Fitness
Fitness Training
How do you develop skills for HYROX? Practise under contextual pressure
Most athletes think HYROX skills are about mastering the SkiErg, sleds or wall balls. The truth? The skills that separate podium finishers from the pack have little to do with learning new movements.
Winning in HYROX isn’t just about lifting heavier or rowing faster, it’s about mastering the skills that let you perform under pressure.
To begin with, what is a skill? At its core, a skill is a learned ability to complete a task that requires both practice and knowledge. It’s often seen as the foundation of athletic performance. However, a skill isn’t just something you have, it’s also about how you use your abilities in different situations.
Lucy Procter powering through the SkiErg station
© HYROX/Red Bull Content Pool
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What are HYROX skills?
This way of thinking shifts the focus from seeing skills as isolated techniques to understanding them as context-driven behaviours that adapt to the situation. In the fast-paced world of HYROX, this is especially important. Athletes need to constantly adjust to things like:
- Race-day conditions
- Equipment or judge requirements
- Their own physical and mental state
By looking at skills this way, we see that training isn’t just about perfecting technique, it’s also about developing awareness and adaptability to handle real HYROX race challenges. Within the HYROX Academy Coaching Course, I categorise skills into three main pillars:
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The three pillars of HYROX skills:
Alexander Rončević in action
© Brian Ching See Wing/Red Bull Content Pool
1. Resilience of movement efficiency and standards
This is the ability to maintain efficient, technically-sound movement patterns under the mounting fatigue of a HYROX race. As fatigue sets in across the stations, athletes who can preserve their technical form, waste less energy, move more consistently and sustain faster overall race pace without breaking standards or risking penalties.
2. Pacing intensity
This is the ability to judge and control effort relative to both the race demands and the competition around you. In HYROX, athletes must read their own fatigue while responding to the pace of others, surging to stay in contention or holding back to avoid burnout. Adjusting intensity strategically to outlast and outperform their opposition across the full race.
3. Decision making
This is the ability to make smart, tactical choices under pressure to optimise race position and performance in real time. In HYROX, athletes must adapt to changing race dynamics, deciding when to overtake, how to break up reps, or when to push versus conserve energy, making split-second calls that can determine overall ranking and finish time.
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HYROX coaches as architects of training
HYROX Elite 15 athlete Ida Mathilde Steensgaard
© Baptiste Fauchille/Red Bull Content Pool
According to Daniel Newcombe (writing in the 2021 book Nonlinear Pedagogy and the Athletic Skills Model), great coaches don’t just teach, they design the training environment. By shaping sessions with specific rules, challenges and pressures, they guide athletes to develop skills that transfer directly to race day.
One of Newcombe’s key concepts is the Funnel of Variability. Imagine a funnel: at the narrow end, training is highly controlled and focused on technical drills. At the wide end, training becomes unpredictable, mimicking the pressure and chaos of a real race. The funnel helps coaches progress skill development in a structured way:
- Narrow end (low variability): Isolated drills to learn proper movement, pacing and technique.
- Middle (moderate variability): Practice with opponents, small competitions or changing conditions.
- Wide end (high variability): Full race simulations with unpredictable challenges, forcing athletes to adapt, make decisions and perform under fatigue.
Using the Funnel of Variability, coaches can plan a season that gradually exposes athletes to more complexity and pressure, ensuring they are prepared for the demands of HYROX races.
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Example HYROX-specific skill workouts
Upping the intensity at the Red Bull HYROX Coaches Camp
© Leo Francis/Red Bull Content Pool
Workout 1: The ladder climb
- Format: Ladder tournament with group movement
- Objective: Win your heat to climb groups; avoid relegation
- Duration: 5–6 rounds (30–40 mins total)
- Workout block: 300m run → 50m burpee broad jump → 300m run
- Gamification:
- 3 groups (A/B/C), minimum 2-3 athletes each
- Top finisher moves up, bottom moves down, mid-finishers stay
- Rest 90s–2min between rounds
- Purpose: Skill development under race conditions, practise decision-making under fatigue, creates pressure through performance-based group changes
Workout 2: Chase pack
- Format: Group chase waves
- Objective: Catch or escape the chase pack
- Duration: 6–8 rounds (30–45 mins)
- Workout block: 200m run, 10 wall balls, 15m sandbag carry, 200m run
- Gamification: Athletes seeded in waves based on previous performance (A, B, C) – fastest wave starts last
- Each athlete must catch as many as possible: Each catch = +1 point; getting caught = -1 point
- Final round is mass start (all-out battle!)
- Purpose: Tactical pace judgment, builds closing speed under fatigue, simulates mid-race surges and being hunted
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Practise HYROX specific skills under race-like conditions
Perfecting the sled push at Red Bull HYROX Coaches Camp
© Leo Francis/Red Bull Content Pool
As training progresses, the Funnel of Variability opens to focus on race-specific, high-pressure scenarios. For HYROX, this means station transitions and paced compromised running at race intensity – directly against opponents within the race format. At these higher-variability stages, athletes face training that closely mirrors the demands of an actual HYROX race. Skills are tested under pressure and fatigue, giving athletes the chance to refine their technique, pacing and decision-making in realistic scenarios.
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The one mistake many elite and amateur HYROX athletes make
Many athletes, from beginners to elites, spend most of their time in drills or unopposed practice, environments that are controlled, technical and predictable. In contrast, a HYROX race sits at the opposite end of the funnel, requiring adaptability, tactical thinking and rapid decision-making under stress. This imbalance often leads to skills underperforming on race day, unless athletes have been deliberately exposed to higher-pressure, variable situations beforehand.
Coaches and athletes must consider planning for a range of variability within the training blocks leading up to a race. The aim is to not neglect a specific segment of the funnel of variability. Depending on the stage of athlete development, incorporating strategic training sessions that expose athletes throughout low - medium - high segments and reflecting on the outcomes means athletes enter the race environment with much more confident and consolidated skill sets.
About the author
Those involved in HYROX coaching, or looking to develop in that direction, can access the HYROX Coaches Summit – a two-day international event focused on coaching practice, leadership and the future direction of the sport.
