Walking lunges can become one of the most costly stations in a HYROX race, especially when fatigue starts to build. In a recent YouTube video, elite HYROX competitor Rich Ryan breaks down five ways athletes can improve their walking lunges, from mobility and strength to endurance, specific fitness and movement speed.
Ryan, a four-time HYROX Elite 15 qualifier with a 53:57 HYROX Pro personal best, says these strategies helped take him from struggling at the lunge station to becoming one of the stronger athletes in the field.
“This is the foundation of becoming better at walking lunges for HYROX.”
1. Improve Movement Quality and Mobility
Ryan starts with mobility because poor movement can limit performance regardless of how much strength or conditioning an athlete has.
He recommends movements such as Peterson step-ups, backwards sled drags, heel-elevated squats, ATG lunges and tibia rotation to improve the positions required during walking lunges.
For Ryan, better preparation also reduced pain and soreness, allowing him to tolerate more lunge volume consistently.
2. Build Specific Strength
Once mobility is in place, Ryan recommends building strength in positions that resemble the demands of the race.
His preferred exercises include back squats, split squats, Bulgarian split squats, front-foot-elevated split squats and barbell reverse lunges. His personal favorite is the tempo rear-foot-elevated split squat.
He typically performs three to five sets of three to five reps using a four-second descent, no pause at the bottom, a fast concentric phase and a pause at the top.
3. Build Muscular Endurance
If your legs burn heavily during the lunge station or you need frequent breaks, muscular endurance may be the limiting factor.
Ryan recommends progressing lunge volume gradually by adding reps or increasing the load while keeping rest periods controlled. He suggests standalone volume lunges once per week and warns against immediately jumping into extremely long sets that can be difficult to recover from.
4. Improve Your Specific Fitness
After improving his strength, mobility and muscular endurance, Ryan discovered another limiter: his aerobic conditioning during the lunges.
He found that performing lunges under fatigue was particularly effective. Compromised running workouts, HYROX-specific sessions and threshold workouts incorporating lunges can help athletes become comfortable performing the movement while their heart rate is already elevated.
“Once this unlocked for me, the lunge became a powerful fitness builder.”
5. Improve Your Lunge Speed
The final piece is learning to move efficiently and quickly.
Ryan explains that much of the speed comes during the descent. Rather than crashing the knee into the ground, athletes should develop control and approach the floor quickly while maintaining a stable position.
Tempo work, single-leg RDLs and rear-foot-elevated split squats can help develop the required control and stability. He also recommends practicing with lighter-than-race weight and breaking target race pace into 20-meter segments.
A Smarter Way to Train Your Lunges
Ryan’s approach is not about simply doing more lunges. Instead, athletes should identify what is actually limiting their performance and train that quality specifically.
His sample week combines strength work, volume lunges and HYROX-specific sessions, with volume gradually increasing over time. The goal is to arrive at race day knowing you can hit your target lunge pace without destroying your ability to run the next section.
For HYROX athletes, faster lunges are ultimately built through better movement, greater strength, higher endurance, specific conditioning and efficient speed.
About the Author
Jeremiah Oliva
Jeremiah Oliva is a writer passionate about fitness, sports, and active living. He has experience in songwriting and managing content and social media for online radio and magazine platforms.
He covers HYROX, CrossFit®, and competitive fitness, with a focus on performance, mindset, and athlete development.
Outside of writing, Jeremiah trains in boxing, cycles, explores the outdoors with his kids, and plays the guitar.
