The Three Best HYROX Workouts You Can Do at Home
Three home sessions that train what actually transfers to a HYROX race — with an honest station-by-station verdict on what a backpack can replace and what only a sled and an erg can teach.
You cannot build a sled in your living room. You can build almost everything the sled exposes.
Three of the eight HYROX stations need machinery you will not have at home — the SkiErg, the rower and the sleds. The other five need a backpack and a bit of floor. And the half of the race nobody can outsource, the eight kilometres of running under fatigue, needs nothing but a door. Here are three home workouts that train what actually transfers, with the honest limits stated rather than papered over.
In short: Home training cannot replicate a HYROX race, and any workout that claims to is selling something. What it trains very well is running under fatigue, burpee broad jumps, lunges, squat and thruster endurance, grip and carries, and general work capacity. Do one or two of these sessions a week alongside your running and strength work — not all three stacked on top of everything else.
Last reviewed: August 2026. Station order, distances and weights checked against the official HYROX rulebook. General training information, not medical advice.
What you can and cannot train at home
Trains well at home: running under fatigue, burpee broad jumps, walking lunges, squat and thruster endurance, carries and grip, and the general work capacity that lets you keep moving when a station has taken the legs out of you.
Does not train at home: the SkiErg, the rower, and the sled push and pull. These are machine-specific in a way that does not substitute. The sled in particular is a skill as much as a strength test — body position, how much force it takes to start a stationary sled, and how differently it behaves on a venue floor versus your gym.
That distinction matters for how you use these sessions. They build the engine and the muscular endurance that the whole race runs on. If your race is close, get to a sled and an erg a handful of times anyway; nothing here replaces that.
Workout 1: Bodyweight HYROX engine
Equipment: none. The entry point, and the one to do if you are only going to do one.
| Format | 4 rounds |
| Run | 600–800 m |
| Then | 15 burpee broad jumps |
| 30 walking lunges | |
| 30 air squats | |
| Rest | 60–90 s between rounds, as needed |
Scaling. Beginner: 3 rounds, 400–600 m, 10 burpee broad jumps, 20 lunges, 20 squats. Experienced: 5 rounds, or cut the rest to 45 seconds rather than adding reps.
No running route? Replace the run with 3–4 minutes of stairs, step-ups or brisk cardio. It is not the same stimulus, but it keeps the shape of the session — hard aerobic work, then floor work on tired legs.
Why it works. The point is not to match a race distance. It is the transition: leaving the run and immediately doing something that needs your legs is the specific thing HYROX asks for eight times, and it is trainable with nothing at all. Keep the repetitions clean as you tire — sloppy burpee broad jumps under fatigue rehearse exactly the habit that earns no-reps on race day.
Workout 2: Backpack strength-endurance
Equipment: a loaded backpack, or dumbbells or kettlebells. This one covers the carry, the lunges and the wall-ball-shaped work.
| Format | 4 rounds |
| Run | 600–800 m |
| Then | 50–100 m farmers carry (dumbbells, kettlebells or two heavy bags) |
| 20 weighted walking lunges (backpack or dumbbells) | |
| 20–30 backpack or dumbbell thrusters | |
| 10–15 burpees | |
| Rest | 90 s between rounds |
Scaling. Beginner: 3 rounds, lighter load, 10 lunges and 15 thrusters. Experienced: 5 rounds, or heavier carry — the carry is the safest place to add load.
Load choice. Heavy enough that the last few reps of the round are genuinely hard, light enough that the whole round is unbroken. If you are setting the backpack down mid-carry every round, it is too heavy for what this session is for.
On thrusters. A thruster is not a wall ball. There is no throw, no catch and no target, and the wall ball's difficulty comes substantially from the eccentric catch over 100 repetitions. What the thruster does share is the squat-to-press endurance and the breathing pattern, which is worth training when you have no ball and no wall. If you do have a medicine ball and a suitable target, do wall balls instead — at 6 kg to 3 m for Men Open and 4 kg to 2.7 m for Women Open.
Workout 3: Race-prep intervals
Equipment: whatever you have. The closest a home session gets to the race, and the hardest of the three.
| Round | Run | Station |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 800 m or 4 min brisk cardio | 20 burpee broad jumps |
| 2 | 800 m | 40 walking lunges |
| 3 | 800 m | 40 goblet or air squats |
| 4 | 800 m | 100 m farmers carry, or a 60 s heavy hold |
| 5 | 800 m | 30 thrusters |
Rest 90 seconds between rounds.
Scaling. Beginner: 3 rounds, half the repetitions. Experienced: 5–6 rounds, or more load — but not at the cost of technique. Speed bought with a collapsing lunge is not speed you will have on race day.
Progression across a block: add a round before you add repetitions, and add repetitions before you cut the rest. Cutting rest is the most aggressive of the three and the one that turns a repeatable session into one you dread.
These are sessions. A block is what makes them count.
One or two of these a week fits inside a HYROX plan — alongside the running, the strength work and a taper timed to your race. The plan is what decides which one you do this week.
Substituting the eight stations
Honest ratings, station by station.
1
SkiErg
Not close · hard cardio plus overhead pulling
2
Sled push
Complementary · heavy squats, lunges, step-ups, hills
3
Sled pull
Complementary · rows, band pulls, heavy carries
4
Burpee broad jumps
Identical · free, and nobody wants to do them
5
Rowing
Conditioning only · running, bike, stairs
6
Farmers carry
Very close · dumbbells or two heavy shopping bags
7
Sandbag lunges
Close · loaded backpack lunges
8
Wall balls
Close with a ball, partial without · thrusters
| Station | Home substitute | How close is it? |
|---|---|---|
| SkiErg 1,000 m | Hard cardio plus overhead or straight-arm pulling work if you have bands | Not close. Different movement, different demand |
| Sled push 50 m | Heavy squats, walking lunges, step-ups, hill sprints | Complementary, not a substitute. Builds the legs; teaches none of the skill |
| Sled pull 50 m | Rows, band pulls, heavy carries for grip | Complementary. Trains the pulling strength, not the rope handling |
| Burpee broad jumps 80 m | Burpee broad jumps | Identical. Free, and nobody wants to do them |
| Row 1,000 m | Running, bike, stairs | Conditioning only. Same energy system, different muscles |
| Farmers carry 200 m | Dumbbells, kettlebells, two heavy shopping bags | Very close. Load and distance are what matter |
| Sandbag lunges 100 m | Loaded backpack lunges | Close. A backpack sits differently from a sandbag, but the demand is the same |
| 100 wall balls | Wall balls if you have a ball and a target; otherwise thrusters | Close with a ball, partial without |
The pattern is clear: five of the eight are trainable at home, and the three that are not are all machines. That is a much better position than "you need a full gym", and a much worse one than "you can train HYROX entirely at home".
How often should you do these?
One or two a week, alongside your running and your strength training. Not three, and not on top of an unchanged week.
These are hard sessions. Each one is a genuine conditioning stimulus, and stacking all three onto a week that already contains intervals, a long run and two lifting sessions is how people arrive at race week tired rather than sharp. If you add one of these, take something out — usually the interval session it most resembles.
If you have no plan at all yet, the honest hierarchy for a first HYROX is: running first, strength second, station-specific work third. Our three-days-a-week HYROX plan shows what that looks like when time is short, and the HYROX running plan covers the running half properly.
The common mistakes
- Calling a home workout a race simulation. It is not one, and believing it is will surprise you at the sled.
- Training the stations and neglecting the running. Half the race is running, and it is the half that decays fastest when ignored.
- Adding burpees and lunges without any progression. Doing the same session at the same volume for twelve weeks is maintenance, not training.
- Buying speed with technique. Especially the lunges, and especially in round four.
- Making every session maximal. If all three of these are all-out every week, none of them is.
Frequently asked questions
Can I train for HYROX entirely at home?
You can prepare a large part of it — the running, the burpee broad jumps, the lunges, the carries and the squat endurance are all trainable with a backpack and some floor. What you cannot prepare at home is the SkiErg, the rower and the two sleds. If your race is booked, get to a gym with a sled a handful of times; the body position and the effort required to start a loaded sled do not transfer from anything else.
Do I need a SkiErg or a rower at home?
No. They are expensive, they take up a lot of room, and their conditioning benefit can be approximated by running, cycling or stairs. What they give you that other cardio does not is the specific pacing and technique of those two stations, which is worth a few sessions in a gym rather than a purchase.
What can I do instead of the sled push?
Heavy squats, walking lunges, step-ups and hill sprints all build the leg strength and drive the sled asks for, so they are useful complements. None of them teaches the skill — the low body position and the force needed to get a stationary sled moving. Treat home leg work as the strength half and get on a real sled for the technique half.
What equipment is actually worth buying for home HYROX training?
In order of value for money: a pair of adjustable dumbbells or two kettlebells (carries, lunges, thrusters), a sturdy backpack you can load (lunges and squats, close to the sandbag), and a medicine ball only if you have a wall and enough ceiling for a legal target height. Ergs and sleds come far down the list for home use.
The bottom line
- Five of the eight stations train well at home. The three that do not are all machines.
- Running under fatigue is the most transferable thing you can train, and it needs no equipment at all.
- One or two of these sessions a week, inside a plan — not three, stacked on top of everything else.
- Do not call it a simulation. The sled will settle that argument for you.
Put these inside a plan built for your race
Tell us your race date, the days you can train and the equipment you actually have — including none. Your coach builds the running, the strength work and the station work in the right proportion, and tells you which session this week is.