How to Train for HYROX

A practical conversation with Siren Seiler-Viken, MSc, on running, strength, station technique, pacing, and race day nutrition

HYROX asks athletes to run well while repeatedly handling strength and ergometer stations. Those stations matter, but Siren sees aerobic fitness and running ability as the clearest opportunities for most recreational athletes to improve their race time.

In this Q&A, Siren explains how to train when you do not have access to every piece of race equipment, how to approach the major stations, what compromised running feels like, and how to pace and fuel for race day.

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About Siren Seiler-Viken

Siren Seiler-Viken is an athlete, coach, and sport scientist, MSc. She brings together practical coaching experience and exercise physiology to help athletes understand what matters most in HYROX training and how to apply it.

Understanding HYROX

Before focusing on individual stations, it helps to understand what drives performance across the full event.

What is HYROX?

SIREN SEILER-VIKEN

HYROX is a functional fitness discipline that combines dynamic, high-rep strength exercises with SkiErg, RowErg, and running.

While it may be described as a “hybrid” sport, it is fundamentally an endurance event, lasting anywhere from about 50 minutes to 2.5 hours depending on the division and level of the athlete.

The stations do matter, but for most people the biggest performance gains come from becoming a better runner.

To summarize, HYROX is won through aerobic fitness.

What equipment do I need to train HYROX?

SIREN SEILER-VIKEN

You don't need any special equipment to get better at HYROX. Building your aerobic capacity makes you a stronger runner, and that alone can cut minutes off your race time.,

If you want to train the specific stations, you will need a SkiErg, RowErg, sleds for push and pull, kettlebells for farmer’s carries, a sandbag or barbell for lunges, and a medicine ball for wall balls.

That said, exact HYROX equipment is not essential. You can do HYROX simulation workouts with alternatives that target the same muscle groups.

If you only have one piece of equipment available, make it a pair of running shoes!

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Training the HYROX stations

Specific practice improves technique, but strength and general aerobic fitness can still move performance forward when exact race equipment is unavailable.

How do you train the SkiErg for HYROX?

SIREN SEILER-VIKEN

There are two main ways to improve your SkiErg.

First, get stronger, especially through the lats, upper back, and triceps. Heavy strength training and exercises like pull-ups transfer well.

Second, spend more time on the SkiErg. Just like running, technique and movement economy improve through consistent practice and accumulated volume. Technique matters. A powerful hip hinge and effective use of body weight often improve performance more than simply pulling harder with the arms.

How do you do burpee broad jumps correctly?

SIREN SEILER-VIKEN

Drop to the floor until your chest touches the ground, then get back up, stand tall, and jump forward, taking off and landing with your feet parallel.

You can step up, use a knee, or jump back to your feet. There are several legal techniques, but your hands can't be more than 30 cm in front of your feet, and you must take off and land with both feet together.

Find the technique that saves you the most energy in the long run! Remember, 80 meters of burpee broad jumps is a lot of ground to cover – so pace yourself!

How do I improve my sandbag lunges?

SIREN SEILER-VIKEN

Build both strength and local muscular endurance in the quads, glutes, and hamstrings.

Start by raising your strength ceiling. If a 30 kg split squat feels hard, 100 m of lunges with 20 kg will break you!

If you can perform sets of split squats with 60 kg comfortably, then race weight lunges will likely feel manageable.

As the race approaches, develop your local muscular endurance for walking lunges by accumulating many reps at lighter relative loads.

How do I practice sled push without gym equipment?

SIREN SEILER-VIKEN

You can improve your sled push by just getting stronger!

Focus on heavy, deep squats and other lower-body compound lifts. The main muscles involved in the sled push are the quads, glutes, and calves.

For most recreational athletes, increasing maximal squat strength is one of the fastest ways to improve sled push performance – without even touching a sled before the start line!

Running and pacing under fatigue

Every run after the opening kilometer begins with fatigue from the station before it. Training must prepare you to manage that fatigue without letting pace fall apart.

What is a compromised run in HYROX?

SIREN SEILER-VIKEN

A compromised run can be defined as running with residual fatigue from the previous station.

In HYROX, every run after the first starts in a fatigued state. It is not just about heavy legs. Your heart rate, ventilation, blood lactate concentration, and perceived exertion are all higher than they would be at the same pace in a fresh state.

This is why most people need to run the Hyrox 1-kms around 0.5-1.0 km/h below their second lactate turn point (LT2). By doing so, you use the runs to “recover” and restore your internal environment. By running below LT2, within the “threshold region,” your body can clear and reuse lactate produced during stations, helping you return closer to baseline and arrive at the next station in a better physiological state.

As your fitness and race experience improve, you'll become more efficient during transitions and better at recovering between stations, allowing you to maintain a faster overall pace.

Like a hybrid car recovering energy while cruising, your body can recycle energy-rich lactate and better prepare for the next surge in effort.

The best HYROX athletes RECOVER during the runs so they can PUSH the stations! This is why having a well-developed aerobic system is fundamental to HYROX.

How do I improve my running time in HYROX?

SIREN SEILER-VIKEN

The simplest way to improve your running time and your overall HYROX time is to do more endurance training.

Any endurance modality can help increase your cardiac output and maximal oxygen uptake, but if you want to become a more enduring runner, you have to run more.

HYROX training is an optimization game. Cover enough kilometers to improve running economy and LT2, but use rowing, SkiErg, or cycling to increase endurance volume without excessive mechanical impact.

The mistake most athletes make is doing too many hard, high-intensity HYROX-specific workouts, and not enough low-intensity endurance training to create the foundation.

The aerobic engine is usually the bottleneck in a HYROX race.

How do you pace yourself between HYROX stations?

SIREN SEILER-VIKEN

Run slower than you think you can.

Most athletes go out too hard and pay for it later. In general, your race pace should sit slightly below your LT2 pace because every station adds metabolic stress.

The fastest HYROX athletes are often the ones who slow down the least over the final third of the race, not the ones who start the fastest.

In my experience, heart rate is not a very good tool for controlling intensity during a Hyrox race due to the intermittent, stochastic nature of the event.

Try to really tune into your effort, how you are feeling, and listen to your breathing. If you are hyperventilating, you likely need to slow down and “catch your breath”.

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Strength and conditioning

A small group of basic lifts can raise the strength reserve you need for sleds, lunges, carries, and repeated high-force efforts.

What supplementary exercises should I do for HYROX?

SIREN SEILER-VIKEN

Focus on the basics: deep squats, Romanian deadlifts, regular deadlifts, Bulgarian split squats, calf raises, pull-ups/chins, rows, bench press, military press, and push-ups/dips.

These are all "examples" and you don't need to do them all together of course, but compound movements that target major muscle groups are the most potent for muscle hypertrophy/strength (rather than isolation "movement specific" exercises for instance).

Pair heavy strength training with long easy runs, threshold intervals (~85-90% of HRmax for highly trained athletes), complementary erg or cycling sessions depending on your overall training volume, and some high-intensity intervals or simulation sessions in the final four to six weeks before your race.

Remember, save the very high-intensity sessions (i.e., high zone 4-low 5) for the last 4-6 weeks leading up to your race! These sessions induce potent signals for adaptations, BUT they are highly stressful on the body – meaning they “cost” more than they “give” from a recovery perspective.

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Race day nutrition

The best pre-race nutrition is familiar, easy to digest, and practiced before competition day.

What should I eat before a HYROX race?

SIREN SEILER-VIKEN

Eat foods you are familiar with and tolerate well.

Focus on carbohydrates, hydration, and avoid excessive fibre in the hours before racing. In the final 60 to 90 minutes, sip a sports drink and choose easily digestible carbs such as dried fruit, honey, or an energy bar.

If you tolerate caffeine well, consume your preferred dose around 45 to 60 minutes before the start. If caffeine tends to make you anxious or spikes your heart rate, be cautious. Most importantly, practice your race-day nutrition in training and NEVER experiment on race day.

HYROX is a long endurance race, not a sprint, so fill your muscle glycogen stores in the 1-2 days leading up to the event and top off your liver glycogen on race morning and early afternoon with carbohydrate-rich meals.

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What athletes should remember

- Build the aerobic base first. Consistent endurance training and regular running support the entire race.

- Raise your strength ceiling with basic compound lifts, then add more race-specific local muscular endurance training as the event approaches.

- Practice moving from stations back into controlled running so you can manage breathing, effort, and pace under fatigue.

- Save the most demanding HYROX-specific sessions for the final training block and allow enough recovery between them.

- Test your pacing and nutrition in training. Race day should confirm a familiar plan rather than introduce a new one.

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