Hyrox burpee broad jump technique: survive station 4 without redlining

The burpee broad jump is station 4 of 8: 80 meters of burpee broad jumps, roughly 25 to 32 reps in the Open division depending on your jump distance. Top finishers clear it in 4:30 to 5:00. First-timers routinely take 8 to 10 minutes and, worse, arrive at station 5 (the row) completely gassed, with four stations still to go. BBJ is the most-feared station in Hyrox for a reason: it is the one most likely to end your race in the middle of the race. This guide is about surviving it intact, not about being a hero on it.

Why BBJ is the redline station

Every other station loads one pattern: the sleds are a push and a drag, the row and SkiErg are pulls, lunges and wall balls are legs. The burpee broad jump loads everything at once. A single rep is a full-body burpee, chest to the floor and back to standing, immediately chained into an explosive horizontal jump. That combination recruits every major muscle group on every rep, and the constant switch between horizontal (burpee) and vertical-then-horizontal (stand and jump) drives your heart rate to 95 percent of max faster than anything else on the course.

Here is the trap: it is mechanically easy to enter zone 5 here and never recover for the rest of the race. The burpee feels survivable for the first ten reps, your heart rate climbing the whole time without you feeling it. By rep 15 you are redlined, by rep 20 you are in oxygen debt you cannot pay back while still moving, and the damage does not show up as a slow BBJ time. It shows up as a catastrophic row, a walked sandbag lunge, and a wall ball station where you stand and stare. Athletes who blow up at station 4 usually post a respectable BBJ split and then lose the race over the next 25 minutes. The cost is deferred, which is exactly why the mistake is so easy to make.

The two standards judges actually enforce

Before any technique talk, be clear on what counts as a rep, because no-reps at BBJ are the most expensive in the race. You pay for them twice: once in the failed effort, once in the repeat, both at 95 percent heart rate.

Chest to floor on the burpee

Your chest must make contact with the floor at the bottom of every burpee. Hovering, half-reps, and "close enough" get called. Under fatigue the instinct is to shave the bottom, dropping to a hover instead of a full touch, and it feels identical to a legal rep from the inside. It is not. Train the full chest touch as your default so your fatigued rep still passes.

Full hip extension at the top of the jump

You must reach full standing height with hips fully extended at the top of each jump. Landing and immediately dropping into the next burpee without standing tall gets no-repped. This is the standard people forget exists, because in training nobody enforces it. On race day a judge watches for exactly this, and the crouch-and-go that feels efficient is a no-rep loop waiting to happen.

Technique cues that hold under fatigue

The movement is simple. Holding it together at rep 25 with your heart rate pinned is not. Four cues:

• Burpee: chest to floor, then explode up. Drop with control, touch the chest, and drive back up aggressively. Do not grind the floor portion slowly, the longer you spend down there the more your heart rate climbs from the position change. Down, touch, up, in one rhythm.
• Jump for distance, not height. This is the single biggest beginner error. Most people jump up when the station rewards jumping out. A high, floaty jump covers a meter and a half and wastes the energy that should have gone forward. Stay low off the floor, drive your hips horizontally, and aim the jump out in front of you. Distance is the whole point.
• Land soft: knees out, hips back. Absorb every landing with bent knees tracking outward and your hips loading back, the same as landing a box jump. Hard, straight-legged heel landings drive the impact into your knees, and by station 6 a hard-landing athlete has knee pain that wrecks the lunges. Land like you mean to do it 30 more times.
• Stand tall before the next rep. Reach full hip extension at the top of each jump, not because it feels efficient, but because the judge requires it and the crouch-and-go is a no-rep.

Distance per rep: longer jumps, fewer reps

The 80 meters is fixed. The number of reps it takes to cover it is not, and that number is set entirely by your jump distance. Aim for 2.5 to 3 meters (8 to 10 feet) per jump. At 3 meters you clear 80m in about 27 reps. At 1.5 meters, the distance a beginner gets from a high vertical jump, you need over 50 reps, which means over 50 burpees instead of 27. You are doubling the hardest movement on the course because your jump goes up instead of out. Every centimeter of horizontal distance is a burpee you do not have to do. Mark 3 meters on the floor in training and learn what a repeatable jump to that line feels like.

Breathing: a two-step pattern, never held

Breath-holding is what kills people at BBJ. Under the stress of a full-body movement at high heart rate, most athletes unconsciously hold their breath through the floor portion of the burpee. It feels stable for the first ten reps, but it is borrowing oxygen you cannot repay while moving, and the debt detonates around rep 15.

The pattern that works is two breaths per cycle: exhale on the burpee descent as your chest goes to the floor, inhale as you stand out of the burpee, exhale again on the jump push. Never hold. It sounds fussy written down, but drilled in training it becomes automatic, and automatic is what you need because at 95 percent heart rate you have no spare attention to manage breathing consciously.

Pacing: this is where the race is decided

BBJ is not a station you win. It is a station you survive in good enough shape to attack the back half of the race, and the athletes who understand that beat the ones who are fitter but undisciplined. Decide your set scheme before the gun and execute it like a metronome, because the version of you at rep 12 has a redlined heart rate and bad judgement.

• Open: pace at roughly 70 percent effort, in sets of 5 to 8 reps broken by 5-second pauses. Drop the set, stand, take two breaths, reset, go again. The pause is not weakness, it is the entire strategy: five seconds standing keeps your heart rate off the ceiling so rep 25 looks like rep 5.
• Pro: sets of 10 to 12 with 3-second pauses. Pro athletes carry the capacity for bigger blocks, but the rule is identical: break before the redline, never at it.
• Doubles: alternate partner-bursts of 4 to 6 reps. The switch is forced rest, so there is never a reason to approach failure. Hand over fresh, recover fully while your partner works, come back and go again. Small, fast, alternating blocks beat hero sets every time.

The discipline is in the first ten reps, where 70 percent feels insultingly easy and the urge to push is strongest. The pace is not for rep 5; it is for the row, the farmers carry, and the wall balls that come after.

The four mistakes that end races at station 4

• Going unbroken. Pushing through all 25 to 30 reps without a pause spikes your heart rate past recovery and you blow up at the row. Fix: pre-plan your sets of 5 to 8 with 5-second pauses and take them whether you feel you need them or not.
• Hard landings. Straight-legged heel slams drive impact into your knees, and by station 6 you have knee pain that wrecks the sandbag lunges. Fix: land soft, knees out, hips back, every rep.
• No-rep loops. Chest not touching the floor, or staying crouched instead of standing tall, gets you sent back by the judge, doubling the rep cost at the worst possible heart rate. Fix: full chest touch and full hip extension from rep 1.
• Vertical jumps instead of broad. Jumping up instead of out can require 50 percent more reps over the same 80m, which means 50 percent more burpees. Fix: stay low, drive the hips horizontally, aim for 2.5 to 3 meters per jump.

Training prescription

Train BBJ twice a week, specifically under fatigue, because the race never asks for a fresh one. A productive baseline is 3 sets of 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, building over the weeks toward unbroken race-distance efforts. The highest-value progression is to do your BBJ block after a 200m run, so your heart rate is already elevated when you start, mirroring the moment in the race when you reach the station off a 1km run. The interval structure here is pure HIIT demand, the same on-off cardiac stress covered in HIIT vs steady-state cardio for fat loss, and building tolerance for it is as much a conditioning project as a technique one.

Race-day setup: start slow, then build

When you arrive at station 4 off the run, do not pick up the pace into your first rep. Take a deep breath, set your position, and start deliberately slow, slower than feels necessary, for the first three reps. Those reps set your heart rate ceiling for the entire station. Start them controlled and you can build to a sustainable pace and hold it; start them fast and you are redlined by rep 8 with no way back down. Slow first three, then build to your planned 70 percent and lock it there. Station 4 is not the place to spend what you will need at station 8.

Frequently asked questions

How many burpee broad jumps are in a Hyrox race?

The station is 80 meters of burpee broad jumps, which works out to roughly 25 to 32 reps in the Open division depending on how far you jump each rep. A 3-meter jump clears it in about 27 reps; a short 1.5-meter jump can require over 50. It is always station 4 of 8, sitting between the sled pull and the row. Top finishers complete it in 4:30 to 5:00.

Why is the burpee broad jump the hardest Hyrox station?

Because it loads every major muscle group on every rep and drives your heart rate to 95 percent of max faster than any other station. A single rep is a full chest-to-floor burpee chained into an explosive horizontal jump, and the constant change between horizontal and vertical positions spikes cardiac demand. It is easy to enter zone 5 here and never recover, which is why the damage usually shows up not in your BBJ split but in a collapsed row and wall ball afterward.

How do I pace burpee broad jumps so I don't blow up?

Break the reps into managed sets and never go unbroken. In Open, run sets of 5 to 8 reps at about 70 percent effort with 5-second pauses between them. In Pro, sets of 10 to 12 with 3-second pauses. In Doubles, alternate partner-bursts of 4 to 6 reps. The pauses keep your heart rate off the ceiling so the back half of your race survives. Start the first three reps deliberately slow, then build to your planned pace and hold it.

Should I jump high or far on the broad jump?

Far, always. The station is 80 fixed meters, so jump distance directly sets how many reps, and therefore how many burpees, you have to do. Aim for 2.5 to 3 meters (8 to 10 feet) per jump by staying low off the floor and driving your hips horizontally rather than vertically. A high, floaty jump wastes energy and can double the number of reps required to cover the distance.

How should I train for the burpee broad jump?

Twice a week, under fatigue. A solid baseline is 3 sets of 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, progressing toward unbroken race-distance efforts. The key is to do your BBJ block after a 200m run so your heart rate is already elevated, the way it is in the race off a 1km run. The race never asks for a fresh burpee broad jump, so training them fresh under-prepares you for the only version that matters.

The burpee broad jump rewards the athlete who treats it as a survival station, not a hero station: legal reps from the first one, jumps that go out and not up, soft landings, a locked two-step breathing pattern, and managed sets at 70 percent that leave you intact for the back half. The sled push technique guide covers station 3, the one you reach BBJ off the back of, and the wall ball technique guide covers station 8, where the legs you saved at BBJ get their final audit. The 8-week beginner Hyrox plan places it all inside a full training week. For a plan that drills BBJ under pre-fatigue and benchmarks your pacing against your run splits, start with the Hyrox Training Planner.