Insights
Which HYROX Stations Create the Biggest Time Gaps?
Burpee Broad Jump and Wall Balls separate top performers from the pack far more than any other station. SkiErg and Row produce the smallest gaps. Here is what over 460,000 race results reveal about where the biggest time gaps form.
Not all HYROX stations are created equal. Some barely separate fast athletes from the pack. Others blow the field apart. We looked at over 460,000 race results to find out which stations matter most – and the answer is clear.
The Big Picture
Burpee Broad Jump and Wall Balls create the largest time gaps between top performers and the middle of the pack. SkiErg and Row create the smallest. This holds across every division.
Here is every station shown in race order, with the proportional gap – the percentage of mid-pack time that separates the top 15% of finishers from the middle of the field.
Station Gaps in Race Order
Proportional gap (%) between top 15% and mid-pack Open division. Higher = more decisive.
The pattern that jumps out is not about race order – it is about station type. The two machine-based stations – SkiErg (station 1) and Row (station 5) – produce far less separation than everything else. Both are Concept2 ergometers with fixed 1000m distances. The bodyweight and loaded-movement stations around them create 2–4 times more spread.
The Top Four vs The Bottom Four
Average proportional gap across all divisions
Most decisive four
27.4%
Burpee BJ, Wall Balls, Sled Pull, Sandbag Lunges
Least decisive four
13.2%
SkiErg, Row, Sled Push, Farmers Carry
Ratio
2.1x
Top stations create over twice the gap
Open vs Pro: Heavier Loads Widen the Sled Gaps
The station ranking is broadly the same across divisions, but there is one standout difference: sled stations become much more decisive in Pro fields.
How Pro Loads Change the Picture (Men)
Proportional gap (%) – Open Men vs Pro Men. Higher = more decisive.
Sled Pull jumps from a 24.8% gap in Open Men to 30.9% in Pro Men – making it the single most decisive station in the Pro field. The Pro sled is 50kg heavier for both Push and Pull (153kg vs 103kg for Pull, 202kg vs 152kg for Push). When the load goes up, the gap between strong and average athletes widens with it.
The same pattern holds for women:
How Pro Loads Change the Picture (Women)
Proportional gap (%) – Open Women vs Pro Women. Higher = more decisive.
Farmers Carry shows the biggest jump for women – from 17.8% in Open to 25.4% in Pro. Sled Pull and Sled Push both widen too.
Meanwhile, SkiErg and Row stay flat at 6–9% regardless of division. The Concept2 machines produce a compressed range no matter the competition level.
Don’t Sleep on the Runs
Stations get the attention, but running is where most of the total separation happens – at least in Open categories. Running accounts for about 47% of the total time gap between top performers and mid-pack athletes, while all eight stations combined account for about 42%.
Where Does the Total Gap Come From?
Share of total time gap between top 15% and mid-pack by race component.
Here is the twist: this reverses in Pro fields. In Pro Men and Pro Women, stations account for about half the total gap while running drops to around 40%. The better the field, the less running separates athletes and the more stations matter.
Why Some Stations Separate More
Unconstrained movements create more spread. The four most decisive stations – Burpee Broad Jump, Wall Balls, Sandbag Lunges, and Sled Pull – involve bodyweight or loaded movements without a machine governing your pace. SkiErg and Row are both Concept2 machines with fixed 1000m distances. When a machine constrains the movement, there is less room for technique and fitness differences to widen the field.
Fatigue may play a role, but it is not the main driver. Wall Balls (station 8) and Sandbag Lunges (station 7) are late in the race, but Burpee Broad Jump – the biggest separator – is only station 4, while the later Row (station 5) and Farmers Carry (station 6) produce much smaller gaps. Station type matters more than station position.
Heavier Pro loads widen sled gaps. When the sled goes from 103kg to 153kg, the spread between strong and average athletes grows with it. This is the most plausible explanation for why Sled Pull leaps to the top of the Pro rankings.
What This Means for You
The stations where the biggest gaps form are Burpee Broad Jump, Wall Balls, Sled Pull, and Sandbag Lunges. If you want to know where fast athletes pull away from the pack, that is where to look.
But the group-level pattern cannot substitute for looking at your own splits. The practical move is to look up your results and compare your station splits against your overall percentile. Are your biggest relative weaknesses at the high-gap stations? If so, there is likely more room to gain than you think. Try the race simulator to see how shaving time off specific stations would change your finish.
And for Open athletes especially: do not ignore the runs. The cumulative running gap is still slightly larger than the cumulative station gap. The stations are where the drama happens, but the runs are where the clock keeps ticking.
How We Looked at This
Data scope: Over 460,000 valid individual results across Open and Pro divisions (men and women) from 256 events spanning eight seasons (18/19 through 25/26). Team divisions excluded.
Metrics: “Top performers” are the fastest 15% by overall finish time. “Mid-pack” is the 40th–60th percentile. Proportional gap expresses the time difference as a percentage of the mid-pack mean, preventing longer stations from looking artificially more decisive.
Caveats: Women Open athletes perform 75 Wall Ball reps versus 100 for all other divisions. Station splits may include some transition time depending on timing mat placement. Sled friction may vary by venue floor surface. Results with station times over 30 minutes or totals over 90 minutes were excluded.