Hyrox nutrition: what to eat in race week and on race day
There is no Hyrox-specific nutrition guideline, so fuel by expected finish time: under 90 minutes, eat 7-12 g of carbs per kg in the 24 hours before; 90 minutes or more, carb-load at 10-12 g/kg a day for 36-48 hours. Eat 1-4 g/kg in the 1-4 hours before your heat (ACSM joint position statement).
Hyrox is new enough that no position stand covers it directly. What exists are well-established ranges by effort length, and Hyrox maps onto them cleanly once you know roughly how long you will take.
What does Hyrox demand from your fuel?
Hyrox is about an hour to two hours of hard, mixed work: eight 1 km runs, each followed by a station. The stations are SkiErg (1,000 m), sled push (50 m), sled pull (50 m), burpee broad jumps (80 m), rowing (1,000 m), farmers carry (200 m), sandbag lunges (100 m) and 100 wall balls.
Finish times vary widely. Elite athletes finish in under an hour, while many first-timers take somewhere around 90 minutes to two hours. That spread is exactly why one fuelling plan does not fit everyone: the 90-minute line is where the guidelines change.
Should I carb-load for Hyrox?
Carb-load only if you expect to take 90 minutes or more. The ACSM, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and Dietitians of Canada joint statement (Thomas, Erdman and Burke, 2016) sets two acute fuelling ranges:
| Expected finish | Before the race |
|---|---|
| Under 90 min | 7-12 g/kg in the 24 hours before (“general fuelling up”) |
| 90 min or more | 10-12 g/kg per day for 36-48 hours (carb-loading) |
The ISSN position stand on nutrient timing (Kerksick et al., 2017) gives a slightly wider loading range of 8-12 g/kg/day. If 10-12 g/kg is more food than you can manage, 8 g/kg is a defensible floor.
What does that look like in grams?
Two worked examples:
Athlete A: 75 kg, aiming for 1:10. Under 90 minutes, so no full load. In the 24 hours before, 7 g/kg is 75 × 7 = 525 g of carbs, at the low end of the range. A sensible day with rice, pasta, bread, fruit and sports drink gets there without strain.
Athlete B: 80 kg, expecting 1:40. Over 90 minutes, so load for the last two days. At 10 g/kg that is 80 × 10 = 800 g a day, or 3,200 kcal from carbs alone (800 × 4). Many people find that hard to eat; at the ISSN floor of 8 g/kg it is 640 g. Lower fat and fibre for those two days so the carbs fit.
What should I eat earlier in race week?
Eat for the training you are still doing. As your sessions get shorter in the taper, the ACSM daily ranges apply: 5-7 g/kg for about an hour of moderate training a day, 6-10 g/kg for 1-3 hours.
Keep protein where it normally sits. The ISSN position stand on protein and exercise (Jäger et al., 2017) puts trained athletes at 1.4-2.0 g/kg/day. Race week is a carbohydrate question; protein does not need to rise.
What should I eat on race morning?
Eat 1-4 g/kg of carbohydrate 1-4 hours before your heat, with the bigger amounts further out. The ACSM statement advises keeping this meal low in fat, fibre and protein to reduce stomach trouble.
Hyrox heats run through the day, so plan from your start time, not your usual breakfast. For Athlete B starting at 13:00, 2 g/kg at 10:00 is 160 g: for example, a bagel with jam, a bowl of white rice, a banana and a sports drink. If your heat is late afternoon, that is a normal breakfast plus a planned carb-rich lunch three hours out.
Do I need carbs during the race?
It depends on duration again. The ACSM table says:
- 45-75 minutes, hard: small amounts or a carbohydrate mouth rinse.
- 1-2.5 hours: 30-60 g per hour.
A sub-75-minute athlete can get by with a few sips of sports drink. A two-hour athlete may benefit from one or two gels across the race, for example during a run leg. Check your event’s rules on what you can carry, and test it in a simulation session first.
How sure is this?
The ranges are well established; applying them to Hyrox is our mapping, not a Hyrox-specific study. Mixed strength and running work may differ in carbohydrate use from steady endurance exercise, and research on this specific format is limited. Use your expected time to pick a band, then adjust from how your simulations feel.
How Sweatmeal handles Hyrox week
In Sweatmeal you add Hyrox to the race calendar as a mixed race with your expected duration. If that is 90 minutes or more, the two days before lift your carb target to a floor of 8 g/kg of bodyweight; if it is shorter, your target follows your normal training-aware logic. The calendar, targets and wearable sync are free. With Pro, the coach names your race-morning meal around your heat time. The method is on our methodology page.