Sleds and wall balls get the attention, but carries and lunges quietly cost people a lot of time. They come late, they hit grip and legs that are already tired, and they punish people who went out too hard early. If you have 20 minutes left on the clock, these are the stations that decide how you spend them.
The kettlebell carry and lunge walk in the Yoddha Race, and the farmers carry and sandbag lunges in HYROX, all reward the same three things: grip, posture and pacing. Strong hands, a stable trunk and durable legs are also what you want for decades of ordinary life, so the training serves race day and long-term health together.
What the stations ask of you
In the Yoddha Race, zone 4 is a kettlebell carry of 200 m with 2 x 24 kg for men and mixed doubles, and 2 x 16 kg for women. Zone 6 is a lunge walk of 100 m with 20 kg (10 kg for women). The full course is on the Yoddha Race website, and we break down the whole race in our Yoddha Race guide.
HYROX, a separate race with its own organiser, has a farmers carry of 200 m with 2 x 24 kg for men and 2 x 16 kg for women in the Open division, and sandbag lunges over 100 m with 20 kg and 10 kg. Details are on the HYROX website. The loads are close to the Yoddha ones, so the same training transfers.
Notice what these stations are not: they are not maximal. Nobody fails a 24 kg kettlebell carry because it is too heavy once. They fail because their grip gives out at 120 m, or their back rounds, or they stop three times and lose a minute. The load is moderate. The problem is duration under fatigue.
Grip is the limiter
Grip is the first thing to go on a carry. It also happens to be a useful health marker: in the PURE study, Leong and colleagues in The Lancet (2015) found grip strength was associated with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Training your hands is not only for racing.
Three grip drills
- Dead hangs. Hang from a bar for time, in sets. Build the total hang time over weeks, not the single longest hold.
- Heavy holds. Hold a pair of dumbbells or kettlebells at your sides for 30 to 45 seconds, put them down, rest, repeat. Go heavier than the race load.
- Thick handles. Wrap a towel around a dumbbell handle for rows or carries. A thicker grip is harder, and it makes the standard handle feel easy.
Do grip work at the end of a session, not before heavy pulling. Two short grip blocks a week is enough for most people. More tends to cost you in deadlifts and rows.
Carry posture
Most carry problems are posture problems that show up as grip problems. A person who leans forward, shrugs up to the ears and lets the weights swing is using their hands to fight their own form.
- Stand tall. Ribs down, chest open, eyes forward. Imagine a string pulling the top of the head up.
- Shoulders down and back. Pull the shoulder blades gently toward your back pockets. This lets the weights hang from your frame instead of your fingers.
- Short quick steps. Long strides make the kettlebells swing. Short steps keep them still.
- Breathe on a pattern. Do not hold your breath. A simple pattern is a breath every two steps. A steady breath keeps your trunk braced without locking up.
Practise with both kettlebells held at your sides. The race version uses two, which means the load is balanced and your trunk does not need to resist a side pull. Practise single-sided carries too, as a separate trunk strength drill. A suitcase carry with one heavy bell makes your obliques work hard and fixes lopsided posture.
Pacing a carry
Stopping is the expensive mistake. Every time you put the weights down you lose time and your hands partly recover, but only to get tired again. The better plan is to decide before the station how you will break it up, if at all.
For a 200 m carry, many athletes do best with one planned short pause if they need it, at a marked point such as the halfway cone, rather than an unplanned drop at 90 m. A planned pause is a few breaths and a regrip. An unplanned one is a negative spiral.
The effort rule: walk briskly, do not jog. A jog bounces the weights and wastes grip. A confident fast walk with good posture is quicker over 200 m than a bouncing run you have to interrupt.
Train it by doing carry intervals: 50 m on, a short rest, 50 m on, until you reach 200 m total. Over several weeks, shorten the rest. When you can do 200 m in two parts with a few seconds rest, try it in one go with lighter load first and then at race weight.
Lunges: the station where legs are already empty
In the Yoddha Race the lunge walk is zone 6, right after the box jumps. Your quads are already loaded. HYROX places its sandbag lunges near the end too. This is why a lunge station that looks easy on paper feels punishing in a race.
Technique
- Take a medium step. Too short and the front knee runs over the toes. Too long and you strain the hip flexor of the back leg.
- Keep the torso upright. A load on the shoulders or in the arms will pull you forward. Keep the chest tall.
- Control the back knee. Touch down lightly or hover just above the floor, depending on the rules of the event. Check the current rulebook for what counts as a valid rep.
- Push through the whole foot. Do not bounce off the toes.
Strength work that carries over
Walking lunges, reverse lunges, split squats and step-ups, loaded progressively, are the foundation. Add tempo work: three seconds down, then up. Slow reps build the control that lets you keep form when you are tired. Then build volume with the race load. A useful session is 4 sets of 25 m with a minute rest, increasing the distance each week until you can do 100 m in two or three pieces and finally in one.
Because lunges strain the knees and hips, build the distance gradually. Add either load or distance in a given week, not both. If a joint hurts and does not settle, get it assessed. Do not push through pain.
Practise them in the right order
Training carries and lunges separately is a good start, but the race places them after other work. Add a combined session once a week:
- Sled push and pull, moderate load.
- Kettlebell carry, 200 m.
- Box jumps, a short set.
- Lunge walk, 100 m.
- A 400 m run to finish.
Keep effort controlled. The aim is to see what fails: grip, posture or legs. Then fix the weakest link in the following week. For the sled stations in that sequence, see our sled training guide, and for the running between stations, our running plan for hybrid races.
What to do in the final weeks
With the race on 5 December, the last month before it is for rehearsal, not for building new strength. Keep carries and lunges in your week, drop the volume slightly in the last ten days, and make sure you practise with the exact race weights. Know your plan for each station before you step on the course: where you might pause, how you will breathe, and what you will do in the first ten metres of each run afterwards.
Our guide to training for the Yoddha Race puts these sessions into a full plan.
Train with us
Grip work, carries and lunges sit inside every race-prep week we coach at Fisique in Kokapet, with loads that go up only while your posture holds. Send a WhatsApp message for plans, or read about the Yoddha Race Training Programme.