STATION GUIDES · STATION 3
HYROX sled pull
The same 50 metres as the sled push, on a lighter sled, and it takes about 1.69× as long. That single fact is the whole station: whatever is costing you time here, it is not the weight. It is the rope — and unlike almost everything else on the floor, rope technique is something you can fix quickly.
- DISTANCE
- 50 m
- SOLO MEDIAN
- 5:13
- % OF RACE
- 5.6%
- FIELD SWING
- 1.87×
WHERE DOES YOUR TIME SIT?
Sled Pull · 50 m · 39,247 results
Enter a time to see your percentile against 39,247 real solo results, and which finish bracket it lines up with.
Benchmark times
MEASUREDGrouped by finish time rather than by labels like "competitive" or "intermediate". Find the row for the finish you are chasing and read across.
| FINISH | SOLO MEDIAN | SOLO RANGE | DOUBLES MEDIAN | n |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sub-60 | 3:13 | 3:03–3:28 | 2:43 | 176 / 1,016 |
| 60–70 | 3:39 | 3:20–3:59 | 3:00 | 2,219 / 5,521 |
| 70–80 | 4:10 | 3:49–4:37 | 3:25 | 6,041 / 10,390 |
| 80–90 | 4:43 | 4:17–5:15 | 3:50 | 8,483 / 11,770 |
| 90+ | 6:00 | 5:14–7:03 | 4:38 | 22,328 / 25,367 |
Doubles medians are faster because partners split the 50 m. A doubles sled time is a team result and cannot be read against a solo one. Note the solo column keeps climbing all the way down — unlike the push, this station notices how fast you finish.
Why the lighter sled costs more
MEASUREDEvery division pulls a lighter sled than it pushes — 103 kg against 152 kg for Men Open — over the identical 50 metres. And every division takes longer doing it. The median pull is 5:13 against 3:05 for the push: 2:08 more, on less weight.
| DIVISION | PUSH kg | PULL kg | LIGHTER BY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Women Open | 102 | 78 | −24 kg |
| Men Open | 152 | 103 | −49 kg |
| Women Pro | 152 | 103 | −49 kg |
| Men Pro | 202 | 153 | −49 kg |
So the pull is not a heavier version of the push. It is a different problem wearing the same equipment. The push asks whether you can put force into the floor through a shallow body angle; the pull asks whether you can move a rope with your body weight instead of your arms, without letting the sled stop. One is mostly strength and position. The other is mostly skill — which is why it separates the field 1.87× where the push manages 1.37×, and why it is the better of the two to spend training time on.
What a slow sled pull predicts
MEASUREDFast athletes are fast at everything, which makes raw station-to-station comparison useless. So the finish-time trend is removed from every station first — what survives is the question you actually want answered: if this station goes badly for you, what else will?
MOVES WITH THE SLED PULL · SOLO (n=39,247)
Correlation of log-residuals after removing each athlete's finish-time trend, across 39,247 solo results. Zero is the centre line. Solo only — a doubles station time is split between partners, so it would measure how the pair divided the work rather than the athlete.
The two sleds sit together at the top, which is unsurprising, and farmers carry is next — the other station that runs on grip and a braced torso. What is more useful is the bottom of the list: burpee broad jumps and sandbag lunges land at -0.017 and +0.005, which is no relationship at all. Being good at burpees does not make you good at this, and grinding more of them will not fix it.
That is the argument for treating the sled pull as its own skill rather than a fitness readout. It also means the fix is specific: rope technique and grip, not another conditioning block.
Sled weight by division
OFFICIAL RULETotal load including the sled itself. Identical at every venue — only the floor and the rope change.
| DIVISION | KG | LB |
|---|---|---|
| Women Open | 78 | 172 |
| Men Open | 103 | 227 |
| Women Pro | 103 | 227 |
| Men Pro | 153 | 337 |
Women Pro and Men Open pull the same sled. Full loads for all eight stations are in the weights, reps and distances guide.
Technique
COACHING CONVENTIONAccepted practice rather than something we have measured. We separate the two on every page so you can weigh them differently.
Move your body, not the rope
The sled follows your centre of mass. Sit the hips back and travel backwards, letting the arms gather what the body has already earned. Pulling hand-over-hand from a tall, static stance is the single most common way to make this station twice as long as it needs to be — and it is the version most people default to.
Short and continuous
Small gathers, one after another, with the rope always under tension. Big sweeping pulls feel productive and leave gaps where the sled decelerates, and a sled that has stopped is far more expensive to restart than one still drifting. Same physics as the push, different implement.
Grip economy
A clenched fist is a slower fist. Let the rope run through a relaxed hand and close only enough to pull. Grip is the shared currency of the back half of this race, and the farmers carry is still ahead of you.
Stance and anchoring
Feet planted wide enough to be stable, weight through the heels, torso braced. Some athletes seated, some standing and walking back — both work; what matters is that the hips move and the arms do not do the work alone.
The walk back
You have to return the sled to the start, and that walk is on the clock. It is the cheapest time on the station and the one almost everyone gives away. Jog it, and gather the rope on the move rather than standing still to coil it.
The floor, again
As with the push, the surface changes this more than the load does, and a lane that has taken a few hundred pulls behaves differently from a fresh one. Judge effort rather than chasing a target split.
Pacing it inside the race
COACHING CONVENTIONThe pull arrives third, immediately after the push, so you reach it with legs that have already paid once. It is also the first point in the race where grip becomes a resource you can run out of — and the data above says the stations that share that resource are exactly the ones you have not done yet.
Because it is longer than the push, it is worth more attention and more patience. The pattern that holds up is unglamorous: sit back, small continuous gathers, never let the rope slacken, jog the return. Athletes who attack it with the arms are usually slower at the station and arrive at the farmers carry with less than they need.
A useful self-check afterwards: your pull should land somewhere near 1.69× your push. Much worse than that and the gap is technique, not fitness — which is good news, because technique is the faster thing to fix.
Want both sleds inside a whole-race plan? The pace calculator splits a goal finish into per-station and per-run budgets, so you can see what each is allowed to cost.
Mistakes and takeaways
The short version, if you skim nothing else on this page.
AVOID
- Standing upright and using the arms — the rope moves when your body weight moves; pulling with the arms from a tall stance is the slowest way to do this station
- Gathering rope with your hands only — sit back and let the hips travel — the hands guide the rope, the body drags the sled
- Letting the rope go slack — slack means the sled has stopped, and restarting it costs more than never letting it stop
- Long, sweeping pulls — short and continuous beats big and intermittent, for the same reason it does on the push
- Death-gripping the rope — grip is the currency here — sled push and farmers carry both want it later
- Walking the rope back slowly — the return walk is on the clock and is the cheapest place on the station to find time
- Training it as a strength lift — it barely tracks with the stations you would expect — burpee broad jumps and sandbag lunges correlate near zero with it
- Skipping the sled entirely in prep — it is 5.6% of a solo race and swings 1.87×, well above the ergs
REMEMBER
- Sit back, do not pull up — hips low and travelling backwards; the rope follows your mass
- Short, continuous gathers — never let the rope go slack and never let the sled stop
- Save the grip — a loose, fast hand-over-hand costs less forearm than a clenched one
- Jog the rope back — the walk out is free speed and almost everyone wastes it
- Expect the floor to matter — same as the push — the surface changes the effort more than the load does
- Train the pattern, not the poundage — rope work is a skill most athletes have never practised
- Judge it against your push — if your pull is much worse than 1.69× your push, technique is the gap
- Then move on — burpee broad jumps still separates the field more, at 2.65×
Common questions
- What is a good HYROX sled pull time?
- Solo median is 5:13 for the 50 m, with the middle half of the field between 4:23 and 6:17 across 39,247 results. Athletes finishing in sub-60 minutes post a median of 3:13; those finishing 90+ post 6:00. Unlike the sled push, that is a wide band — 1.87× between the fastest and slowest brackets, ranking 4 of 8.
- How heavy is the HYROX sled pull?
- 78 kg for Women Open, 103 kg for Men Open, 103 kg for Women Pro, 153 kg for Men Pro — total load including the sled. Women Pro and Men Open pull the same 103 kg. Every one of those is LIGHTER than the same division's sled push, which is the interesting part: the pull is the same 50 m on less weight and still takes about 1.69× as long.
- Why is the sled pull harder than the sled push?
- Because it is not really a strength station. Median pull is 5:13 against 3:05 for the push — 2:08 longer over the same 50 m, on a lighter sled. What costs the time is the rope: hand-over-hand gathering, keeping tension, and getting your body weight behind it rather than your arms. That is a skill most athletes have never trained, which is also why it separates the field 1.87× where the push manages only 1.37×.
- What does a slow sled pull tell me about the rest of my race?
- More than you would expect, and not what you would guess. Controlling for overall ability across 39,247 solo results, sled-pull time moves with sled push (r=+0.381) and farmers carry (r=+0.269). It is essentially unrelated to burpee broad jumps (r=-0.017) and sandbag lunges (r=+0.005). So a bad sled pull predicts a bad sled push and a bad farmers carry — the grip-and-drag group — and says nothing about how you handle burpees or lunges.
- Should I train the sled pull?
- Yes, more than the push. It is 5.6% of a solo race against the push's 3.3%, and it separates finishers 1.87× against 1.37×. It is also the more trainable of the two, because most of the gap is rope technique rather than leg strength. Get the pattern right first: body weight back, short continuous gathers, no slack, and jog the rope back.
ELSEWHERE IN THE CLUSTER
The sled push is the station this one is most often confused with, and the comparison above is the reason to read both. Farmers Carry is the third member of that group — the three stations whose times genuinely move together.
Benchmarks from 93,311 complete results across 11 events (Bangkok Aug 2026, Cape Town 2026, Cardiff 2026, Gdansk 2025, Glasgow 2026, Istanbul 2026, Jakarta 2026, New York 2026, Perth 2026, Sydney 2026 and São Paulo 2025), analyzed 2026-09-03. Figures pool season 8 and season 9 (52,693 in 8, 40,618 in 9); where HYROX changed a load or rep count between them, those station times are not strictly comparable. Sections marked COACHING CONVENTION are accepted practice rather than measurements — we label the difference so you can weigh them differently.
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