Pick the block first, then the time you have
A HYROX race is eight runs of about a kilometre, each followed by a station, with 100 wall balls at the end. Training for it moves through blocks: a base that builds the engine and basic strength, a build that brings in station circuits and bricks, a short peak at race pace, then a taper. The Training for HYROX guide sets those blocks from your race date backwards. This page is the menu of sessions for each one.
The base comes first for a reason. In the first scientific study of the race, 11 recreational racers did a full simulated HYROX. The median finish was 86.5 minutes, of which running took about 51, and the faster finishers had a higher VO2max and did more endurance training. The study tested no training, but it points the same way as this page: build the engine first, then sharpen it with station circuits.
| Block | What it builds | Workouts that suit it | Session effort |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base | Aerobic engine, strength on the race movements, station technique | Long easy runs, erg rotations, heavy strength | 2 to 5 |
| Build | Working through stations at race weight, running on tired legs | Station EMOMs, AMRAPs, sled repeats, a brick | 5 to 7 |
| Peak | Race pace, pacing judgement, confidence | Race-pace kilometres, shorter run-throughs, station sharpeners | 6 to 8 |
Choosing a session
- Find your block. Count the weeks to your race and see where they fall in your plan: base, build, peak or taper.
- Pick from that block only. A race-pace session in week two of a base teaches a pace you cannot yet hold; a heavy legs session in race week spends legs you need.
- Check the time you have. If it is 30 or 45 minutes, use the short version further down rather than rushing the full one.
- Check what sits either side. Each session says what to keep away from it.
The effort numbers
Each workout carries a session RPE, the method Carl Foster's group published in 2001: one number from 0 to 10 for the whole session, warm-up and rests included, given once you have finished. On their scale 3 is moderate, 5 is hard, 7 is very hard and 10 is maximal. A 2017 review found 36 studies testing it and judged it valid and reliable across sports, ages and levels. Because it rates the whole session, an EMOM whose last minute felt like a 9 usually rates lower for the session as a whole.
What to keep away from it
Every session also names what not to put beside it. A hard workout only pays if you arrive fresh enough to do it properly, so most of your week stays easy (see why most HYROX training should be easy) and hard days need easier days around them (see how to order your week).
Use your division's loads from the weights page unless a workout says otherwise. Racing for the first time? Start with the scaled beginner workouts in the first-race guide. No sled or SkiErg? Training at home has the swaps. The sessions here are our examples. They are a menu to choose from, not what a Smash Coach plan writes for you.
Base workouts: the engine and the strength
The early weeks are for volume you can recover from. The running is easy, the ergs are steady and the strength work is heavy but stops well short of failure. Nothing here should leave you wrecked the next morning.
Long easy run
Base · 45 to 75 min · RPE 2 to 3
Run at a pace you could hold a conversation at, on flat or rolling ground. Walk breaks are fine if you are new to running: time on your feet is the point. Lengthen it a little at a time rather than in jumps.
Keep it away from: Heavy legs the day before, and a brick the day either side. Otherwise it sits well between the hard sessions.
Row and SkiErg rotation
Base · 40 min · RPE 3
- 5 minutes rowing, then 5 minutes on the SkiErg, with no rest between.
- Four rounds, at an effort where you could still speak in short sentences.
- Keep the stroke long on both: legs, then back, then arms on the rower; hips back and handles past your thighs on the SkiErg.
It adds aerobic volume without the pounding of running, and makes the SkiErg and the rower, the first and fifth stations, feel familiar.
Keep it away from: Very little. If your legs are heavy from strength work, row at the easy end.
Race-movement strength
Base · 50 to 60 min · RPE 5
- Back squat or goblet squat: 4 sets of 6, finishing each set with two or three reps left.
- Seated cable row or bent-over row: 4 sets of 8. It is the pull behind the sled pull and the rower.
- Romanian deadlift: 3 sets of 8, controlled on the way down.
- Farmers carry: 4 x 50 m at race weight or heavier, 90 seconds rest.
- Wall balls: 4 sets of 15 at race weight, every rep to full depth and the target, a minute between sets.
Rest about two minutes between the heavy sets. The aim is strength you keep, not a pump. The strength page covers how to progress it.
Keep it away from: The day before a long run or a threshold run. Squats and deadlifts leave the legs heavy for a day or two.
Station technique round
Base · 40 min · RPE 4
- 250 m SkiErg, 2 x 12.5 m sled push, 2 x 12.5 m sled pull, 20 m burpee broad jumps.
- 250 m row, 50 m farmers carry, 20 m sandbag lunges, 15 wall balls.
- Three rounds at an easy pace, with as much rest as you need between stations.
Every station in race sequence, a fraction of the volume, each rep to the race standard. The point is to learn the movements while fresh, so they hold up later when you are not. Have someone check that your back knee touches the floor on every lunge and your hips drop below your knees on every wall ball, as the rulebook requires, or film yourself. The station pages set out each standard.
Keep it away from: Nothing hard. It works best on a fresh day, when every rep can be a good one.
Build workouts: circuits, EMOMs, AMRAPs and one brick
The middle weeks bring the stations closer together and closer to race weight. Two formats do most of the work. An EMOM (every minute on the minute) starts a piece of work at the top of each minute and you rest for whatever is left, so the clock sets your pace. An AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) gives you a fixed time and counts how far you get, so you can repeat it weeks later and compare.
Five-minute station EMOM
Build · 30 min · RPE 6
Six rounds of five minutes:
- Minute 1: 150 m SkiErg.
- Minute 2: 12 wall balls.
- Minute 3: 150 m row.
- Minute 4: 8 burpee broad jumps.
- Minute 5: walk and breathe.
Each piece should take 30 to 45 seconds. When one starts taking longer, cut the distance or the reps rather than losing the rest. You are practising steady work on tired legs and recovering on the move, which is the race in miniature.
Keep it away from: A brick or a threshold run the next day.
Carry, lunge and wall-ball AMRAP
Build · 18 min · RPE 6
- 50 m farmers carry at race weight.
- 20 m sandbag lunges at race weight.
- 10 wall balls at race weight.
Go round as many times as you can in 18 minutes and write the score down. Repeat it a few weeks later with the same weights. These are the last three stations, and in the race they arrive when your legs have already done most of the work.
Keep it away from: Your heaviest legs session. Both lean on the quads and glutes, so give them a couple of days apart.
Sled repeats
Build · 30 min · RPE 6
- Push 25 m at race weight.
- Pull 25 m at race weight.
- Rest 2 to 3 minutes. Four rounds.
That is twice the race distance on each sled, broken into pieces you can do well. A sled moves differently on every floor, so treat a time from one gym as a guide. The sled page covers why.
Keep it away from: A heavy squat day. The push and the squat spend the same quads.
Station-to-run brick
Build · 45 min · RPE 7
- One station at race weight and half the race volume.
- Run 1 km straight off it, at the effort you plan to race at.
- Walk 2 minutes. Four rounds, a different station each time: 500 m SkiErg, 25 m sled push, 40 m burpee broad jumps, 50 wall balls.
The first few hundred metres off each station are the point: hold your race effort while your legs find their stride. This is one example. The page on compromised running covers how bricks should grow from short early ones to race-like ones.
Keep it away from: Your long run or a threshold run, the day before or the day after.
Progress one thing at a time
Repeat a build session a few weeks later and change one thing: a round more, a load closer to race weight, or a shorter rest. Change all three at once and you cannot tell what worked, and a session that was a 6 becomes an 8 that wrecks the next two days. Our rule of thumb: when the same work rates a point or more harder than it did last time, treat it as tiredness, not lost fitness, and repeat it rather than adding more.
Peak workouts: race pace and shorter run-throughs
The last block before the taper is about judgement more than fitness: knowing what race pace feels like and holding it when you are tired. The sessions get shorter and sharper, with more easy running around them.
Race-pace kilometres
Peak · 50 to 60 min · RPE 6
- 10 minutes easy running.
- 5 x 1 km at the pace you plan to run the race kilometres, 2 minutes standing rest.
- 10 minutes easy.
Race kilometres come straight after stations, so they are slower than a fresh kilometre. Set the target from a recent race or run-through, not from a track session. For harder running on its own, see threshold runs.
Keep it away from: Heavy legs work the day before. The pace should feel smooth, not forced.
Second-half run-through
Peak · About half your race time · RPE 7 to 8
- Run 1 km, then 1,000 m row.
- Run 1 km, then 200 m farmers carry.
- Run 1 km, then 100 m sandbag lunges.
- Run 1 km, then 100 wall balls. Everything at race weight and full race volume.
This is the half of the race where pacing mistakes come due, which is why it is the half worth rehearsing. Start the first run easier than feels right. GOWOD's April 2026 guide to simulations gives a rule for it: if your first run feels easy, you are probably pacing it correctly.
Keep it away from: Anything hard the day before or the day after. Treat it like a small race.
Gyms and coaches run their own versions: a full simulation of all eight runs and stations, a three-quarter one of six, a half of four, or an EMOM-style version when the kit is missing, as GOWOD sets them out. None of them is a race HYROX publishes, and the HYROX365 brand guidelines ask training clubs to name theirs after the gym, never after their town or city. GOWOD also warns that a simulation too close to race day risks arriving at the start tired. To time a run-through on a Garmin watch, Hybrid Smash compares the ways to run one.
Station sharpener
Peak · 30 min · RPE 6
- 250 m SkiErg.
- 12.5 m sled push.
- 12.5 m sled pull.
- 20 wall balls.
- Rest 3 minutes. Three rounds, each at the pace you plan to race.
Short, fast enough to feel race pace and with enough rest to do it well. It keeps the stations familiar late on without the cost of a run-through. In the final week or two, the taper cuts the volume and keeps some of this intensity.
Keep it away from: A run-through within a few days either side.
30 and 45 minute versions for busy weeks
A short week should not cost you the session that matters. Keep the warm-up, keep the effort and cut the volume: fewer rounds, not a faster pace and not shorter rests.
| Block | 30 minutes | 45 minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Base | 30 minutes easy running, or three rounds of the row and SkiErg rotation | Race-movement strength with the squat, the row and the carry only |
| Build | 10 minute warm-up, then four rounds of the station EMOM | 10 minute warm-up, then the brick with three rounds |
| Peak | 8 minutes easy, 3 x 800 m at race pace with 2 minutes rest, 3 minutes easy | 10 minute warm-up, two rounds of the station sharpener, then 2 x 1 km at race pace |
When a week falls apart, keep the session your block is about: the long easy run in the base, the brick in the build, race pace in the peak. Do not squeeze two missed hard sessions into one day to catch up. That is another of our rules of thumb, and it rests on the same idea as everything above: a hard session is only worth what you can recover from.
A legs session that leaves you able to run tomorrow
Legs in HYROX do two jobs: push sleds and lunge with a bag, then run on top of it. A legs day that leaves you sore for three days costs you the runs in between, and running is the biggest part of the race.
The research says why, and what to change. A 2017 review in Sports Medicine found that a single strength session leaves fatigue that can spoil endurance training for hours to days, through soreness, less efficient movement and lower muscle fuel. In a study of 10 resistance-trained men, squat and bench sets taken to failure were still slower to recover 24 to 48 hours later than the same work stopped at half the reps possible. And the lowering half of a lift is what leaves unaccustomed muscles stiff and sore the next day.
Legs session for runners
Any block · 45 min · RPE 5
- Warm up for 8 minutes: easy bike or row, then bodyweight squats and lunges.
- Back squat or goblet squat: 4 x 5, stopping with three reps left in each set.
- Heavy sled push: 6 x 12.5 m above race weight, 2 minutes rest. A sled has almost no lowering phase, so it works the legs hard with little of the damage that brings soreness.
- Romanian deadlift: 3 x 6, controlled, well short of failure.
- Walking lunges with the race sandbag: 2 x 20 m. Keep the volume this low until your legs are used to them.
- Finish with 5 to 10 minutes of easy spinning or rowing.
Keep it away from: The day before a threshold run, a brick, a run-through or your long run. Put it before a short easy run or a rest day.
The first time you add lunges, or come back to squats after a break, expect soreness. A second session a week later causes much less damage, which is the moment to add volume, not the first week. Over a block, the legs that push sleds well are built by sessions you recover from in a day, repeated.
Why a set of good workouts is not a plan
Every workout on this page is a good one in the right week. None of them knows about the five-a-side match on Thursday, the work trip next week or the race in ten weeks. A plan is the part that does: which session today, after what you did yesterday, with easy days around the hard ones, and what changes when a day falls through.
That is why the Training for HYROX guide starts at race day and works backwards, and why sessions from the stations and threshold runs slot into blocks rather than standing alone.
Workout mode walks you through a session one step at a time, counts your sets and your rest, and when you tap NEXT a panel slides up to log the reps, weight or distance of the exercise you have just finished.
If someone is on the rower, Equipment busy moves that one exercise to the end of the session, unless it repeats in rounds with other exercises, as in a circuit. If your gym does not have the kit, with Pro or during your trial Equipment missing offers up to three replacements that train the same thing. Both change only the session you are doing (swap an exercise mid-session).
When you mark a session done, you say how hard it felt on a slider from one to ten. The slider has its own words, so 5 reads MODERATE and 7 reads HARD, a little gentler than the Foster scale above. Pick one and rate every session by it. A workout from this page that you did on your own can be logged as a past session, with how long and how hard, so your coach knows.