She’d booked the week before she really knew what Hyrox was. A friend had done one in Manchester and wouldn’t stop talking about it, and that was enough. Then somewhere over the Bay of Bengal she watched a race video on her phone and felt her stomach drop. People hauling sleds across the floor. Eighty metres of burpees. A whole wall of bodies throwing medicine balls at a line above their heads. By the time she landed on Samui she’d half-convinced herself she’d made a mistake.
I’ve had a version of that conversation by the kit more times than I can count. The woman I’m describing is a composite, not one particular guest, but every coach here would know her on sight: fit enough to be fine, nervous as anything, certain that Hyrox is for the shredded people on Instagram and not for her.
What I told her is what I’ll tell you. You don’t need to be good at Hyrox before you start. It’s a format, not a talent. Once the format makes sense, most of the fear drains out of it.
Her first session, we didn’t time a thing. We walked through the movements one at a time, scaled the weights right down, and let her feel what each one asked of her. By the end of the morning she’d had a go at all eight stations. Sweaty, a little wobbly, grinning. The race video that had terrified her on the plane looked very different once she’d pushed a sled ten metres herself.
So what is Hyrox, exactly?
Hyrox is a fitness race. The same race, run the same way, everywhere in the world. You run one kilometre, then you do one functional workout station, and you repeat that eight times. Eight runs, eight stations, finishing on the last one. That’s the whole thing.
It’s held indoors, usually in a big exhibition hall, with everyone on the same course. There’s no qualifying time to get in and no cut-off to beat on the day. Officially it’s billed as a race “for every body”, and for once the marketing is accurate. The start pens are full of first-timers, club runners, ex-rugby players and people well into their sixties, all on the same floor.
The eight Hyrox stations, in order
The order never changes, which is the single most reassuring thing about it. You always know what’s coming. You run a kilometre before each one, so by the end you’ve also run eight kilometres.
- SkiErg, 1000m. A standing cardio machine you pull down with both arms. Feels friendly for about thirty seconds.
- Sled push, 50m. A weighted sled shoved up the floor in four lengths. This is the one that surprises everybody, because race turf is far heavier going than a gym floor.
- Sled pull, 50m. The same sled, now dragged back to you hand over hand on a rope.
- Burpee broad jumps, 80m. Drop, jump forward, repeat, all the way down the lane. Most people’s least favourite.
- Rowing, 1000m. The station people underestimate. After a kilometre of running your legs are already gone, and the row asks for them again.
- Farmers carry, 200m. Two kettlebells, off you go. Simple, until your grip starts arguing.
- Sandbag lunges, 100m. A sandbag across your shoulders, walking lunges, back knee touching the floor on every rep.
- Wall balls, 100 reps. Squat, throw a medicine ball up to a target, catch it, repeat. A hundred times. It’s the last thing you do, and you’ll remember it.
The distances are fixed everywhere. The weights depend on your division: in the Open category a woman pushes a 102kg sled and throws a 4kg ball, a man pushes 152kg and throws 6kg, and the Pro category loads everything heavier. For your first race, the exact numbers matter far less than knowing the order and pacing yourself into it.
Singles, doubles and relay
You can race Hyrox on your own, which is the Singles format and the one most people picture. You can also do it as a Doubles pair, running every kilometre together and splitting the station work between you however you like. Or as a relay of four, where you each take two runs and two stations and hand over.
For a nervous first-timer, Doubles is a lovely way in. You’re never alone on the floor, you halve the reps at each station, and you’ve got someone to laugh with when the wall balls bite. A lot of the couples who come to us do their first one as a pair for exactly that reason.
Is it actually beginner-friendly?
Yes, and I’d go further. It might be one of the most beginner-friendly events in endurance sport, because every movement scales. Can’t run a full kilometre yet? You jog and walk it. Sled too heavy? We take plates off. There’s a version of every station that meets you where you are, which is the whole reason to train for it somewhere with coaches watching rather than turning up cold on the day. If you’re not even sure Hyrox is your thing, our Complete Fitness week folds the same running and functional work into a broader programme, so you can try the movements without committing to a race at all.
What’s a good Hyrox time?
Here’s the honest answer, and it’s the bit I most want first-timers to hear. The average finishing time across all Hyrox racers sits around the 90-minute mark, but that figure is dragged down by people on their fifth or sixth race who know every transition by heart. A genuine first-timer usually finishes somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours, and that is a completely respectable day’s work.
So forget the clock for your first one. Really. Chasing a number you read on a website will only push you to sprint the opening kilometre, blow up by station three, and spend the back half miserable. The people who enjoy their first Hyrox are the ones who set out to finish it, not to race it. The time gets interesting on your second go, when you’ve got a result of your own to beat. On the first, the only target that matters is the last wall ball.
The guest I started with finished her week having done a full scaled run-through of every station, out in the heat, before the sun got high. What she said at the end was what most people say: that the thought of it had been far scarier than the doing of it. If you want to learn the runs and the stations properly before you ever pin a number to your chest, that’s what the Muay Thai & Hyrox week is built around. We’ll start you wherever you are, sled included.
