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If you do Hyrox , and you’re on team Apple Watch, and you’re sick of watching your watch display total nonsense for pace the moment you step inside the hangar — welcome to the club.
I already wrote the Garmin equivalent with the HRM+ chest strap . On Apple Watch, the solution is different — and honestly more expensive. But it works.
The problem: GPS + Hyrox hangar = drama
A Hyrox race takes place in an expo hall, so GPS either doesn’t work or shows completely wrong values.
Result: your displayed pace jumps from 4:30/km to 8:00/km every three strides. Useless for pacing. You end up running by feel, which works until station 5 where you realise you went out too fast. 😅
Native Apple Watch offers no “indoor running with external sensor” mode. It’s all or nothing: either GPS or treadmill mode with the internal accelerometer. And the internal accelerometer, for running around WOD stations, is mediocre.
Stryd: the foot pod that changes everything
Stryd is a small sensor that clips onto your shoe. It measures running power, cadence and pace independently of GPS. It connects via Bluetooth to your watch.
The sensor isn’t cheap — it costs €230 — and after a few months I can say it’s an ultra-effective solution. Pace is accurate to within km/h, even on a zigzag course inside a hangar.
WorkoutDoors: the app that unlocks everything
The problem is that Stryd doesn’t work as an external sensor with Apple’s native app. You buy your Stryd, pair it to Apple Watch… and see nothing. Apple’s native Workout app ignores third-party Bluetooth foot pods. Infuriating, but that’s how it is. You have to use the dedicated Stryd app, which is pretty well made, but doesn’t let you display the details I want.
The solution is called WorkoutDoors . €7 one-time, and you can configure everything: data fields, colours, number sizes, alerts, custom screens. It’s as ugly as a 2015 Garmin app, but nothing beats it on features.
Pair your Stryd in WorkoutDoors (not in the iOS Health app), edit the indoor running screen to show pace, and you’ll have Stryd pace regardless of whether there’s GPS or not.
What does it look like in a race?
You see your real pace coming out of burpees with reliable data. No more guesswork at station 6 where you’re thinking “I feel like I’m running fast but I have no idea.”
Quick aside: WorkoutDoors logs everything to HealthKit, so your session shows up in Activity, Strava, and so on like a normal workout. There is one catch though — the activity will be logged as a run, not as cross-training.
The verdict
Total bill: around €237 (€230 Stryd + €7 WorkoutDoors). Not cheap. But if you do Hyrox seriously and refuse to switch to Garmin , it’s the only combo that gives you a usable pace reading indoors.
For outdoor running, Stryd also adds power output, which is probably the most useful training metric around. So even if you do zero Hyrox, the sensor pays for itself the moment you want to improve.
Apple should really open its Workout app to external sensors one day. In the meantime, WorkoutDoors does the job. ⌚
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