HYROX training plan for beginners: what every week needs

A HYROX® training plan for beginners needs three sessions a week at the least and four to do the job: a run straight after station work, a 1 km interval session, a day on your two weakest stations, and an easy long run that starts at 8 km, the race’s own running distance. The race sets that mix: in the 2025/26 season the eight runs were 47% of the average Open men’s finish and 48% of the women’s, and every run after the first starts on legs a station has just tired.

Most beginners race Open or doubles. In 2025/26 the median Open finish was 1:27:52 for men and 1:36:19 for women, and 91% of Open men and 85% of Open women finished inside two hours. This page sets out what each session is for and why, how many a week, which must never sit next to each other, what changes over the weeks, the loads to train with, and how to know you’re ready. If the race itself is new to you, start with what HYROX is.

What does a HYROX race ask of a beginner?

Eight 1 km runs, each followed by a station: SkiErg 1000 m, sled push 50 m, sled pull 50 m, burpee broad jumps 80 m, row 1000 m, farmers carry 200 m, sandbag lunges 100 m, then 100 wall balls. Between each run and station you cross the roxzone, and the clock keeps running there. Three things follow for a beginner’s training:

• Running is the biggest part of the finish. In the posts behind the rules on this page, 1,153 HYROX athletes named running as what limited their race; 9 named strength.
• The runs are run on tired legs. For the median Open man, run 3, straight after the sled push, took 23 seconds longer than run 2, after the SkiErg.
• The stations do not cost the same. Between the median and the top quarter of Open men, the wall balls differ by 83 seconds and the SkiErg by 13. Training all eight equally spends most of the week where the time isn’t.

What should a beginner’s training week contain?

Four kinds of session, and lifting folded into one of them. Each exists for one of the race’s demands above.

• A run straight after station work. Station work at race load, then 1 km at race pace, repeated. It trains the thing a beginner has never felt: running on legs a sled or a set of lunges has just loaded. The kilometre never grows in this session. It is the race’s own distance.
• 1 km intervals. Repeats at the race’s own distance, a little slower than your fresh 1 km pace, with a walk between. Fourteen of the seventeen athletes who reported a faster race and described their week ran a separate interval or threshold session.
• A station day on your two weakest stations. At your division’s race load, for a four-week block, then check the two again. When they change, the block changes. The mistake athletes report most is training all eight stations equally every week.
• An easy long run. At a pace you could talk at, starting at 8 km so that by the end of the first week you have run the race’s distance in one go, and growing from there.
• Lifting, twice a week, never more than three times. Seven of the nine athletes who got faster and said how often they lifted did two or three strength sessions a week. At three or four sessions, the lifting goes on the day of the run after station work, the day that is already hard.

How many sessions a week does a beginner need?

Three is the least that still holds every rule below; four is where all four session types fit. The athletes who got faster and gave a count trained between four and ten times a week, most often five or six, so four is a start, not a ceiling.

• Three sessions: the run after station work with the lifting, the station day, and the long run. The intervals are the session that drops, and the station day ends with a little station-into-run work so the week still holds three runs.
• Four sessions: all four types, with the lifting on the day of the run after station work.
• Five sessions: strength moves to a day of its own, a squat, a hinge and a press, and the run after station work stands alone.

Which sessions should never follow each other?

Three rules decide where the days fall. Any week that keeps them works; the order is yours.

1. Never a quality run the day after heavy legs. A quality run is the run after station work, an interval session or a race rehearsal; heavy legs means squats, deadlifts, lunges or sleds. Athletes who ran hard on legs still wrecked from squats describe building fatigue, not fitness.
2. Keep the long run 48 hours from any sled session, before it and after it.
3. At four sessions a week or fewer, never two hard days back to back. The run after station work, a rehearsal and heavy legs are the hard days.

What changes from week to week?

Less than beginners expect. Loads and the 1 km stay where they are; volume moves.

• The weekly running climbs every week until the last few before the race. The athletes who got faster and gave their volume ran 15 to 50 km a week.
• The long run grows toward 75 minutes at an easy pace.
• The interval count grows; the interval distance never does.
• The two stations change only when a check says so, at the end of each four-week block or after a race.
• The race gets rehearsed twice: a full simulation eight weeks before it, and a half simulation, every distance halved, three weeks before. Each replaces that week’s long run.
• The taper cuts rounds and repetitions, by 40% in the week before race week and by 60% in race week. Paces and loads stay, and nothing with a barbell in the last six days.

The reasons behind each rule, with their evidence, and how a twelve-week build is divided into phases, are in how to train for HYROX.

Where is the plan itself?

In Rivo. The Plan writes each week out, session by session, from your Number and your race date: the running, the strength and the stations, a run after station work every week, every four-week block aimed at the two stations costing you the most, and loads for your sex and division. The sessions go to the Apple Watch Workout app; Rivo is on the iPhone and the Apple Watch only. The Plan has a 14-day free trial. The free Number below needs no account and is where it starts: it names the stations costing you the most time, in seconds.

What weight should a beginner train with?

Train at your division’s race load from the first week. If you can’t move it for the full distance yet, go lighter and finish every round; add load before you add speed.

Station	Open women	Open men
Sled push	102 kg 225 lb	152 kg 335 lb
Sled pull	78 kg 172 lb	103 kg 227 lb
Farmers carry	2 × 16 kg 2 × 35 lb	2 × 24 kg 2 × 53 lb
Sandbag lunges	10 kg 22 lb	20 kg 44 lb
Wall ball	4 kg 9 lb	6 kg 13 lb
Wall ball target	2.7 m 8 ft 10 in	3 m 9 ft 10 in

HYROX rules, seasons 2025/26 and 2026/27. Sled weights include the sled; each sled goes 50 m, four lengths of 12.5 m. Farmers carry 200 m, sandbag lunges 100 m, wall balls 100. The SkiErg, row and burpee broad jumps carry no load.

Racing doubles? The weights are not lighter. Women’s doubles race the Open women’s loads; men’s and mixed doubles race the Open men’s, so in a mixed pair the woman trains for the 152 kg sled too, and throws the 6 kg ball to her own 2.7 m target. The pair splits every station however it likes, and both partners run every kilometre. Pro and doubles loads, in kg and lb, are in the HYROX weights guide.

Can you train for HYROX at home, without a sled?

Yes. Each station has stand-ins, in order of preference: use the first one you have. Every list ends in something that needs no equipment, so every session type works with running shoes and a floor. In the posts behind these rules, 426 came from athletes with no sled or no SkiErg to train on.

• Sled push: prowler, plate push, weighted backward walk, leg-press sets; with no equipment, an incline backward walk.
• Sled pull: rope-pull machine, heavy row, band pull; with no equipment, an inverted row.
• SkiErg: rower, assault bike, dumbbell overhead work; with no equipment, burpees.
• Row: SkiErg, bike; with no equipment, burpees.
• Burpee broad jumps: need nothing.
• Farmers carry: dumbbells, kettlebells, a trap bar; with no equipment, carry anything heavy.
• Sandbag lunges: dumbbells; with no equipment, walking lunges.
• Wall balls: dumbbell thrusters, a goblet squat and press; with no equipment, jump squats.

How do you find your two weakest stations?

Your two stations are the two costing you the most time, and most athletes guess them wrong. If you have raced, set your splits beside the averages of finishers in the same five minutes, in the HYROX splits guide: the two stations where you are furthest behind are yours. If you haven’t raced, Rivo’s free Number takes three numbers, your 5 km time and your sled push and sled pull times, and returns a predicted finish with the range it could land in and, under it, the station costing you the most time, in seconds. No account. Time the sleds if you can; a best guess still works.

What mistakes do beginners make in HYROX training?

• Training all eight stations equally. The most reported mistake. Two stations, four weeks, then check again.
• Running and lifting on separate days only. The race never lets you run fresh after the first kilometre. Once a week, the run has to come straight off a station.
• A hard run the day after squats. It builds fatigue, not fitness, and it is the rule beginners break most easily when a week gets busy.
• A light sled. Race weight includes the sled. Weigh it, or the first real push comes on race day.
• Racing the long run. It is easy on purpose. The speed comes from the intervals.
• Never practising the roxzone. Transitions come up in 1,147 posts as the part of the race nobody trains, and for Open men finishing ten minutes apart they hold 1:12 of the gap. The two rehearsals are where you drill them.

How do you know you’re ready for your first HYROX?

• You have run 8 km in one go.
• You have run 1 km straight off a station, more than once, every week for at least four weeks.
• You have done every station at race load, at least half its race distance.
• You know your two weakest stations and have trained them for a block.

What if your race is less than three weeks away?

Stop building and taper. Cut rounds and repetitions by 40% in the week before race week and by 60% in race week; keep the paces and the loads, put nothing with a barbell in the last six days, and make the two days before the race a short easy run or rest.

How long will your first HYROX take?

No public result marks a first race, so judge a first time against your division. In 2025/26, half of all Open men finished under 1:27:52 and half of all Open women under 1:36:19; one in ten took longer than 1:57:33 and 2:07:31. Doubles teams finish faster: the median mixed team took 1:23:04, and every team type is in HYROX doubles times. Every division and age group is in what’s a good HYROX time.

How these numbers were made

• Race data: 702,095 public HYROX results from 98 venues, season 2025/26, read with pyrox-client (an independent open-source client) and loaded 2 September 2026; only results with all 16 splits and a finish of 40 to 300 minutes. Medians are each group’s middle result; doubles times are team times.
• The training rules come from 108,244 public posts and comments by HYROX athletes and the athletes in them who reported a faster race and described their training; they are set out with their evidence in how to train for HYROX.
• Loads are the HYROX rulebook’s for the 2025/26 and 2026/27 seasons.