I was inspired to write this article shortly after competing at HYROX London in May 2022. Having previously entered 2 HYROX competitions, I felt I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from all elements of the race.
I’d trained hard for the event in London and, in particular, had put the hours in on my sled work – not especially because it was a huge weak point for me but because I know what a bottleneck it can be during a race.
In training sessions, I had been stacking the weight on to the sled, normally training at a weight much heavier than what I would experience in the competition. I was fitter, stronger, and more prepared than ever. However, when the day came, and I arrived at the sled push station, I was still caught out by just how heavy the sled push felt.
In all honesty, I hadn’t planned to push crazy hard on the sled push, I wanted to pace myself and go for it a little later in the race. It’s easy to blow your legs up on the sled push and make the rest of the race a huge struggle (something I speak about more in our “Average to Elite” article). But when all was said I done, I still took a minute longer at the station than I’d expected, and it had been a lot more difficult than I’d expected.
When I spoke to other competitors after the race many of them were saying something similar – why were the sleds so damn hard?!
It prompted me to investigate it some more and sent me down the rabbit hole of HYROX sled push performances. Let’s dive in…
London
I started by looking at London (30th April 2022, held at London Excel) – the venue that I found to have the hardest sled pushes I’d experienced to date.
The charts below show the sled push times for the top 10 finishers in the Men Pro and Women Pro categories, and compares the median of those against the times in Manchester and Birmingham (the other 2 HYROX competition I’d entered)…
For men, the median sled push time was 59 secs slower (40%) than Manchester, and 46 secs slower (29%) than Birmingham. For women, it was 20 secs slower (10%) than Manchester, and actually 5 seconds quicker than Birmingham. However, it is worth pointing out that there were only 13 female competitors in the Pro division at Birmingham which is much less than other events, so the data may be skewed a little there.
Overall, the results seem to support how I felt after competing – on average, the London sled push times were slower (despite it being the 4th HYROX event ever in the UK, and so I would imagine a slightly higher quality, more experienced field of athletes).
Leipzig
So why would sled push times have got so much slower when in theory it is the same weight, same sleds, on the same carpet? I posted on Instagram asking for theories as to why this may be. Some people wondered about the lay of the carpet, or the temperature in the room. Both potentially would have an effect, but one reply that I now think has the most validity came from Iain Irving, suggesting that I look at the times from the Leipzig World Championships (which was early in the season). He felt that the sleds used there were brand new and slid over the carpet much more easily. This was for the Pro division, apparently the Elite race used different sleds.
So I had a look at the sled push performances in Leipzig, comparing the 10 fastest sled push times with the 10 fastest in London ’22. It was fairly astonishing…
For Men and Women combined, London 22 was more than twice as slow as the time in Leipzig. Of course, everyone in Leipzig may have just been better at sled pushes but it seems very unlikely to entirely account for it. In fact, I asked some of the people who raced in Leipzig for their opinion, and they told me that the sleds felt really quick, almost like they had soap on the bottom of them that helped them slide over the carpet.
As a side note, my personal opinion is that whilst it is nice to get sleds that don’t feel too heavy, my gut feel is the sled push times in Leipzig were too fast. Part of the reason many of us love HYROX is the need for a mixture of strength and stamina, but it doesn’t seem as if an awful lot of strength was really needed to move those Leipzig sleds. Apparently, some of the competitors that took part that day were saying something similar.
Are the Sleds, or Carpet, Wearing?
So, if it is true that the sleds used that day in Leipzig were brand new, then it may be that the sled push times in HYROX are being heavily influenced by how new, or worn down, the sleds actually are. I would also add that it may not be the sleds that are wearing (as that feels unlikely) but perhaps the carpet is wearing after multiple use, and for some reason, over time, that makes it harder to push on.
I didn’t want to jump to this conclusion however. It may have just been that Leipzig was an anomaly. To be more sure, I took the top 10 sled push times for each of the first 3 European races of the season (Leipzig, London ’21, and Amsterdam), and compared them with the final 3 (Essen, London ’22, and Frankfurt). The thought being that if the sleds or carpet wear throughout the season, and this makes pushing them harder, then the times at the start of the season should be much quicker than at the end. And that’s what it shows…
Overall, we can see that the sled push times at the start of the season were roughly 90 seconds quicker than at the end of the season, supporting the case that the sleds get slower as the season moves on.
America vs Europe
If you ask any American HYROX athlete what they think of the sled push, the first thing they will tell you is that it is much harder in America than in Europe due to the type of sleds being used.
By all accounts, the sleds in America have shorter poles and this is making it harder to push them. I personally haven’t competed in America but have seen videos on the HYROX Instagram account and can see that the poles are certainly shorter than those used in Europe.
To confirm whether this was making a difference, I took the top 10 sled push times in each of the last 3 American and last 3 European races (so 30 data points for each continent). By picking up the times from the last 3 races, I’ve hopefully allowed for any changes in the sleds as the season goes on. The median is shown in the graph below.
There definitely looks to be a reasonably significant difference, with the Men’s Pro American times 1:12mins longer than in Europe. The Women’s Pro difference is much smaller, at just 26 secs.
On our Instagram account I joked that this proves that Americans are weaker than Europeans, but of course the more likely explanation is down to the poles on the sleds! In fact, one way for us to check would be to look at some sled push times for some people who have competed in both continents.
Here’s a couple of examples I was able to find (shows location / sled push time / date):
Chris Woolley
Los Angeles – 6:05 – 7th May 2022
London – 3:23 – 30th April 2022 (just one week earlier)
Erik Woodward
Los Angeles – 4:22 – 7th May 2022
Munich – 3:07 – 26th February 2022
Hamburg – 2:33 – 27th November 2021
So, the few athletes I’ve found to compete on both continents show slower sled push times in America, supporting the claim that the shorter poles are making it harder to move. It probably is worth noting that, by all accounts, the sled push in Los Angeles sounded particularly tough, relative to other American events. This is presumably because of the wearing of the sled or carpet as the season went on (LA being the penultimate event of the HYROX season). Erik Woodward confirmed this to me in a message: “Sadly its tough to make a comparison to Europe on the LA sleds, as all the US athletes I talked to said this was by far the heaviest sleds they tried, even on US soil. The sleds were surprisingly not harder to initially move, but you needed significantly more watts too keep it moving. In Europe they are hard too start, but then they glide faster over the carpet.”.
What Can You Do?
To summarise so far, there definitely appears to be differences in the sleds between America and Europe (presumably caused by the shorter poles), as well as the sled push times within a continent (possibly caused by the sled or carpet being worn / degrading over time). The way the carpet is laid out, and the temperature in the room, are also possibly having an effect, though it’s impossible to say with any certainty.
That might all be very interesting, but I like to try and make these articles as valuable as possible for you, the HYROX athlete. Therefore, the question becomes what can we do about it? The reality is, you don’t know what a sled is going to feel like until you get to it, and then you just have to deal with what is put in front of you. So, here’s a few pieces of advice that spring to mind:
– Don’t go into an event expecting the sled to feel the same as what you previously experienced, or what you’ve been using at the gym. Expect the unexpected. This way, you won’t allow the increased difficulty to mentally affect you during the race. It’s probably better to be expecting something incredibly heavy, and finding yourself pleasantly surprised, than vice versa.
– Train regularly with a much heavier weight than you’re expecting to encounter in the race. This way you’ll be more prepared, mentally and physically, to move it on the day if it is particularly heavy.
– Ensure you have the right footwear. This is important for HYROX anyway, but the heavier the sleds get, the more important it is to have a shoe with good grip and which your feet aren’t slipping out of. Check this article for more information on the best footwear for HYROX.
– Practice with differing techniques for pushing the sled, as the type of sled you use, the carpet, and the weight, may make one technique more appropriate on the day. I talk about some of these in this sled push article.
– If you really did want to gamble on getting the best time possible (perhaps if you were going to try qualify for an Elite spot at the World Championships, for example), then competing in Europe instead of America probably makes sense, and possibly competing at an event towards the start of the season, on the off chance HYROX use new sleds and / or carpet each season, before they get worn down.
