Hyrox Doubles & Relay: Rules, Weights, Strategy

Doubles and relay are how most people run their first Hyrox — you split the work with a partner or a team of four instead of taking on all eight stations alone. But the format surprises almost everyone the first time, and it starts with the biggest misconception: doubles does not halve your running. Both partners still run all eight 1 km legs, together, the whole way. What you share is the station work, not the 8 km. This guide covers how doubles and relay actually work, what you lift in each division, how to choose between them, and how to split the work so you do not bleed time — or your ranking.

How Hyrox doubles actually works

A doubles team is two people running the standard Hyrox course — eight 1 km runs alternating with the eight stations — as a pair. The rules that catch first-timers are all about staying together:

• You run every kilometre together. The rulebook is explicit: both team members must run the entire 1,000 m between each station side by side. If one runs ahead, that is a 1-minute penalty — the running is not something you can divide.
• You enter and leave each station together. The station cannot begin until both of you are there, and you can only leave once all the reps or distance are done and both of you exit together.
• Rack up too many and you are out. More than three penalties for not staying together and the team is ruled Out Of Competition — you finish, but you get no ranking.

Inside each station, though, the work is yours to divide however you like. The official example is "You Go I Go" (YGIG): on the 1,000 m row, one partner rows a self-selected distance — say 250 m — then switches, and you repeat until the full distance is covered. You can split it evenly or lean it toward whoever is stronger at that station. The one rule for the resting partner: stay on your feet. Kneeling, sitting, or lying down in the station zone is not allowed. If the stations themselves are new to you, the station-by-station breakdown walks through all eight in race order.

Doubles weights: the same as singles, not halved

Here is the counter-intuitive part runners always ask about: the weights in doubles are identical to the singles weights — they are not cut in half. A doubles team pushes the same 152 kg sled a solo men's competitor does; what you divide is how many of the reps and metres each of you covers, not the load itself. The rulebook lists five doubles divisions, and they collapse into three weight tiers:

Two things to read off that table. First, mixed doubles uses the men's-open weights — the official column literally reads "Doubles Men / Women Pro / Mixed," so a mixed pair throws the 6 kg wall ball and pulls the 103 kg sled, the same as a men's-open team. Second, the loads are the whole-system weight including the sled, and the pounds are conversions — the current rulebook publishes kilograms only, so treat any lb figure as approximate. The SkiErg, rower and burpee broad jumps carry no added load and are the same for everyone. The only non-weight difference is the wall-ball target line, set by gender — 2.70 m for women, 3.00 m for men — so in a mixed pair each partner throws the shared 6 kg ball to their own line. For the singles numbers these tiers come from, the intro guide for runners lays out the full course.

The penalties that quietly wreck doubles teams

Doubles has a handful of coordination rules that do not exist in singles, and each one has bitten teams who trained hard and then lost minutes to a technicality. Learn these before race day:

• Running ahead: 1 minute per infringement, and more than three of them means Out Of Competition.
• The wall-ball hand-off: you swap the ball either by letting it drop to the floor or handing it over — a "flying transition," where one of you throws it at the target and the other catches it in the squat and keeps going, is a no-rep every time.
• The SkiErg swap: you are not allowed to pass the handles straight from one partner to the other; the working partner sets them down and the next one picks them up.
• The resting partner has to stay in the marked area — under the rig on wall balls — without getting in another team's way.

None of these are hard once you have rehearsed them, but a stack of penalties can quietly undo a race you trained months for — so practise the hand-offs the way you practise the movements.

Doubles vs singles vs relay: which to choose

Relay is a genuinely different race from doubles. It is a four-person team, and each member runs 2 × 1 km and does the two matching stations — so the eight runs and eight stations get shared out, and only one person is working at any moment while the other three wait. You hand off in the transition zone with a high-five: one runner finishes their leg, taps the next, and steps out. Which runs and stations each person takes is entirely up to the team. Relay uses Open weights only — there is no Pro relay — and a mixed relay is two women and two men. The finish is its own moment: the last runner does the closing 100-rep wall-ball set while the other three come in to support, and all four cross the line together.

So which format fits you?

• Singles if you want the full test and a personal ranking — you against all eight stations.
• Doubles if you have one partner and want to share the station load but still run the whole thing. It is the best middle ground, and the most common first race.
• Relay if you are four friends, or your group has a wide spread of fitness and you want everyone to do a manageable share. It is the most social and the most beginner-forgiving format.

Age groups: how doubles and relay are ranked

Doubles teams are ranked by the average age of the two partners on race day, using the same 14 age bands as singles (Under-24 through 85-89). Relay is separate and simpler: teams fall into Under-40 or 40+, based on the average age of all four members. A relay of a 24-, 38-, 48- and 40-year-old averages 37.5, so it races Under-40. Either way, your finish time is taken when the last team member crosses the line.

Splitting the work with your partner

The strategy in doubles and relay is all in the split, and there is no single right answer — but a few principles hold. Divide each station by who is stronger at it, not down the middle by default. Put more of the sled and the carries on the heavier, stronger partner, and even out the SkiErg and row where the gap is smaller. On the machines, the live debate is how to break up the 1,000 m — some pairs do one long swap, say 600/400, while others trade shorter pulls like 400/400/200 to keep both fresher. Shorter, more frequent switches usually keep power higher but cost a few transition seconds each time.

Because you rest while your partner works, you can push your own portions harder than your solo pace — you arrive at each run more recovered than a singles athlete would. That is the doubles advantage, but it only pays off if your running is honest: you still run all 8 km, so build your pacing off your real solo baseline. There is no reliable published "average doubles time" to copy, so estimate your own first with the Hyrox time calculator, then model the compromised run splits on the pace calculator — and use your heart-rate zones to judge when to take over from your partner and when you genuinely need the rest. When you want to train the format itself, the Hyrox training plans build the run-to-station transitions that doubles lives or dies on.