How to Structure Your HYROX Training Week: Run, Simulations and Strength

When training for a HYROX event, one of the most hardest elements is how you structure your week. HYROX demands a unique blend of strength, endurance, and functional fitness, and finding the right balance will help you maximise your performance without overtraining or burning out. But with so many aspects to consider, how do you put it all together?

Understanding the Components Of a Hyrox Training Week

A well-structured HYROX training week revolves around a few core elements:

Strength Training: Focused on compound lifts that build power and muscle endurance. These typically include deadlifts, squats, presses, and accessory movements that support them.
Endurance Work: HYROX is 50% running, so your training should include dedicated time for building your aerobic base through both long, steady-state sessions and interval work.
Functional Movements: From sled pushes and wall balls to burpees and farmers carries, HYROX involves functional movements that challenge your entire body.
Recovery: Training hard requires proper recovery, which includes rest days, mobility work, and active recovery to keep you fresh and injury-free.

Balancing Your Hyrox Training Days

How you balance strength, endurance, and functional movements depends largely on how many days you can dedicate to training. Here are some key ideas to help structure your week:

2-3 Days Available

When you have limited time, your sessions will need to be more comprehensive. Combining strength and endurance within each session helps you cover all the bases.

Full-body days might be beneficial, allowing you to hit all the major muscle groups while also incorporating running or other aerobic work.
Conditioning circuits or HYROX-specific workouts (like combining running with functional movements) can help build both strength and endurance in a time-efficient way.

4-5 Days Available

With more time, you can afford to break your sessions into more focused blocks, allowing each day to target specific elements of HYROX training without overloading any one area.

Strength-focused days might center around the main lifts (squats, deadlifts, presses), with functional accessory movements to complement them.
Running sessions could vary between longer endurance efforts and interval or threshold training to build both stamina and speed.
HYROX-specific workouts, which combine running with HYRO stations, could be included once or twice a week.

6 Days Available

For those with nearly a full week to train, there’s more room to separate out different training modalities while still allowing time for recovery.

Strength days can be divided between upper-body and lower-body focus or push pull, while running can be broken into different types (tempo, threshold, steady-state).
Interval days might be introduced to target aerobic capacity, and HYROX race simulations could feature more prominently as race day approaches.
There’s also more opportunity to dedicate a day to active recovery or light mobility work, ensuring proper recovery between heavier training days.

Key Considerations for Structuring Your Week

1. Strength and Endurance Balance

When building your week, consider how strength and endurance complement each other. Strength training days often follow a lower volume for aerobic work, while endurance-focused days (such as running or conditioning) can benefit from lighter, mobility-focused strength work.

2. Variety of Intensity

Mixing high-intensity and low-intensity days is important. After intense days of conditioning or heavy strength work, follow it with a lighter day or a mobility-focused session to aid recovery. Keeping your week varied in intensity ensures you’re not overloading your system.

3. Progressive Overload

Make sure your week reflects the principle of progressive overload—gradually increasing your training volume or intensity over time. Whether it’s by increasing weight on strength days, adding distance to your runs, or cutting rest periods in conditioning circuits, building up slowly allows for sustained progress.

4. Adaptability

It’s important that your structure is flexible. If you’re feeling fatigued, it’s okay to adjust the intensity or volume of your workouts. Similarly, if you're progressing well, you might add in an extra session or increase the difficulty of a particular workout. Adapting your training to how your body feels ensures longevity and consistency.

Organising Your Week by Priorities

No matter how many days you have available, it’s essential to structure your week based on your goals and priorities:

If running is your weak point, you might prioritise two dedicated running sessions and one or two hybrid sessions where you combine running with functional movements.
If strength is the focus, consider two to three dedicated strength sessions with accessory work targeting weak areas, leaving the rest of the week for conditioning and mobility.
If you’re balancing both strength and endurance, keep the days focused, ensuring that your running and strength work complement each other without overloading similar muscle groups back-to-back.

Sample Week Structures

2 Days Per Week:

Day 1: Full-body strength and conditioning (combine running with functional movements like sled pushes, wall balls)
Day 2: Long run or steady-state aerobic work with core and mobility work

4 Days Per Week:

Day 1: Lower-body strength + short, intense metcon
Day 2: Tempo or interval running session
Day 3: Upper-body strength + core work
Day 4: HYROX-specific session (running mixed with functional movements)

6 Days Per Week:

Day 1: Lower-body strength
Day 2: Threshold run (intervals)
Day 3: Upper-body strength + functional accessory work
Day 4: HYROX-specific conditioning (sled push, wall balls, farmers carry)
Day 5: Long steady-state aerobic run or row
Day 6: Light, active recovery or mobility work

Final Thoughts

The way you structure your HYROX training week will depend on how much time you have and where your priorities lie. By balancing strength, endurance, and functional work, and adapting the week based on your progress, you can ensure steady improvement without overloading yourself.

If you're looking for help with your HYROX programming then get in touch or check out our programmes HERE. Or, for our performance accelerator for more personalised help with your running performance.