The Sled ShedHYROX & functional · MerthyrMerthyr Tydfil

The coaches

Two coaches, every class.

Rhys and Kerry run every class, every sim and every race block between them. That is deliberate: the person who sees your first class is the one who writes your pacing card.

A coach crouching beside a woman on a rowing machine, pointing at her foot position
Rhys Hopkins, a coach in his late thirties with short dark hair and a beard, arms folded beside a sled in the gym

Rhys Hopkins

Founder and head coach

Rhys ran a warehouse floor in Merthyr for twelve years and trained in his garage before and after shifts. He did his first race in 2019, finished it on his knees, and spent the next two years working out why. The Sled Shed opened in 2022 in the unit he used to drive past every morning.

He coaches the sleds, the strength sessions and most of the race blocks, holds Level 3 personal training and a strength and conditioning certificate (both fictional placeholders on this demonstration site), and has raced Open and Pro.

Kerry Morgan, a coach in her forties with light brown hair tied back, holding a stopwatch beside a rowing machine

Kerry Morgan

Coach: running, ergs and the sims

Kerry ran fells for twenty years and still holds a few club records on the Beacons that she will not mention unless asked. She joined in 2023 to coach the running between the stations, which is where most people lose their race.

She runs the race simulations, the erg classes and the doubles pairs sessions, and holds Level 3 personal training, a running coach award and first aid at work (fictional placeholders).

  • 1,100 m²of unit, with a 40-metre turf lane
  • 212members training this month
  • 64race finishes coached since 2022
  • 4.9average from 188 reviews

The paperwork

What to ask any gym for, and ours.

Level 3 coaching

Both coaches hold Level 3 personal training; Rhys a strength and conditioning certificate, Kerry a running coach award. (Fictional placeholders on this demonstration site.)

First aid and a defibrillator

First aid at work for both, renewed every three years, and a defibrillator on the wall by the door that the estate knows about.

Insurance

£5 million public liability and professional indemnity, renewed every spring, covering classes, sims, open gym and the run loop.

A health form, read

Everyone fills in a short pre-exercise questionnaire before their first class. If it says see your GP first, we say so and wait.

Your first class is free. Come and push a sled.

Book any class the night before and tell the coach at the door it is your first. You get the lighter option at every station, a coach nearby, and nobody watching the clock but you. Or come to a race sim and see what the whole thing feels like.

Book the free classThe eight stations