Hyrox burpee broad jumps: standards, pacing and training

Hyrox burpee broad jumps arrive at the worst possible moment. Station 4, straight off the fourth 1km run, with the sled push and sled pull already behind you. Your legs have done 200 metres of loaded work and 4km of running, and now you're being asked to produce 80 metres of explosive horizontal power.

Most athletes lose more time here than anywhere else on the course. Some of that is fitness. A lot of it is technique choices made in the first 20 metres.

The standards, so you don't collect penalties

Worth knowing cold, because two warnings is a 15 second penalty and the judges watch this station closely, just as every station has its own standards and penalties. The official Hyrox rulebook is the source, and it's short.

• 80 metres of continuous burpee broad jumps. For most athletes that's 40 to 60 reps.
• Chest touches the floor on every rep.
• Hands go down no more than 30cm in front of your feet.
• Coming up, your feet cannot pass the point where your hands were.
• Feet parallel on takeoff and landing. No staggered stance, no single-foot hops.
• No shuffling or extra steps forward between reps.

The two that catch people are the 30cm hand placement and the feet passing the hands. Both get worse as you tire, which is exactly why you practise the movement fatigued rather than fresh.

Why station 4 costs more than it looks

Explosive jumping runs on phosphocreatine. Research on plyometric work notes that the rapid energy demand depletes phosphocreatine and glycogen stores, and that the eccentric loading of repeated landings temporarily reduces force output and neuromuscular coordination.

You arrive at the burpee broad jumps having already spent a lot of that. The sleds are almost pure phosphocreatine work. So the jump you can produce at rep 5 is not the jump you'll produce at rep 45, and any pacing plan built on your fresh capacity is wrong before you start.

That's the argument for going slightly conservative early. The 80 metres doesn't get shorter, but your ability to cover it in long jumps disappears fast.

Step up, don't jump up

The single biggest decision at this station. Coming out of the bottom of the burpee you can either jump both feet up together or step up one leg at a time.

Jumping up is quicker per rep. It also drives your heart rate significantly higher, and over 40 to 60 reps that debt comes due on the row that follows. Most top athletes step up.

Some go further and come up onto a knee first before stepping to the foot, which saves a little more. It looks slower. Over 80 metres it usually isn't.

Test both in training under fatigue, not fresh. Fresh, jumping up feels fine.

Jump length: consistent beats long

The instinct is to cover ground in big leaps. Fewer reps, less time.

In practice, long jumps are heavily taxing on the legs and spike heart rate, and athletes who open with them tend to end up standing around at 50 metres catching their breath. The steady rhythm wins.

Three things add distance without adding cost:

Drive your arms. Aggressive arm swing on the jump adds real distance and costs your legs nothing.

Land soft. Absorb with bent knees and use the stretch reflex into the next rep. Stiff landings waste the elastic energy and hammer your joints.

Stay low. Minimise standing fully upright between reps. A slight forward lean throughout keeps you moving.

How to train it

Four sessions that actually change the station:

Technique ladders. 10m, 20m, 30m with full recovery, focused only on hand placement and parallel feet. This is where you build the motor pattern that survives fatigue.

EMOMs. 8 to 10 reps every minute on the minute for 10 minutes. Teaches you the rhythm and the recovery breathing.

Fatigued sets. 20 to 30 metres immediately after a sled push or a 1km run at race pace. This is the one that matters most, because it's the only one that replicates station 4.

Distance pyramids. Build to 80m unbroken, then work on time. Unbroken first, faster second.

Hip, ankle and thoracic mobility work belongs alongside this. Tight ankles cut your jump distance per rep, and over 60 reps that adds up to a lot of extra jumps.

Fuelling the back half

Nothing you drink fixes technique. But arriving at station 4 already flat is a real problem, and it's fixable.

Caffeine is the one ingredient with direct evidence here. The ISSN position stand reports benefits for jumping performance specifically, alongside muscular endurance and sprinting, at 3 to 6 mg per kg of body mass taken around 60 minutes before. For a 75kg athlete that's 225 to 450mg.

Our Pre-Shot is a 60ml ready-to-drink shot, £10.99 for six, designed to be taken about an hour out with no mixing on race morning. If you're pacing your first race, the pacing strategy guide covers the run splits that get you to station 4 in one piece, and the sled push guide covers the station that decides how much you've got left.

The short version

Step up rather than jump up. Keep the jumps consistent and slightly shorter than feels right. Drive the arms, land soft, stay low. Practise it after sleds and runs, not fresh.

Get station 4 right and the row, the lunges and the wall balls all get easier. Get it wrong and you spend the rest of the race paying for four minutes.