How to run a HYROX sim at your gym

Pick a date and a format

Book a date 6 to 10 weeks out and choose how much of the race you will run.

Most gyms run their sim 4 to 8 weeks before a big official race in their region, when members want a dress rehearsal. Check the local race calendar and pick a Saturday or Sunday morning when the gym can close its main floor for 4 to 6 hours.

Then choose the format. A full sim is 8 × 1 km runs, each followed by one of the eight stations: 1,000 m SkiErg, 50 m sled push, 50 m sled pull, 80 m burpee broad jumps, 1,000 m row, 200 m farmers carry, 100 m sandbag lunges and 100 wall balls. If space or time is tight, a half sim (8 × 500 m runs, half distances), a 6 × 6 or an 8 × 8 with shorter runs gives the same feel in less time. Youngstars categories with shorter courses let juniors race on the same day.

On HRP you can run several formats in one event: full sim for the main field, half for first-timers and Youngstars for juniors, each with its own course and leaderboard. See how it works

Plan the floor: the run loop, the Roxzone and the stations

Mark a run loop, a Roxzone entry and exit, and one area per station.

Measure a run loop you can repeat: a 250 m loop run four times makes 1 km, and outside or a car park works if the gym floor is small. Put the stations inside a Roxzone, the area athletes walk through between the run and the station, with one marked entry and one exit so a judge can see every athlete arrive and leave.

Lay the stations out in race order so athletes flow in one direction. Leave room for queues at the sleds and the ergs, which are the stations that back up first.

Count the equipment you need

One lane per station per athlete racing at the same time, plus spares.

The number of athletes you can start together is set by your slowest-to-clear station, usually the sled or the SkiErg. With 4 SkiErgs, 4 rowers and 2 sled lanes, waves of 6 to 8 athletes keep the floor moving.

Match the race weights for each category (Open and Pro, men and women) on the sleds, farmers carry handles, sandbags and wall balls, and have the targets marked on the wall-ball wall. Spare wall balls and a second sled save a wave when something breaks.

Set categories, waves and prices

Open and Pro singles, doubles and relays, in waves 10 to 20 minutes apart.

Offer the categories your members race: Men and Women Open and Pro, Mixed, Men's and Women's Doubles, and relays if you have the numbers. Start waves every 10 to 20 minutes depending on the format and how many lanes you have; the first wave goes off an hour before the busiest part of the day so the floor fills gradually.

Price per athlete, set to cover equipment, judges and the floor time, with a lower members' price if you want to reward regulars. Doubles are usually priced per person. Selling places online with the booking built in means you know your waves before race day and can see who has paid.

HRP takes bookings and payments straight into your own Stripe account, with members' prices, doubles and team places, and builds the waves from who booked. See how it works

Brief your judges

One judge per two or three stations, one at the run loop, one on the start.

Judges count reps, check movement standards and record when each athlete arrives and leaves a station. Give each one a short brief: the standards for their stations, what a no-rep looks like, and what to do if an athlete stops.

Paper timing sheets work for a handful of athletes but fall apart with a full floor. Judges tapping on a phone when each athlete finishes a run or station gives you every split without anyone typing times up afterwards.

On HRP each judge opens a link on their own phone, taps once per athlete per station, and counts wall-ball reps on screen. No accounts, no chips, no hardware, and it keeps working offline. See how it works

Time every run and station

Splits for all 16 segments plus the Roxzone are what athletes want afterwards.

A finish time on its own is the least interesting number on the day. What athletes come back for is the breakdown: each run, each station, the time lost in the Roxzone and how their pace held up in the second half.

Start each wave with one tap, have judges tap each athlete through, and the splits build themselves. Undo a mis-tap on the spot rather than fixing it later.

Put a live leaderboard on the gym TV

A live board makes it a race for the people watching, not just the people racing.

A screen showing where every athlete is, who is on pace for a PB and who just broke a gym record turns a training session into an event. Spectators stay, members bring friends and the photos are better.

Any TV with a browser does it. Lane views for each station, an arena view for the whole field and a finish card when each athlete comes in all run from the same live data your judges are tapping.

Run race day

Check-in, a warm-up briefing, waves on time, results as they finish.

Open check-in 45 minutes before the first wave. Run a two-minute briefing per wave covering the run loop, the Roxzone and the standards. Start waves on time even if the floor is busy; a late wave pushes every wave after it.

Keep one person free to float: fixing a sled, re-taping a lane or covering a judge's break.

Publish results the same day

Results, splits and gym records out while people still care.

Publish results within an hour of the last finisher. Athletes share their splits that evening; a week later nobody looks.

Every result should show the full split breakdown, how the athlete compares with the field and their previous sims, and the gym records that fell. Then ask who wants the next one and book the date while the room is still buzzing.

With HRP, results publish from the timing in one click, every athlete gets a full breakdown and share cards, and the next sim copies your categories and waves across. See how it works