HYROX Equipment Guide: What You Need to Own and What You Can Fake at Home

You’ve signed up for a HYROX, and now you’re looking at a list of machines, sleds, and sandbags wondering how much of it you need to own.

Less than you’d think. Below is every piece of HYROX equipment used in the race, station by station, then what’s worth buying, what you can improvise at home, and the 2 machines you can’t.

The HYROX Equipment Used on Race Day

Every race has the same format: 8 runs of 1 km, each followed by 1 station. The stations never change. The weights do, by division. These numbers are from the 2026/27 HYROX singles rulebook.

Sled weights include the sled. The wall ball target is 2.70 m for women and 3.00 m for men. Concept2 supplies the official SkiErgs and rowers, so that’s what you’ll race on.

Add up the runs and you cover 8 km. On an average finish of close to 90 minutes, running takes more than half the time, most of it on legs that just came off a station. Your shoes are the HYROX equipment you’ll use the most.

A gym that wants to coach HYROX athletes needs everything in that table. You need access to most of it, some of the time.

What to Buy, What to Fake, and What You Can’t Replace

Buy: Kettlebells, a Sandbag, and a Wall Ball

These sit at the cheap end of the list and they’re what you’ll race with. The farmers carry uses 2 kettlebells, the lunges use a sandbag across your shoulders, and the wall ball is a wall ball. None of them are worth improvising.

Heavy kettlebells aren’t pocket change, but buy your division’s weights once and 3 of the 8 stations are covered. The only thing you rig up yourself is the wall ball target: a strip of tape on a solid wall at 2.70 m or 3.00 m. The kettlebells also earn their floor space outside race prep, since one bell covers strength, power, and conditioning on its own.

Fake: The Sled

A competition sled and carpet track is the most expensive, most space hungry part of a full setup. It’s also the easiest to improvise. A basic sled on grass or turf, a heavy sandbag dragged on a strap, or a tire on a rope all train the same leg drive.

What none of them match is the friction of race carpet, so the weight on your sled at home tells you nothing about the weight on race day. Train the effort: 50 m of pushing that takes everything you have, then 50 m of pulling.

Can’t Replace: The SkiErg and the Rower

Nothing at home copies the SkiErg’s pull or the rowing stroke. Band pulldowns and battle rope slams give you some of the conditioning without the movement.

The rower is the one you’re more likely to keep using after race day, because it’s solid conditioning for anyone. If you’re buying one machine, make it that. For the SkiErg, plan on a gym. A handful of sessions on a real one before race day beats showing up having never touched it.

Free: Running

The 8 runs take up more than half of an average race and need nothing but shoes and a route. If you change one thing about your training, run more.

What to Buy First

If you’re building toward a HYROX from home, spend in this order.

1. A sandbag, a wall ball, and a pair of kettlebells at your division’s weights. That covers the lunges, the wall balls, and the farmers carry.
2. A rower, if you have the budget and the floor space.
3. Nothing else. The SkiErg and a competition sled can live at your gym until you’re several races in.

A gym selling HYROX classes needs the full setup. You need 3 cheap pieces, somewhere to run, and occasional access to the 2 ergs. After that, the work is fitting it all into a training week.