How to Pace HYROX Burpee Broad Jumps

Burpee Broad Jumps are the fourth station: 80m of burpee, jump forward, repeat. For most athletes, this is where the race gets psychologically difficult. Heart rate spikes fast. The movement is repetitive and tiring in a specific way that’s hard to prepare for if you haven’t rehearsed it.

The athletes who get through this station well aren’t the fastest burpee jumpers. They’re the ones who locked in a rhythm early and never broke it.

The standard

Get this right before race day. A no-rep on Burpee Broad Jumps means you do it again, which is expensive when you’re already at the limit.

• Chest and thighs must touch the floor at the bottom of every burpee.
• Take off and land with both feet simultaneously. Feet must be parallel on take-off and landing.
• When placing hands on the floor for the next rep, your feet must land within 30cm of your hands before kicking back. Feet cannot pass your fingertips when rising into the jump.
• Once your hands are placed on the floor, they cannot be moved forward.
• Cover 80m total in Burpee Broad Jump reps.

Know the standard. Train it exactly. Shallow squats and sloppy take-offs that slip through in training will be called in a race.

What makes it hard

The Burpee Broad Jump is hard for three reasons that compound each other. First, the cardiovascular demand is higher than any other station. The combination of floor work, standing, and jumping keeps heart rate elevated the whole time with no recovery phase. Second, the movement is repetitive but requires attention on every single rep, which is mentally taxing when you’re already tired. Third, you arrive at this station having already run 4km and done three other stations. Your legs are not fresh.

The combination means that pacing mistakes here are difficult to recover from. Go too hard in the first 20m and you’ll be standing around gasping at 40m, which ruins your rhythm and takes much longer to recover than the time you banked in the first half.

How to make each rep efficient

Efficiency here means reducing the energy cost of each rep without sacrificing time. A few things matter a lot.

Step back into the burpee rather than jumping back when you’re tired. Jumping back feels more athletic but the energy cost is higher. Stepping back loses almost no time and saves meaningful leg power over 80m.

Keep the broad jump consistent and modest. The instinct when fresh is to jump as far as possible. Don’t. A big jump requires more leg power and more recovery time on landing. A consistent, medium-distance jump that you can repeat 25 or 30 times without hesitating is faster than big jumps that leave you winded.

Develop a mechanical rhythm and protect it. Down, up, jump, breathe. Repeat. Athletes who think about each rep individually are slower than athletes who lock into a pattern and execute it. The goal is to make the movement automatic.

Minimise fussing at the top. Hands land, feet hop in close, stand, jump forward. The athletes losing the most time are the ones adding extra adjustments, pausing before the jump, or resetting their feet multiple times. Clean reps without extras.

Pacing strategy

This is the station where pacing matters most and is hardest to enforce in the moment, because the movement is physically demanding and the temptation to keep up with athletes around you is strong.

Go deliberately steady from the first rep. Not slow, steady. A pace you can hold for the entire 80m without stopping. It will feel conservative at 10m. By 60m you’ll understand why it was correct.

The heart rate spike is coming regardless. You cannot avoid finishing this station with a high heart rate. What you can control is whether you arrive at Run 5 with a heart rate that comes back to a manageable level within the first few hundred metres, or whether you’re still redlined at the 500m mark of the run.

Planned stops are worse than a slower continuous pace. Every time you stand and wait, you lose rhythm and spend energy on a restart. A steady, ugly, mechanical grind across 80m beats a fast start followed by three stops.

Common mistakes

Going out too hard is the most common mistake, but it’s not the only one.

Big explosive jumps look good but drain the legs for no meaningful time benefit. The time difference between a 1.5m jump and a 1.2m jump over 30 reps is trivial. The energy cost is not.

Standing and resting mid-station kills rhythm. Once you stop, the psychological barrier to starting again is higher than most athletes expect. Plan not to stop.

Sloppy chest-to-floor contact adds no-rep risk at the worst possible moment. Race officials at major HYROX events are consistent about calling shallow reps. Train to the standard, not to what you think you can get away with.

Training this station specifically

Most athletes undertrain Burpee Broad Jumps relative to how much of the race they represent. The movement is unpleasant to practise, which is exactly why it needs to be practised.

The training that transfers is intervals at race pace followed immediately by a run. This rehearses the heart rate spike and the transition out of the station, which is the moment most athletes handle worst on race day. A 20-rep set of Burpee Broad Jumps at target pace, straight into a 400m run, repeated three times, gives you useful race data and builds the specific tolerance you need.

Practise the rhythm in training until it’s automatic. You want to arrive at Station 4 with a clear plan for what each rep looks like, not be improvising under fatigue.

Build intervals with the app and set your station target with PaceMe.

See all 8 HYROX stations · Compromised running