The eight stations, in order
A HYROX race is a run of about 1 km followed by one station, eight times over, in an order that never changes. Whether you race alone, with a partner or in a relay team of four, you cover the same metres and the same reps; what changes is how heavy the kit is and how high the wall-ball target sits. The third column is the point of this page: by the time you reach each station, you have already run that far.
| Station | Work | Running so far | What it taxes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SkiErg | 1,000 m | 1 km | Lats, trunk and triceps; heart and lungs |
| 2. Sled push | 50 m (4 x 12.5 m) | 2 km | Quads, glutes and calves: leg drive |
| 3. Sled pull | 50 m (4 x 12.5 m) | 3 km | Back, biceps, hamstrings and grip |
| 4. Burpee broad jumps | 80 m | 4 km | Whole body, quads and hips; heart and lungs |
| 5. Rowing | 1,000 m | 5 km | Legs, back and grip; heart and lungs |
| 6. Farmers carry | 200 m | 6 km | Grip, trunk and upper back |
| 7. Sandbag lunges | 100 m | 7 km | Single-leg strength: quads and glutes |
| 8. Wall balls | 100 reps | 8 km | Quads, glutes and shoulders; heart and lungs |
Read the last column for overlap. The sled pull, the row and the farmers carry all lean on your grip, and the sled push, the burpee broad jumps, the lunges and the wall balls all lean on your quads. By the second half of the race, every station starts on muscles that have already worked.
The standard each judge watches
| Station | What the judge watches |
|---|---|
| 1. SkiErg | Your feet may leave the base in a jump but must land back on it, and your heels may hang over the edge without touching the floor. At 1,000 m, raise an arm and wait for the judge before you step off. The damper starts at 6 and you may change it. |
| 2. Sled push | Use the lane you are given, start with you and the sled behind the white line, stay in your lane, and get the whole sled past the 12.5 m line before you turn it. Four lengths. |
| 3. Sled pull | Start with you and the sled inside your box, stay standing in the box and off its lines while you hold the rope, keep the rope in your lane, and pull the whole sled past the line before you go to the other end for the next length. |
| 4. Burpee broad jumps | Chest to the floor on every rep, hands no more than 30 cm in front of your front foot, both feet taking off and landing together (no more than 5 cm apart), and no extra steps. |
| 5. Rowing | Your seat stays on the rower until a judge has confirmed the 1,000 m. You may stop, put the handle in its holder and rest without getting up. The damper starts at 6 and is yours to change; the footplate starts at 4 and may be moved before you begin. |
| 6. Farmers carry | Both kettlebells in your hands whenever you move, arms straight by your sides. Set them down to rest only if they do not move forward, and return them upright to the box. |
| 7. Sandbag lunges | The bag stays on both shoulders, the back knee clearly touches the floor, you stand tall between reps, legs alternate, and you take no steps or shuffles in between. |
| 8. Wall balls | Start standing with the ball in both hands, squat until your hips are below your knees, and hit your target: 2.70 m for women, 3.00 m for men. A miss is a no-rep, with no warning. |
Every station must be finished in full. Stop short of the distance or the reps and it is an Incomplete Station: a disqualification, so no final time or ranking, though you may carry on to the finish. The judges assign your lane, your machine and your wall-ball spot; picking the right weight of kettlebells, sandbag and ball for your division is your job, and a wrong kettlebell or sandbag means repeating the whole station. Penalties are on the rules page, every load is on the weights page, and how a race is laid out and timed is in how a HYROX race works.
Which station is hardest, and for whom
Ask a room of racers and you will hear every station named. Two studies give better answers than opinion, and they answer slightly different questions: which station costs the body most, and which one costs the most time.
Hardest on the body: the wall balls
In the first physiological study of the race, 11 recreational athletes raced a simulated Open course while researchers tracked heart rate throughout and took blood lactate and perceived effort after every run and station. All three peaked at the wall balls, the last station and the lightest load of the day. The stations ran harder than the runs on all three measures, and the athletes spent a median of 79.5% of the race at 90% or more of their maximum heart rate. The two sleds, the heaviest loads, were the quickest stations, at medians of 2.1 and 2.6 minutes. Eleven people is a small sample, so read it as a first look, not a verdict.
Where the time goes: the strength stations
A 2026 analysis of 39,696 Pro and Elite results over seven seasons found that, in the 100 fastest Pro results of each season, running took about half of total race time. Among the fastest Pro racers, the two ergs and the wall balls took longest and the farmers carry was shortest:
| Station | Men, top 100 | Women, top 100 |
|---|---|---|
| SkiErg | 3:48 | 4:23 |
| Sled push | 2:26 | 2:47 |
| Sled pull | 3:27 | 3:58 |
| Burpee broad jumps | 2:44 | 3:27 |
| Rowing | 3:56 | 4:30 |
| Farmers carry | 1:25 | 1:44 |
| Sandbag lunges | 3:07 | 3:26 |
| Wall balls | 3:55 | 3:59 |
The more useful finding for most racers is further down the field. The sled push, the sled pull, the SkiErg, the farmers carry and the wall balls reshuffled the rankings most, and the strength-based stations showed the strongest effect among the slower Pro racers: the same shortfall at a station went with more added to their total time. The authors read it as weakness at the loaded stations amplifying finish time, particularly for slower athletes. Open racers were not in the data, but the loads they face are lighter versions of the same stations.
- Runners with little gym background tend to find the sleds and the lunges hardest. Both need leg strength that running does not build, and the push comes after only 2 km, when it is tempting to go hard.
- Strong lifters with less running tend to struggle on the burpee broad jumps, the row and the wall balls: long, repetitive efforts that start with the heart rate already high.
- Everyone meets the wall balls last, after 8 km and seven stations, with depth judged on every rep.
Those bullets are our coaching judgement, not a study. To find yours, do each station straight after a 1 km run, on different days, and note which one breaks your form or your pace first. That station gets the most practice. A station you only ever test fresh will flatter you.
Train them off a run
In the race, every station starts with your heart rate already high and your legs already loaded. A set of wall balls done fresh in the gym tests a different athlete from the one who reaches the wall after 8 km. So once you know a station's standard, most of your station practice should come straight after running, in the order the race uses. The authors of the first lab study of the race came to the same view: running combined with the race movements, they wrote, should be an integral part of training, so you learn to run well on tired legs.
Three things change when a station follows a run:
- Your breathing. You start out of breath rather than recovered, so a pace that felt easy fresh is now too fast.
- Your legs. The push, the lunges and the wall balls all load quads that have just run. Squat depth and stride length are the first things to go.
- Your standards. Tired movement is where no-reps come from: a shallow wall ball, a back knee that hovers over the floor, a staggered landing on a broad jump.
A sample session
Run each kilometre at the effort you plan to race, then do half of the station's work straight away, with no rest beyond walking to the kit. With the warm-up and cool-down it takes about an hour.
- Warm up: 10 minutes of easy running, then a few practice reps of each station you will do today.
- Run 1 km, then 500 m on the SkiErg.
- Run 1 km, then 2 x 12.5 m of sled push at your race weight.
- Run 1 km, then 2 x 12.5 m of sled pull.
- Run 1 km, then 40 m of burpee broad jumps.
- Cool down: 10 minutes of easy running or walking.
Another week, do the back half: 1 km then a 500 m row, 1 km then a 100 m farmers carry, 1 km then 50 m of sandbag lunges, 1 km then 50 wall balls. Over the following weeks take the stations to their full distance, then join two stations the way the race does, such as the row straight into the carry. With no room to run a kilometre, a treadmill or a 500 m run keeps the point of the session.
When form goes, keep the runs and cut the station. The aim is to meet the standard on tired legs, and a no-rep in training is a no-rep in the race. Race-order sessions, including a second-half run-through, are in the workouts guide.
Open a session and tap START WORKOUT: workout mode walks you through it one step at a time, with a timer that keeps going when you lock your phone. Tap NEXT and a panel slides up with wheels for reps, weight and distance, in your own units, so a run and station session is logged as you go. More in Train with workout mode.
Every exercise has a description, opened by tapping its row, and exercises are shown as clean illustrations: the movement on a plain background, with nothing extra, so you see what to do at a glance. The team is exploring video and moving images. More in Exercise illustrations.
SkiErg and row
The SkiErg is the first station, after run 1, and the row is the fifth, after the burpee broad jumps. Both are 1,000 m with the damper preset to 6, which you may change at any time, and the rower's footplate starts at 4, which you may move before you begin. Neither carries a weight, so the risk is pace, not load.
Concept2's own cues for the SkiErg are to engage your core and lats, hinge at the hips rather than squat, and let your arms finish the pull rather than start it, with the return about twice as long as the drive. On the rower the drive goes legs, then back, then arms, and the recovery reverses it.
The SkiErg is easy to overspend on: fresh from a kilometre that felt easy, it is tempting to pull hard. Settle into a stroke you could hold for twice the distance. By the row your legs have done both sleds and the broad jumps, so the same pace will feel harder than it does fresh. Train both by going from a 1 km run straight onto the erg and holding one steady stroke rate for 500 to 1,000 m. More in pacing the SkiErg and the row.
Sled push and sled pull
Including the sled, the push is 102, 152 or 202 kg and the pull is 78, 103 or 153 kg, depending on your division (weights by division). Both are four lengths of 12.5 m, and a length only counts once all of the sled is over the far line.
The push comes after 2 km and the pull after 3 km, while the race still feels fresh, which makes both easy to overcook. On the push, lean in with your arms straight or slightly bent, keep your hips low and take short, quick steps. A sled that stops is harder to restart than one that keeps moving, so a steady pace beats bursts. On the pull, stay inside the box, sit your hips back and pull hand over hand with your legs and back, not your arms alone.
The same sled moves differently on different floors, so never compare a gym sled time with a race split. Practise both at race weight straight after a run, and build the leg and back strength behind them in the gym. More in the sleds guide.
Burpee broad jumps
Eighty metres after 4 km. The standard is in the table above; the one thing it leaves to you is how far you jump.
Jump length sets your rep count. If each rep moves you 1.6 m, 80 m is 50 reps; at 2 m a rep, it is 40. A longer jump saves reps, but each one costs more to land and get down from, so pick a length you can repeat without pausing and hold it for the whole station.
The run that follows may pay for it: in the lab study, the run straight after the burpee broad jumps was the slowest of the eight, at a median of 7.4 minutes. Practise it as a block: a 1 km run, 40 m of broad jumps, then straight into another run. More in the burpee broad jumps guide.
Farmers carry
Two hundred metres with two kettlebells of 16, 24 or 32 kg each, after 6 km. Choosing the right weight is your job, and the colour tells you which: white, grey or black.
By the carry your grip has already held the sled rope and 1,000 m of rower handle. In the lab study, a single fresh grip test did not track finish time. The carry asks for grip that has already worked, so that is how to train it.
Carry after rows or pulling work, walk tall with short, quick steps, and decide in training where you would set down, rather than waiting for the bells to slip. More in the farmers carry guide.
Sandbag lunges
One hundred metres with a 10, 20 or 30 kg sandbag on your shoulders, after 7 km and both sleds. The one rest the standard allows is a pause between reps with your feet side by side; a shuffle is a fault.
This is a single-leg strength test on legs that have done almost everything else, so extra lunge distance added in the final weeks does little if the strength is not there. Build it months out with split squats, step-ups and walking lunges, then put lunges after runs and after sled work as the race gets closer. On the day, a steady rhythm with a moment at the top beats racing to the line and stopping. More in the sandbag lunges guide.
Wall balls
100 reps in every Singles, Doubles and Relay division, with a 4, 6 or 9 kg ball, to a 2.70 m target for women and a 3.00 m target for men. Unlike stations 1 to 7, there are no warnings here: a rep counts or it does not.
It is the last station, after 8 km and seven stations, and in the lab study it was where heart rate, lactate and effort all peaked. The usual no-reps are a squat that stops high and a throw that misses the target, and both get more likely as the legs tire.
So train wall balls tired: after lunges, squats or a run, in sets you decide before the first rep, with short rests you stick to. Check your depth on every rep in training, because in the race the judge will. More in the wall balls guide.
The strength behind the stations, and training without the kit
Strength does not decide most finish times on its own. In the lab study, faster finishers had a higher maximal oxygen uptake and did more endurance training, while hand-grip strength and the amount of resistance training showed no clear link. The results analysis adds the other half: weakness at the loaded stations costs slower racers the most, while the authors judge that strength gained beyond a sufficient level is unlikely to pay back in proportion.
So aim for enough: strong enough that your division's loads feel controlled after a run, not maximal. The lifts that carry over are simple:
- Sleds: squats and split squats for the push, deadlifts and rows for the pull.
- Farmers carry: heavy carries and timed holds.
- Sandbag lunges: split squats, step-ups and walking lunges.
- Wall balls: front or goblet squats and thrusters.
- SkiErg and row: pull-ups or pull-downs and rows.
How heavy and how often is in the strength guide. No sled or SkiErg at your gym? Choose each substitute for what its station taxes, not for how it looks: leg drive for the push, a hinge and pull for the pull, sustained pulling for the SkiErg. A substitute for every station is in training without the full kit, and the whole section starts at Training for HYROX.
Someone on the only SkiErg? In workout mode, tap the dumbbell symbol and choose 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. Both change only the session you are doing: the workout in your plan is not rewritten, and next time it comes round it is the original again. More in Swap an exercise mid-session.