Sled Pull
50m
TL;DR
The Hyrox sled pull is station 3: a 50m hand-over-hand pull of a weighted sled toward you while walking backward — 103 kg for Open Men, 78 kg for Open Women, 153 kg for Pro Men, 103 kg for Pro Women. The rope runs roughly 12.5m, confirmed against the official rulebook, which defines the course as 4 lengths of 12.5m with a marked line at each length — so most athletes cover the 50m total distance across about four pulls. Unlike the sled push two stations earlier, this one isn't decided by leg strength — it's decided by your forearms. Across 224,008 recorded races, the median Open Men split sits around 4:41 and Open Women around 5:29, and the athletes who beat that median almost always have one thing in common: they didn't grip-fail before length 3.
No Sled? Best Substitutes for Hyrox Sled Pull Training
1. Heavy rope pull (cable machine)
Anchor a rope to the lowest cable pulley and pull hand-over-hand from a squat position. This is the closest gym substitute — it replicates the exact movement pattern and trains the same muscles (lats, biceps, rear delts, hip extensors) under a similar loading curve.
2. Seated cable row (wide grip)
Use a rope or wide-bar attachment on a cable row machine. Keep your torso upright, drive elbows back, and focus on long full pulls. Less specific than the rope pull but builds the pulling endurance needed across 4 lengths of rope.
3. Lat pulldown (underhand grip)
An underhand lat pulldown trains the lats and biceps through a similar range of motion. Do high-rep sets (20–25 reps) at moderate weight to build muscular endurance rather than max strength — the sled pull is a 50m sustained effort, not a 1-rep max.
4. Banded face pulls
Anchor a resistance band at head height and pull both ends toward your face while spreading your arms wide. Trains rear deltoids, external rotators, and traps — all of which stabilise your shoulder position during the sled pull and prevent the shoulder rounding that kills efficiency.
5. Farmers carry (heavy, short distance)
Loading the grip under heavy carry conditions builds the hand and forearm endurance that fails first on the sled pull rope. Programme 3 x 60m farmers carry at pro weight as grip training. The carry taxes the same grip musculature without requiring specialised equipment.
Hyrox Sled Pull Race Day Strategy
Grip is the limiter for most athletes, not the legs. Set your body position before grabbing the rope — hips low, back foot planted — fixing your stance mid-pull wastes tension and time. Pull at a rhythm you can hold for all four lengths, not a sprint-start rhythm you can't. The most common error: attacking length 1 flat-out, then being forced to stop and re-grip on lengths 3 and 4 — a full stop-and-restart on a stationary sled costs far more time than a slightly slower, unbroken pull ever would. There isn't one correct technique — there are three, ranked fastest-but-most-tiring to slowest-but-least-tiring: hand-over-hand, squat-to-row, and walk-back — and the move that saves your race is switching between them mid-station as grip fatigues, not gutting out one technique for all 50m. What actually kills your time isn't the pull itself, it's an unplanned rest — go in with a plan for when you'll shift technique, not just how hard to pull. Breathe out on each pull rather than holding your breath — breath-holding accelerates forearm pump.
Median Race Times (real data, 82,000+ athletes)
Overview
Sled pull sits right after the sled push in the Hyrox running order, which matters: you arrive with shoulders and legs already loaded from station 2, and now your back, hamstrings, and hands take over. It's a straight-line pull — sit into a low position, bring the sled toward you hand-over-hand (or by walking backward, depending on technique), reset, repeat until the full 50m is covered. Sled resistance isn't consistent between gyms, and it's rarely what you trained for — race-day carpet friction almost always feels heavier than gym turf, because turf lets the sled slide under its own momentum in a way race carpet never will. Don't trust gym prep to tell you the truth about race-day resistance; load heavier than race weight when you train.
Hyrox Sled Pull Weights
| Division | Weight / Format |
|---|---|
| Open Men | 103 kg / 227 lb |
| Open Women | 78 kg / 172 lb |
| Pro Men | 153 kg / 337 lb |
| Pro Women | 103 kg / 227 lb |
| Doubles Men | 103 kg / 227 lb (matches solo Open Men; partners split the 50m via a self-selected 'You-Go-I-Go' switch, not fixed per-length turns) |
| Doubles Women | 78 kg / 172 lb (matches solo Open Women) |
| Doubles Mixed | 103 kg for both partners — Men's Open weight applies regardless of which partner is pulling |
| Pro Doubles Men | 153 kg / 337 lb |
| Pro Doubles Women | 103 kg / 227 lb |
Step-by-Step Technique
- 1
Lock in your position before you grab the rope — deep hip-hinge, hips back, knees bent, back flat, feet set. Decide your starting technique here, not mid-pull.
- 2
Default to squat-to-row for most athletes: hinge down with arms reaching forward, then aggressively stand up while pulling the rope to your chest. This gets legs and back into every rep — fast without draining grip as fast as pure hand-over-hand.
- 3
Reserve full hand-over-hand for elite grip endurance only. Fastest technique on paper, but it isolates the forearms — most people who try to hold it for all 50m end up re-gripping on length 3.
- 4
Downshift to walk-back the moment grip or legs fade — hips back, arms forward, walk backward and let bodyweight, not hands, do the work. Slowest of the three, but it keeps the sled moving instead of stopping dead.
- 5
Never let the rope go slack — a slack rope stops the sled, and restarting from zero costs more time than any technique-switch ever does.
Training Tips
- 1
Sit back into a low squat position
- 2
Pull hand-over-hand in a smooth rhythm
- 3
Dig your heels into the ground
- 4
Keep your center of gravity low
Top 5 Mistakes (and Fixes)
✕Mistake 1: Pulling too upright
Fix: Drop into a low hip-hinge and let bodyweight transfer force from legs through your back into the rope — standing tall turns this into an arms-only exercise.
✕Mistake 2: Gutting out one technique for all four lengths
Fix: Plan to downshift — hand-over-hand to squat-to-row to walk-back — as grip fatigues, instead of holding a failing technique out of stubbornness.
✕Mistake 3: Letting the rope go slack between pulls
Fix: Keep constant tension; a slack rope stops the sled and forces a full re-engage, which costs far more time than a marginally slower continuous pull.
✕Mistake 4: Skipping grip training entirely
Fix: Add dead hangs, farmers carries, and rope-pull simulations weekly — grip failure, not leg or back fatigue, is the #1 limiter on this station.
✕Mistake 5: Racing in untested gloves (or no gloves, untested)
Fix: Train in the exact glove setup — or bare-hand — you plan to race in; glove texture changes rope feel and pull rhythm enough to matter over 50m.
Common Mistakes
- ✕
Standing upright while pulling - sit LOW
- ✕
Pulling with arms only - use your legs and back
- ✕
Letting the rope go slack between pulls
4-Week Training Progression
| Week | Session |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | 5 × 25m rope sled pulls at 60% race weight, 90s rest. Focus on hip position and long strokes. |
| Week 2 | 4 × 50m sled pulls at 80% race weight, 90s rest. Note where grip starts to fail. |
| Week 3 | 3 × 50m sled pulls at race weight, 2min rest. Aim for unbroken grip throughout. |
| Week 4 (peak) | 1 × full station at race weight after a 1km run — simulate the race sequence. |
Grip Training for Hyrox Sled Pull
Grip is the number-one failure point on the sled pull, and most athletes never train it directly — it shows up as slowdown or full stops on lengths 3 and 4, not length 1. The upside: grip endurance is one of the fastest-responding adaptations in training, often improving within 4-6 weeks. Two sessions a week is enough: dead hangs from a pull-up bar (3 sets to 60-90% of max hold time), farmers carries at or above race weight (3 sets of 60m), and — if your gym has one — rope climbs or rope-pull simulations, the most sport-specific grip work available. Fat-grip training (a towel wrapped around a bar, or thick-bar attachments) forces the hand to work harder per rep and speeds gains. In the final 4 weeks, finish upper-body sessions with one combined round: farmers carry 60m, dead hang to failure, 50m rope-pull simulation — it mimics full-race grip demand in a single finisher, and pairs naturally with farmers carry training since the same grip musculature fails on both stations.
Sample Workout
Technique-discovery session (early training block): 5 x 25m sled pull at 60% race weight, rotating technique each rep — hand-over-hand, then squat-to-row, then walk-back — so all three are rehearsed before you need to choose one under fatigue. 90s rest. Race-specific session (peak week): 4 x 50m sled pull at full race weight immediately after a 1km run, 90s rest between reps — switch to walk-back on any rep where grip starts to fail before the halfway mark, and log which length that happens on.
Equipment
The Sled + rope is what you'll use on race day. If you're training seriously, having access to race-day equipment makes a real difference in your preparation.
[AFFILIATE:pulling-sled](URL)
Frequently Asked Questions
How heavy is the Hyrox sled pull?
103 kg for Open Men, 78 kg for Open Women, 153 kg for Pro Men, and 103 kg for Pro Women. Doubles Men and Women pull at their own division's weight (Pro Doubles matches solo Pro exactly); in Mixed Doubles, both partners pull 103 kg (Men's Open weight) regardless of who's on the rope.
How long is the Hyrox sled pull?
50 metres total, run as 4 lengths of 12.5m each. Because the rope matches that 12.5m length, athletes complete about four pulls back and forth to finish the distance — not one continuous 50m pull.
What is the best technique for the Hyrox sled pull?
No single best technique — there are three (hand-over-hand, squat-to-row, walk-back), ranked fastest-but-most-tiring to slowest-but-least-tiring. The athletes who post the best times switch between them as grip fatigues instead of forcing one through all four lengths.
Why does my grip fail before my legs on the sled pull?
Most training plans load legs and back far more than grip endurance. Grip is the actual limiter for most athletes here, and it responds fast to direct training — dead hangs, farmers carries, and rope-pull simulations twice a week close the gap in about 4-6 weeks.