, 78 kg to 153 kg including the sled, and you must stay standing inside your box. It taxes a held hinge, your upper back and your grip, all at once.
Two gym favourites show the trap. A lat pulldown looks like the SkiErg, but ten heavy reps build strength, not several minutes of pulling. Battle ropes look like the sled pull because there is a rope, but they work your shoulders in fast waves rather than a hinge and a pull against a load. Both are fine exercises. Neither one is a substitute.
The other five stations are easier. Burpee broad jumps need only floor, and the carry, lunges and wall-ball squat need only something heavy. The row needs a rower or a stand-in for its legs-then-back-then-arms pull. For the standards in full, see the eight stations.
A substitute for every station
The table pairs each station with what it taxes, then a substitute that taxes the same thing. Pick from the home column or the gym column, whichever you have.
| Station | What it taxes | At home | In a gym without it |
|---|---|---|---|
| SkiErg, 1,000 m | Sustained pulling with a hip hinge: lats, core, triceps, for minutes | Band ski: a long band anchored high, both ends pulled to your thighs as you hinge, 2 to 4 minutes non-stop | Cable straight-arm pulldowns with a rope, hinging on each pull, in timed sets |
| Sled push, 50 m | Continuous leg drive at a forward lean, about two minutes, no lowering phase | Hill walking with a loaded backpack, leaning in; wall drives for the body angle | Plate push on turf if allowed; steepest-incline treadmill walk; leg press or split squats |
| Sled pull, 50 m | Holding a hinge while pulling hand over hand: upper back, arms, grip | Towel drag: a rope tied to a loaded bag on a towel, pulled hand over hand | Plate drag with a rope on turf if allowed; heavy rows and Romanian deadlifts |
| Burpee broad jumps, 80 m | Chest to the floor, then a two-footed jump, over and over | None needed: a park, a garden or a hallway | Open floor or an empty studio |
| Rowing, 1,000 m | Legs, then back, then arms, seated for the whole distance | Band rows for the pull; a run or a ride for the engine | The rower, if there is one; the bike and cable rows if not |
| Farmers carry, 200 m | Grip and trunk while walking with arms straight by your sides | Dumbbells, kettlebells or water containers (a litre of water weighs about a kilogram) | Heavy dumbbells, walked in laps |
| Sandbag lunges, 100 m | Single-leg strength, rear knee to the floor every rep, load on both shoulders | Walking lunges with a loaded backpack or a duffel of play sand | Walking lunges holding dumbbells; split squats |
| Wall balls, 100 reps | A squat below parallel and a throw to 2.70 m or 3.00 m, at the end of the race | Thrusters with dumbbells or the loaded bag; throws at a solid outside wall if you own a ball | A medicine ball to a wall if allowed; dumbbell thrusters if not |
Duration matters as much as the movement. In a study of 11 recreational athletes racing a simulated course in a gym, the sled push took a median of 128 seconds and the pull 155. A 20-second burst does not prepare you for that, so set a substitute up to run for about two minutes without stopping.
Technique for the real stations is in the SkiErg and row and the sleds. The lifts behind each one are in the strength guide.
The sled problem: alternatives and their limits
Faking the sled is the real problem, for two reasons. The load is heavy, and the floor changes it. The same plates can take close to three times the force to slide on one floor as on another (the sleds guide has the study), so a plate dragged over gym turf or a bag towed across a kitchen floor tells you little about race weight on race carpet. Every substitute keeps some of the sled and loses the rest.
The push
- Hill or incline walking with a loaded backpack keeps the forward lean and two minutes of unbroken leg drive. It loses the heavy start, the moment a stopped sled has to break free.
- Wall drives, hands on a wall and body at a steep angle while you drive your knees, keep the body position. They lose the load.
- Split squats, step-ups and the leg press build the strength. They lose the continuous effort and the angle.
The pull
- A towel drag, a rope tied to a loaded bag on a towel on a smooth floor, keeps the hand-over-hand pull and the hinge. It is far lighter than race weight.
- Heavy rows, Romanian deadlifts and dead hangs build the back, the hinge and the grip. They lose the pattern.
In our judgement, the answer is a pair rather than one perfect exercise: a heavy strength lift for the start, and a long, lighter effort for the two minutes. Split squats on Tuesday and a backpack hill walk on Saturday cover more of the push than either does alone.
A minimal-kit week at home
Four things cover almost every substitute on this page: a pair of dumbbells or kettlebells, a long resistance band with a door anchor, a backpack you can load, and a rope. Add shoes and somewhere to run. The week below puts most of them to work.
| Day | Session | Kit |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Easy run, 30 to 45 minutes at a pace you could talk at | Shoes |
| Tuesday | Strength: split squats, Romanian deadlifts, bent-over rows, push-ups, a heavy carry. Three sets each, the last reps hard, then 3 x 3 minutes of band ski | Dumbbells or kettlebells, backpack, band |
| Wednesday | Rest, or an easy walk | None |
| Thursday | Intervals: 5 x 3 minutes hard, 2 minutes easy jogging between | Shoes |
| Friday | Rest | None |
| Saturday | Hill brick: 4 rounds of 2 minutes of backpack hill walking, leaning in, then an 800 m run straight after | Loaded backpack, shoes, a hill |
| Sunday | Long easy run, or your other sport, 45 to 75 minutes | Shoes |
Light kit changes how you progress. For muscular endurance, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends light to moderate loads for more than 15 reps with rests under 90 seconds, which is what home kit does well. Once you can do one or two reps more than planned, add 2 to 10%: a bottle of water in the backpack, or a few more reps first when the next dumbbell up is a bigger jump than that. Single-leg versions make a light load heavier for free.
A meta-analysis of 21 studies found that light loads taken to failure built as much muscle as heavy ones, but heavy loads built more maximal strength. That is the limit of home training, and it is why the sleds need more than a backpack eventually. The sessions themselves are in the workouts library, and the running in running for HYROX.
Training in a big-box gym
A big-box gym usually has enough for everything except the sleds, the SkiErg and sometimes the rower. Planet Fitness, Inc., the US-listed chain, for example, describes its clubs in its annual report for 2025 as typically 20,000 square feet, with cardio, circuit and strength-training equipment, including free weights and plate-loaded equipment. The report names no sled, SkiErg or turf. What your own club has varies, so walk the floor before you plan.
- The cable stack is your SkiErg stand-in: a rope on the high pulley, straight-arm pulldowns, a hinge on every pull, timed sets.
- The treadmill covers the running, and its steepest incline with a loaded backpack covers the long part of the push.
- The leg press and the dumbbell rack cover sled strength, the carry, the lunges and thrusters. You need dumbbells up to your carry weight: 24 kg each for Men (Open) and Women Pro, 16 kg for Women (Open) and 32 kg for Men Pro.
- A strip of turf, if there is one, may let you push or drag a plate: ask the staff first.
When to find a real sled
Substitutes carry you through most of a build. They cannot teach you how a heavy sled feels when it sticks, how to pull from inside the box without stepping on its lines, or how to pace a real 1,000 m on the SkiErg with the damper preset at 6.
The real thing matters even at the front of the field. Across seven seasons of Pro and Elite results, running made up about half of race time, but the strength stations reshuffled the rankings more, and the slower the Pro racer, the more time those stations cost. The same study of 11 recreational athletes adds the other half: faster finishes went with higher aerobic fitness and more endurance training, not with grip strength. Train the engine anywhere, and give the sleds a few sessions on the real thing.
In our judgement: push and pull a real sled once early in your build to learn the load, then a handful of times in the last six to eight weeks, at race weight and straight after a run. A day pass at a gym with a sled, a HYROX-style class or HYROX's own gym finder will get you there. Everything else about the build is in Training for HYROX.
Swapping exercises in Smash Coach
The same rule applies mid-session: if the kit is missing, replace the exercise with one that taxes the same thing, and if the kit is only busy, do something else first and come back to it.
In workout mode, tap the dumbbell symbol, then Equipment busy. When the exercise can be moved, DO IT LATER sends it to the end of the working section and starts the next one.
With Pro or during your trial, Equipment missing offers up to three replacements that train the same thing, each with its own illustration and target, and an exercise that cannot be moved gets the same offer from Equipment busy. Both change only the session you are doing: the workout stored in your plan is not rewritten, and next time it comes round it is the original again. More in Swap an exercise mid-session.