Back from holiday: a 4 week plan to restart your Hyrox season

The calendar decides

Coming back means different things depending on the date you have circled. The 2026/2027 season opens in early September in Tenerife, Athens and Acapulco, then accelerates fast across Europe with Maastricht, Izmir, Rome and Oslo in the second half of the month.

In France, the calendar looks like this:

• Bordeaux, 30 September to 4 October 2026, the first edition in the city
• Nice, 29 October to 1 November 2026
• Paris, 12 to 20 December 2026
• Toulouse, 3 to 7 February 2027
• Paris Grand Palais, 8 to 12 April 2027
• Lyon, 12 to 16 May 2027

If you are reading this in late July and targeting Bordeaux, you have roughly nine weeks. Four to come back, five to prepare. That works, as long as you do not burn the first four.

The principle: rebuild before you perform

Coming back from holiday is not coming back from injury. Your strength is close to intact, and so is your technique. What is missing is blood volume, tolerance to prolonged effort and the habit of chaining running and stations. We explained why in our article on detraining.

The practical consequence: the first two weeks exist to restart the engine, not to measure your level. The baseline rule is to resume at around 60 % of your usual volume and add roughly 10 % per week.

Week 1: wake the engine up

Goal: move often, never hard. Three to four sessions, none above 70 % of your maximum effort.

• 2 easy runs of 30 to 40 minutes, comfortable enough to hold a conversation
• 1 general strength session with moderate loads: squat, row, press, core. Reduced volume, perfect technique
• 1 optional session on the rower or SkiErg, 20 easy minutes to reintroduce your shoulders

If your sensations are bad, that is normal and says nothing about your actual fitness. An abnormally high heart rate on an easy run is the classic week one symptom.

Week 2: bring the stations back

Goal: rebuild the movement patterns without chasing performance. Four sessions.

• 1 long run of 45 to 55 minutes
• 1 station session at controlled intensity: 4 rounds of 500 m running, 20 wall balls, 40 m loaded lunges, 250 m rowing. Technical goal, no stopwatch
• 1 strength session slightly heavier than week one
• 1 short 20 minute circuit to find some rhythm again

This is also the week to reintroduce your hands to the farmers carry and the sled pull. September blisters are an underrated classic.

Week 3: reintroduce intensity

Goal: rebuild the ability to run while fatigued, the most Hyrox specific quality of all. Four to five sessions.

• 1 interval session: 6 to 8 times 1000 m at target race pace, 90 seconds recovery. This format mirrors the structure of the race best
• 1 run and station session: 5 rounds of 1000 m each followed by a different station
• 1 strength session focused on heavy pushing and pulling
• 1 recovery run

This is when sensations usually come back all at once. The temptation to empty the tank is strong, but holding back one more week remains the better call.

Week 4: the first real measurement

Goal: find out where you stand. A partial simulation is enough, there is no need to race a full Hyrox in training.

• Half Hyrox: 4 times 1000 m alternating with 500 m SkiErg, 25 m sled push, 40 m burpee broad jumps, 500 m rowing. Stopwatch on
• 1 lighter strength session
• 2 easy runs, one with short accelerations

The result of that simulation becomes your working baseline for the following weeks. Compare it with your station times from last season: your results are on ROXWALL, station by station.

How long until your race?

• Under 6 weeks: forget performance, aim for enjoyment and the finish line. Build back gradually and stay fresh.
• 8 to 10 weeks (the Bordeaux case if you restart in early August): the 4 weeks of this plan, then 4 to 6 weeks of specific preparation with two Hyrox sessions a week.
• More than 12 weeks (Nice, Paris): you have the luxury of building a real aerobic base in September before touching anything specific.

The four mistakes that ruin a September

• Restarting at your pre holiday volume. Fitness returns faster than tendons readapt.
• Testing your 1000 m in week one. The result will be poor, demoralising and completely uninformative.
• Neglecting running because stations are more fun. Half of your race time is decided over the eight kilometres.
• Registering too late. Slots for French races go quickly, especially for first editions like Bordeaux.

A season you can actually see

A Hyrox season is months of early alarms and hard sessions, for a race number and a patch. At ROXWALL we make hexagonal frames in France, personalised with your name, your time and your colours, so that patch ends up somewhere other than a drawer. Build your frame before the new season buries the old one.