Hyrox Burpee Broad Jumps: Technique, Pacing, Training & Tips

The burpee broad jump station has the widest performance spread of any station in HYROX^®. The gap between the fastest and slowest athletes here is larger than at any other workout, which means technique and preparation separate the good from the great more than raw fitness alone. Across 800,000+ race entries in the ROXBASE database, this station is where underprepared athletes hemorrhage minutes and where smart athletes gain ground.

This page covers the rules, technique, pacing, and training you need to own the 80-meter burpee broad jump lane. Every recommendation is grounded in race data from 700,000+ athlete profiles and exercise science principles that hold up under fatigue.

In HYROX^®: 80m Distance & Rules

The burpee broad jump is Station 4 in the HYROX^® race sequence. You'll hit it after the sled pull and before the 1km run into the rowing station. By this point, you've already completed 4km of running, 1,000m on the SkiErg, 50m of sled push, and 50m of sled pull. Your legs are talking. This station will decide whether they scream.

The distance is 80 meters, identical for all divisions: Open, Pro, Doubles (where each partner covers 40m). No weight is involved. Your body is the load. That sounds forgiving until you're 30 reps deep with a heart rate above 170 bpm.

The rules are strict. Each rep begins with a full burpee (chest and thighs touching the ground), followed by a standing broad jump forward. Your feet must leave the ground simultaneously on the jump, and you must land on both feet. No stepping forward. No shuffling. If a judge flags your rep, you repeat it from the same spot, which costs 5-8 seconds per no-rep. For the complete rulebook breakdown, check our HYROX^® burpee broad jump rules guide.

The clock doesn't stop between the burpee and the jump. Transitions matter. Every fraction of a second between chest-down and feet-landing adds up across 40-55 reps.

How Many Reps in 80m?

Most athletes complete the 80-meter distance in 40 to 55 reps. The exact number depends on your jump distance per rep. An athlete averaging 1.8 meters per jump needs roughly 45 reps. An athlete averaging 1.5 meters needs 54 reps. That's 9 extra burpees, which translates to about 45-70 extra seconds on the clock.

Pro-level athletes with strong hip extension and explosive legs can average 2.0+ meters per jump, finishing in around 40 reps. Open-division first-timers often average 1.3-1.5 meters, pushing rep counts above 55.

The math is clear: each extra 10cm of jump distance per rep saves you 3-5 reps over 80 meters. That's 15-40 seconds. Our guide on maximizing BBJ distance per rep breaks down exactly how to add those centimeters.

How Many for Females?

The distance is 80 meters for both men and women in all single divisions. There is no adjustment. Female athletes typically average 1.3-1.7 meters per jump, putting the rep range at 47-62 for most competitors. Taller athletes with longer legs don't gain as much advantage as you'd expect, because the burpee phase is proportionally harder with a longer torso to lower and raise.

Where female athletes tend to gain time is in the burpee-to-jump transition. Lighter bodyweight means less energy cost per rep, which allows for more consistent pacing across all reps. The performance data from ROXBASE shows that female athletes who maintain steady rep timing (rather than starting fast and fading) post the best overall station times.

In Doubles, each partner covers 40 meters. The handoff between partners isn't a relay; the second partner starts from where the first partner stopped. This cuts individual rep counts to roughly 20-30, which changes the pacing strategy entirely: you can push harder on each rep.

Movement Standards

The HYROX^® burpee broad jump has four non-negotiable standards that judges enforce:

1. Chest and thighs to the ground. Full contact. Hovering above the floor is a no-rep. Your body must visibly touch the ground with both your chest and the front of your thighs.
2. Full hip extension at the top. Before you jump, stand fully upright. Hips open, knees straight. Jumping from a crouched position without full extension will get flagged.
3. Two-footed takeoff. Both feet leave the ground at the same time. No staggered starts, no running jumps.
4. Two-footed landing. Both feet hit the ground simultaneously. No stepping out, no stumbling forward with one foot.

The most common no-rep is an incomplete hip extension. Athletes rushing the transition skip the lockout at the top. This is a costly shortcut: the no-rep forces you to repeat the entire movement from the same spot, adding 6-10 seconds. Over a race, two or three no-reps can cost you a full minute.

Technique Breakdown

The burpee broad jump technique is a two-phase movement: the burpee (getting down and up) and the broad jump (traveling forward). Most athletes treat it as one chaotic motion. The fastest athletes treat it as two distinct, rehearsed skills chained together. This mindset shift alone can save 15-30 seconds across 80 meters.

Efficiency, not effort, separates the top 20% from the rest. Our burpee broad jump technique breakdown covers every angle in detail, but here are the core principles.

Burpee Phase: Chest-to-Ground

How do you do a burpee broad jump? Start standing with feet hip-width apart. Drop your hands to the ground and kick (or step) your feet back so your chest and thighs contact the floor. Push up, bring your feet under your hips, and stand to full hip extension. Then jump forward.

The descent is where most energy gets wasted. The fastest approach: hinge at the hips, place your hands on the ground, and lower yourself in a controlled fall rather than a strict push-up negative. You're not doing push-ups for chest development. You're getting to the floor and back up as quickly as possible while meeting the standard.

Three technique keys for the burpee phase:

• Hands narrow, not wide. Place your hands directly under your shoulders, not out to the sides. A narrow hand position shortens the push-up distance and keeps your center of mass over your base.
• Snap your feet forward. After the push-up, drive your knees toward your chest and land your feet flat under your hips. Shuffling your feet forward in small steps costs 1-2 seconds per rep.
• Breathe on the way up. Exhale as you push off the floor. Inhale at the top during the brief standing moment. This pattern prevents the oxygen debt that crushes athletes after rep 25.

If you're new to the movement, our BBJ for beginners guide walks you through building up to full-speed reps progressively.

Broad Jump Phase: Max Distance

The broad jump determines your rep count. Each centimeter matters. A 1.8m average jump covers 80 meters in 45 reps, while a 1.5m average takes 54 reps. Nine extra burpees. Under race fatigue, those nine reps feel like nineteen.

To maximize jump distance per rep:

• Load your hips, not your knees. Before takeoff, push your hips back like a hinge rather than bending your knees deep. This engages your glutes and hamstrings (your biggest power producers) rather than relying on your quads, which are already fatigued from the sled push, sled pull, and running.
• Arm swing is free distance. Drive both arms forward and up as you jump. A powerful arm swing adds 10-15cm to each rep. Over 45 reps, that's 4.5-6.75 meters, which eliminates 3-4 entire reps.
• Jump at a 35-45 degree angle. Too flat and you won't travel far. Too high and you waste energy going up instead of forward. Aim to land with your feet roughly 30cm ahead of where a straight-line horizontal jump would place them.

For a deeper look at building explosive jump distance, see our guide to maximizing BBJ distance per rep.

Landing & Reset

The landing phase is the hidden time sink. Athletes who land stiff-legged or off-balance waste 0.5-1.0 seconds resetting before the next rep. Over 45 reps, that's 22-45 seconds of standing still.

Land softly with knees slightly bent, absorbing the impact through your hips and ankles. Your feet should be hip-width apart or slightly wider for stability. The moment your feet are stable, immediately drop into the next burpee. No pause. No extra step.

The reset is the transition from landing to chest-on-ground. The best athletes make it seamless: land, hinge, hands down, chest down. Two seconds or less. The average athlete takes 3-4 seconds because they stand upright, take a breath, then start the next burpee.

How to Improve Burpee Broad Jumps

The burpee broad jump rewards three capacities: muscular endurance (sustaining reps), explosive power (jumping far), and movement efficiency (minimizing wasted motion). Most athletes only train the first. That's a mistake. Across ROXBASE's database of 700,000+ athletes, the biggest time improvements at this station come from increasing jump distance and cleaning up transitions, not from grinding more reps.

Returning athletes who focus on BBJ-specific preparation improve their station time by an average of 12-18 seconds on their second race. Those who pair technique work with targeted strength training often see 25-40 second improvements. Our complete guide to improving burpee broad jumps covers the full progression.

Training Drills for Speed

Speed at this station means completing each rep faster and covering more distance per rep. Here are three drills that directly transfer to race performance:

1. Timed Rep Sets (4 x 10 reps, 90-second rest)
Set a timer. Perform 10 burpee broad jumps as fast as possible with clean form. Record your time. Rest 90 seconds. Repeat. Your goal: consistent times across all 4 sets. If your fourth set is more than 8 seconds slower than your first, you're going too hard early. This drill teaches pacing under accumulating fatigue.

2. Transition-Only Drill (3 x 20 reps, focus on landing-to-chest speed)
Perform burpee broad jumps at 70% effort but obsess over the landing-to-chest transition. The moment your feet touch the ground, your hands should be moving toward the floor. Time the gap. Target under 1.5 seconds per transition. This drill alone can save 20+ seconds across 80 meters.

3. Distance Markers (5 x 20m, walk-back rest)
Mark 20 meters on the ground. Count your reps to cover it. Rest by walking back. Repeat 5 times. Your goal: reduce your rep count by at least 1 rep per 20m over 4 weeks. That translates to 4 fewer reps across 80 meters, saving 20-35 seconds on race day.

For a full library of drills with video descriptions, see our best exercises to improve BBJ post.

Strength Exercises That Transfer

How do you get better at burpee broad jumps? Build the engine that powers them. Three movement patterns matter most: hip extension (glutes and hamstrings), push-up strength (chest and triceps), and hip flexion (pulling your feet under you quickly).

The exercises with the highest transfer:

Hip thrusts and box jumps are the highest-priority exercises. If you can only add two movements to your program, make it those. They develop the exact power pattern (horizontal force through hip extension) that pushes your jump distance from 1.5m to 1.8m per rep.

Curious about the full muscle breakdown? Our BBJ muscles worked guide covers every muscle group involved and how to train them.

Training Plan

How should you train for burpee broad jumps? Dedicate 2 sessions per week to BBJ-specific work in the 6-8 weeks before your race. One session focuses on power and technique (lower reps, higher quality). The other focuses on endurance and pacing (higher reps, race simulation).

Week 1-4 sample structure:

Week 5-8: Increase BBJ volume to 3 x 30 reps on endurance day. Add a race simulation: 1km run immediately into 40+ BBJ, targeting your goal station time.

Our full burpee broad jump 4-week plan includes progressive overload, deload protocols, and integration with your running schedule. For a workout-by-workout template, see the BBJ workout progression.

Pacing Strategy for 80m

The biggest pacing mistake at the burpee broad jump station is starting too fast. ROXBASE race data shows that athletes who complete their first 10 reps more than 15% faster than their overall average pace almost always fade hard in the final 20 meters. The result: a slower total time than athletes who started steady.

Here's the pacing framework used by athletes posting sub-4:00 station times:

Reps 1-15 (first ~25m): Controlled build. Start at 85% effort. Focus on technique, full hip extension, and consistent jump distance. Your heart rate is already elevated from the sled pull and 1km run. Don't spike it further. Target 4.5-5.0 seconds per rep.

Reps 16-35 (middle ~35m): Settle into rhythm. This is where the race is won or lost. Lock into a sustainable pace. Don't think about how many reps remain. Focus on one rep at a time. Target 5.0-5.5 seconds per rep.

Reps 36+ (final ~20m): Maintain, don't surge. The temptation to sprint the last 10 reps is strong. Resist it unless you're within 5 reps of finishing. A surge here can spike your heart rate to a point where your next 1km run is 20-30 seconds slower. The net gain is zero.

For race-day pacing tactics including when to push and when to hold back, read our BBJ pacing strategy for HYROX^®. And for broader race-day energy management, our BBJ race tips covers how to conserve energy through the station.

Benefits

The burpee broad jump isn't popular. It's arguably the most dreaded exercise in functional fitness. But the training adaptations it builds are among the most transferable to HYROX^® performance and general athletic capacity.

Full-body conditioning in one movement. A single burpee broad jump rep recruits your chest, triceps, shoulders, core, hip flexors, quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves. No other bodyweight exercise hits as many muscle groups in one movement. This makes it one of the most time-efficient exercises for building race-ready fitness.

Cardiovascular capacity under muscular load. Running builds aerobic fitness. Lifting builds strength. The burpee broad jump forces your cardiovascular system to deliver oxygen while your muscles are under significant mechanical demand. This is the exact challenge HYROX^® presents: sustaining output when your heart rate is high and your legs are loaded.

Mental toughness under fatigue. There's no hiding from a burpee broad jump. You're on the ground, you're up, you're jumping, you're on the ground again. It's monotonous and exhausting. Training this movement teaches you to maintain composure and technique when everything in your body says stop. That mental skill transfers to every station after the BBJ in a HYROX^® race.

Explosive power development. The broad jump phase trains your fast-twitch muscle fibers to produce horizontal force. This carries over to running (stronger push-off), sled push (more drive per step), and sled pull (more powerful arm and hip pulls). Athletes who train BBJ regularly often see improvements across multiple stations.

For a deeper look at which muscles benefit most and how to target them, our BBJ muscles worked breakdown has the full analysis.

CrossFit vs HYROX^®

The burpee broad jump exists in both CrossFit and HYROX^®, but the execution context is different enough to change how you train for it.

In CrossFit, burpee broad jumps typically appear in short, high-intensity WODs (Workouts of the Day). The distance or rep count is usually 10-30 reps, and the goal is maximum speed. Recovery is either built into the workout structure or happens after a short time domain (5-15 minutes).

In HYROX^®, the BBJ comes after 40+ minutes of racing. Your legs are pre-fatigued from 4km of running and three prior stations. The distance is 80 meters (40-55 reps), and your performance on the reps matters less than your ability to transition cleanly into the next 1km run. This shifts the training emphasis from pure speed to sustainable power output.

If you're coming from CrossFit, your rep speed is probably strong, but your pacing instincts may work against you. CrossFit rewards going hard from the start. HYROX^® punishes it. Dial back your first 15 reps by 10-15% and invest that energy in jump distance instead of rep speed.

If you're coming to HYROX^® without a CrossFit background, the burpee broad jump will feel foreign. Start with our BBJ for beginners guide to build the movement pattern before layering on volume.

Alternative Exercises

Not every gym has 80 meters of open floor space. Not every training day calls for full burpee broad jumps. And not every body can handle the impact of 50+ reps multiple times per week. Alternatives let you build the same fitness qualities (explosive power, full-body endurance, up-down speed) without the exact movement.

ROXBASE's exercise library contains 216 exercises with prioritized alternatives for every movement. When you can't perform the burpee broad jump, the app substitutes the best alternative that targets the same muscle groups and movement patterns. Free weight alternatives are always prioritized over machines.

The best alternative depends on why you're substituting. If you're training in a small space, the burpee + tuck jump builds the same explosive capacity without forward travel. If you have joint concerns, the squat thrust + step forward reduces impact while preserving the up-down conditioning effect.

For a complete breakdown of when and why to use each alternative, read our burpee broad jump alternatives guide. If you're training at home with limited equipment, our BBJ alternatives for home training covers the best bodyweight options.

FAQ: All Questions