The sled push and pull take a few minutes and decide what the rest of your race looks like. Technique here is worth more than fitness.
Loads vary by division and HYROX revises them between seasons — check the current rulebook. What follows does not change.
Get low and keep the sled in close, with your center of weight dropped over it.
Standing tall puts your force into the floor instead of the sled. Arms in tight with your body weight over the poles means your legs drive it, not your shoulders and triceps.
Choppy, high-frequency steps with constant contact. Push the floor backwards.
Long strides let the sled decelerate between pushes, and restarting a stationary sled is the most expensive thing you can do on this station.
Break before your legs blow up, not after.
A short planned stop with legs that still work costs seconds. Grinding until they give out costs the rest of the sled, and the next run. Halfway or the end of a length are both fine; the point is you choose it.
The sled is the one station you cannot fake or substitute. Come push a real one at race weight.
Book A Free Class →Open up your hips, lean back and drop your body weight into the rope. Your arms are hooks, not engines.
Arm-pulling works for about fifteen meters and then your forearms are finished, with the farmers carry still ahead of you. Let your body weight move the sled and your arms just hold on.
Reach far but don't overextend. Walk back as you pull, and don't touch the line behind you.
Reaching past your balance point costs you the lean. Walking backward inside the box as you pull keeps the rope moving and the sled from stalling. Step on the line behind you and it is a penalty, so know where it is before you start.
Find a rhythm you can hold for the whole length and stay in it.
Bursts and pauses let the sled stall and cost far more force to restart than a steady pull ever needs. Same reach, same lean, same step, every time, and you arrive at the next run with your grip still working.
The honest test: if you cannot complete one full length at race weight with clean form when fresh, technique is not your problem. Strength is. Fix that and the station stops being frightening.
Which is exactly why technique needs eyes on it. One free class, coach on the floor.
Book A Free Class →Reading is the easy part. If you want this coached instead of self-directed, Maverick (men) and ATHENA (women) are our online teams — a real roster and a coach who answers you, not a template you follow alone.
You have read how it should be done. This is what it actually looks like written out — a full week of real FTX programming, the same work our members did last week.
